backstage failure
so hung over
on blinding sunny day
messy suite of boutique hotel
prada shades, rolex, silver cross earrings
head foggy pounding
like a flux capacitor
in those lonely painful hours
just stepped out of a guy richie movie
moment gripped by the balls
gang piles into suv
took two uppers
makes it hurt more
being a complete unknown
back entrance cowboy
trying to kick into gear
need a punch in the face
not a good one-night last stand
people don’t give a shit
like in a sixth grade martian musical
have to inhale the atmosphere
not let it flush to waste
souring one in turn
like a dickhead
in sub minimum wage job
barback, washing glasses
cleaning up vomit
heckled by life’s audience
you’re driven mental
drinking strawberry infused water coolers
supping on mystic mad granola bars
makes heartbreak, pain somehow worth it
not to over think panic
power lies in imperfection
just kiss loads of people
become broken all over again
good to be you
should be enough
boomer logic
called out on twitter
furious millennial lecture
i had gotten mine
wanted what was his
this everyone get a trophy generation
reminded me getting beat
by red squad in sixty-eight
in grant park
marching for civil rights
in st. louis
being drafted in sixty-nine
scared out my mind
in tay ninh city
being broke in tucson
with two kids in diapers
taking collection calls
leaving heavily mortgaged house
with three bucks to eat on
for four days
of being shot at twice
on the job in chicago
wrestling a 357
from angry student’s hands
surviving molotav cocktail
thrown through office window
school children being shot
by sniper with high powered air rifle
riding in ambulance escorting
children hit by drunk
while playing at recess
listening to the pleas
of a distraught mother
child having been kidnapped
taken to california
by a known molester
yeah i got mine
hope you get yours
endeavor
wind settles itself
mist forms like stained glass
on the thermo pane surface
frost soon to etch
zig zags like
firing white synapses
blurring tufted heads
at feeders and suet
old squirrel’s last winter
cold brings on rendition
alarming, or unnoticed
like mile markers and cemetery stones
slowly slipping from memory
once held so sacred
as never abandoned
but toil and journeying
create so many whispers
covered by blanketing snow and rain
over berry brown leaves
stiff maudlin grey limbs, twigs
in cold hungry earthy grip
of what will have been
everyone’s reality
spider woman
wind picked up
rain turned
into popcorn snow
beginning of the season
when thunder goes away
wind speaks
in many voices
strikes like death
robbing the living of value
creating living ghosts
like names in the graveyard, unspoken
so as not bother the dead
no word for religion here
only by listening
does one learn
silence brings knowledge
startles with its simplicity
like using hotdogs for bait
squirrels cutting on walnuts
high in an oak
no witchcraft here
just greeting the day
with a silent chant
a pinch of corn pollen
Dan Jacoby is a graduate of St. Louis University, Chicago State University, and Governors State University. He lives both in Beecher and Hagaman, Illinois. He has published poetry in Anchor and Plume(Kindred), Arkansas Review, Belle Rev Review, Bombay Gin, Burningword Literary Journal, Canary, Cowboy Poetry Press-Unbridled 2015, Chicago Literati, Indiana Voice Journal, Deep South Magazine, Lines and Stars, Wilderness House Literary Review, Steel Toe Review, The Opiate, and Red Fez to name a few. He is a former principal, teacher, coach, and former counterintelligence agent. He is a member of the American Academy of Poets and the Carlinville Writers Guild . Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2015. He is currently looking for a publisher for a collection of poetry.
