In honor of Alan DeNiro’s Read This! status over at the LBC, here’s a Friday poem from his chapbook "Atari Ecologues." (Ooh, and perhaps there will be DeNiro poems every Friday until the Festival of Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead
has concluded.)
j
Reset. I won’t expect endings to end–
as long as the power’s on, I’ll chew pixie
sticks and cellar bubbles, think that
perhaps Lawrence Welk is the eater of worlds.
In the restaurant, a woman from the other
windowside
mouths, Loser, to me. Give me an L-
sign with her game-over hands. Not at 13, I’m 27.
The now,
the current place bookmarked. I heartily
agree, we’re all losers, goners,
husks waiting for money to come back,
to hear the words you were not cheated
by someone in authority, even though we
know we won’t. Death smells like shoe polish,
never one’s favorite star.