POETRYRobberby Kenneth Pobo
Jerry hunts down
Chicago-area tunes from 50 years ago,
wants every single released
on the Destination label.
Jeff loves records too,
but he buys glass—
Depression-era glass,
Rob and Laura Petrie’s living room glass,
cranberry glass. The house
is breakable. They know
they must cut back. Jerry misses
clean surfaces. Jeff dreams
of a bulldozer shoving it all
out the door. Collecting,
a fever lasting for decades,
a cold that never lets go. Sometimes
they’re afraid to have people over.
Stuff,
even fun stuff, is like a robber
who takes your space—
you never get it back.
He breaks in.
You pour him a beer.
Kenneth Pobo has a new book forthcoming from Blue Light Press called Bend Of Quiet. His work can be read at: Eclectica, Floating Bridge, Mudfish, Broadkill Review, San Pedro River Review, and elsewhere.
male-pattern badness did you see me me take a picture of me walk on the beach to take
picture walking on the beach could reach 100 likes like male-pattern badness bring me the password
her church was music
and her gods dead rock stars
who she joined on an eternal tour
around the furthest reaches
of space and time,
I lied to my fourth therapist,
telling her all of my bogus
achievements while she jotted
them down on a pad in her lap,
hoping that she couldn't smell
the Schnapps on my breath
4x4ever everything I expected 2.5 bedroom gun rack smokestack tread for dread of poor handling known known unknowable star-spangled suspension of disbelief
I have gone astray,
thinking,
rambling
in an esoteric phrase,
lying to the government
about a loaded gun
between my legs.
The gift of childhood is imagination. In Sarah Frances Moran's poem, "Still Alive and Well" love and forgiveness are found in a friendship that withstand the challenges of life.
"Inside my body rests this adventurer.
I know it was birthed by you. The way fresh air
fills your lungs and how a campfire and a cold beer
can be like heaven.
Riding bikes down bayou banks
and tiptoe walking across railroad bridges.
We are wanderers. Romantic gypsies just a little
misunderstood."