Mr pharmacist
Can you help me out today
In your usual lovely way


Marian Bingham, Trips, 2008

Look Back In Languor
-- by Dennis Mahagin

If you never knew me

by now, someone else
will. I talk an awful

game, chew

with mouth full.

All in a name, exalted
premise.

*

Remember Bush? Came
on Teleprompter, looking so
pale and drawn ... I wished

to switch
the CD Rom, my God
holy flicker, make new
reservations

for adventures on Amtrak.

Junior said, They hate

us, they hate us for R

freedoms! In '02
no one knew

his foot size.

*

Me, I was on my
way to ICU, with 50 - 50
odds of passing thru
'03.

*

Junior said

trust me, the surge

is the rage, the furlough
the stage

set for VP Dick
Cheney to shoot his friend
in the face. No one knew
his fellow

man, what they

go thru!

*

And who
among you
hasn't wanted to
erase

quail, identity
the penultimate
fail safe?

My two feet firmly

planted but that
was Today.

Could be
dead before they quit
Amazing Race, -- Belfast
to Bethesda to Hell's
Kitchen, Tikrit, // mister

Junior said let

them eat yellow cake


and I did.


Drugstore
-- by Carl Dennis

Don't be ashamed that your parents
Didn't happen to meet at an art exhibit
Or at a protest against a foreign policy
Based on fear of negotiation,
But in an aisle of a discount drugstore,
Near the antihistamine section,
Seeking relief from the common cold.
You ought to be proud that even there,
Amid coughs and sneezes,
They were able to peer beneath
The veil of pointless happenstance.
Here is someone, each thought,
Able to laugh at the indignities
That flesh is heir to. Here
Is a person one might care about.
Not love at first sight, but the will
To be ready to endorse the feeling
Should it arise. Had they waited
For settings more promising,
You wouldn't be here,
Wishing things were different.
Why not delight at how young they were
When they made the most of their chances,
How young still, a little later,
When they bought a double plot
At the cemetery. Look at you,
Twice as old now as they were
When they made arrangements,
And still you're thinking of moving on,
Of finding a town with a climate
Friendlier to your many talents.
Don't be ashamed of the homely thought
That whatever you might do elsewhere,
In the time remaining, you might do here
If you can resolve, at last, to pay attention.