Wasted in Good Shoes

sure that's the story of my life
wasted in good shoes because
for what more have I requested

my current job: to create a task
to practice the replacement of
low-info words with high ones.

i feel i could say more but why
who i ask who wants to know
who's not up their ass aloof with

terror. disguised also as disdain
who's not afraid or disdainful?
even the professionals shame

themselves over the inadequa-
cy of their trade to quell the tide
of bullshit the great leveler

doctors blame their own lazy
arrogance inventors their
craven leveraging monetizing

used to be you could ask who
do i see if i wanna put an enemy
to rest answer was your army

now it isn't even alarming when
every store front a font for mur-
der, your own reflection in the

glass could for a moment make
you wonder is that pale beast a
killer or how disdainful at best



Dr. Donna Thong

Take Your Pants Off, Mr. Green Jeans

That tingling at top of head and breathlessness, nonspecific terror
Dogs me from garbage disposal to mailbox and out to the car
The icebergs dropping off: missed tax year due to obama care
The amount I owe exceeds what I'd saved by having an insurer
And I can't get ahead because I can't afford accountants or a lawyer
And if I want to refinance, I'll need that year's return to get out of here
To pay off the down payment from the government I got to stay 5 years
But then almost anyone would pay to get out of solitary
All my friends and lovers i used to call a non-traditional family back there
Spread back into the winds that always caress the desert
From dry air I come to this fungal great lakes misery
At least there's less sun to contribute to my recurrent skin cancers.

by Donna

worker child

have gravy, tenderloin and flair jeans
vinyl case for cigarette pack with
a loop and snap top for the lighter

four to midnight get a break time
with a magazine or paper; maybe
you wrote a letter to the editor

a room with mechanical machines
a room with towering reel-to-reel
tape drives behind formica, buttons

green and red and yellow blinking
reset beepers with timers, and your
whole arm could hold 13 or so reels

this weight on the arms of a ballet
trainee, 13 on each arm, the wrists
having fit through the holes perfectly

the lead operator had a racket going
slapping reset buttons, barking at
us to reset the beeping buttons so it

would look like we were attending
to the reels much more quickly than
we were or possibly could have done

planning to spend the rest of the
night dancing in a club, sweating,
drinking, dancing, cabbing home.



by Hoolie

Smart-ass child with an enormous beard

Smart-ass child with an enormous beard
you seem to appear as well from behind steam

and in your wisdom
have chosen a medallion

to commemorate a playoff
at your neck

you swore the newer technology
did not come with an adapter plug
but of course it did