Dialogue

“I have class in an hour, and I haven’t done the work that I needed to do. I need to type”

“What?”

“I haven’t looked at it.”

“Come on, John, you can get your game in.”

My roommate kept goading me to play on the Playstation. People from Jersey have no respect for school.

“Skip the class, it’s just English. I know you’re not failing that class. I always see you doing the reading, or writing something when you’re all drunk.”

“That’s your fault, Glenn, you made me the alcoholic I am today.”

“Hey, don’t go blamin’ me for that. I never MADE you drink.”

“True, true, but you made it accessible. It’s too easy anymore. But I do have to get my work done”

“What do you have to do?”

“I don’t know, let me look,” I said as I shuffled through my disorganized papers. “It says to write about a conversation between two people who come from different backgrounds.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Age, nationality, gender, region of the country, you know, things of that sort.”

“Fuck that man, you’re up on the game.”

“No, I gotta do this. I already missed class once, and hell, I did the reading. I didn’t torture myself with Hemingway on my own accord.”

“What you going ta write about?”

“I don’t know man, but I’ll figure something out, I always do. How different would you say that Chicago and Jersey are?”

“Different enough, I’d say”

“Well, here’s hoping.”

I Fear

I Fear

Porcelain creature as I
Walk into that bright room
Survey the mantle piece,
Delicate figure sitting before me.
Tremble as I pick up the fragile
In my coarse hands and breaking
The skin of egg shells,
crushed and falling
To the floor, piece by piece.

I fear

Walking across the Ice.
The new fallen snow masks
Boot treads. Others have ventured
This way before, but will the
Ice hold? I carry more weight
Across my shoulders than those
Early messengers. And I chase the sun
To an unknown destination
As this long day becomes night




I Fear

The words coming from my pen
Will not be enough to convince
The reader of my meaning, nor
My noble intent. They are not
Right, nor true. I mean to tell
Of my trepidation to love, by these
Metaphors. By opening our hearts
We allow a pathway to pain. But
Also pleasure and pain. Pandora’s box
Has been opened

But this Fear is tiring,
And now I lay down my pen
I’m too weary to write
Poems in verse for my
Beloved

I am a beast of burden.

I am a beast of burden.

Upon my back silver
chalices are filled, brimming
with ambrosia or nectar.

The man that owns me
wears suits costing more
than my salary.


The transmission is
assembled thousands
of times.

But I only turn three
screws and I have no idea
what this automobile

looks like after
we both leave
the factory.

I walk the blocks
home, massaging
my wrist, waiting

only to fall down
into the chair and
die for the day.

But my wife looks
at me, and with her
eyes, those down-

turned corners, she
still looks sad when
a forced smile

glances across her
face and hopefully
asks me of my day.

What is there left
to say?