If there is a bridge
or a tunnel –
especially if decisions
are made on the other side –
everything in the last few blocks
before it,
imperceptibly but unresistingly,
flows. The bar. The charmless motel.
The stern but flaking bank, long unremodeled.
The vacant (these are now, significantly,
called “empty”) lots.
Traffic compressed like blood by plaque.
What can I do with, to, or for
these subjects? A street fair
would be nice. But not everyone likes
the vividness of sizzling
foreign meat permeating
their clothes.
And musicians would cost, even jugglers.
So then, less likely but let’s go with it –
a theater festival. Interactive, edgy.
Local talent.
A woman, bruised and puffy,
steps out of the liquor store,
poses, declaims, “The wish to touch and be touched
remains though inexpressible.
People themselves
are often discordant metaphors for their systems.”
About the Author
Author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure (Story Line Press, 1986; reissued April 2022 by Red Hen Press) and Happiness (Story Line Press, 1998), and four collections, A Poverty of Words (Prolific Press, 2015), Landscape with Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), The Beautiful Losses (Better Than Starbucks Books, 2023), and The Liberator (Survision Books, Ireland, 2024).
In print, Pollack’s work has appeared in Hudson Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Manhattan Review, Skidrow Penthouse, Main Street Rag, Miramar, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Poetry Quarterly Review, Magma (UK), Neon (UK), Orbis (UK), Armarolla, December, and elsewhere.
Online, his poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Diagram, BlazeVox, Mudlark, Occupoetry, Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, Big Pond Rumours (Canada), Misfit, OffCourse and elsewhere.
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