Poetry

Dave Jordano

By

Paul Grams

City Life

folks next door and cross the way

since my wife left me on my own

important to me

and cause I so old educated white

mostly I hold my own in the hood

like communists should

so circumscribe us turfsharers

I hear most territorial species

singers or glarers

and when world pack us close like Cheryl

and Leo and all them in with me well

must kinda respect

Drunken Masters

jack kerouac

francois villon

li tseng

and the charles bukowski school

are you one

under the volcano

see I could tell how I vomited

from overdrinking

I count five times

in 1966 and 1967

and then again staggered

in 1977 and 1978

or I could write verse

offbold and halfbeautiful

being sober and worse

Paul Grams

I earned degrees in Linguistics and English Literature; I taught in the Detroit Public Schools, mostly grades 6-9, for 30 years; I ran scholastic chess programs there. I’ve retired to Baltimore with grandchildren. Two books of my poems have been published.