FOUR FEATHERS PRESS ONLINE EDITION: STILL NIGHT Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Still Night are now published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, October 26th between 3 and 5 pm PST.

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Michael McLaughlin

Fitting Sewage Pipes in Phoenix


People doing the work are like thieves intent on stealing

other people’s valuables 

When they are walking, they are walking intent on stealing,

and when they are sitting they are sitting intent on stealing

Journal entries fast as roadrunners, 

Pass

as poem ships In the night


All I want is five grand for 

my chapbook.


Four months 

fitting sewage pipes

in Phoenix.  Working graveyard to avoid

the heat.


Sleeping nine to five.


If the mentality that seeks honor 

and advantage does not cease, 

you will be ill at ease all your life


Four months 

fitting sewage pipes

in Phoenix


Sleeping 

nine to five


Journal entries 

Fast as roadrunners, 

Pass

as poem ships  


In the night



Thanks to Ming-pen, Dogen and the concept of found poem.






Stretching South



We were sixteen and after dark anywhere

Rolled in mud patches of star nights I don’t

Remember talking about. Fridays often. Mostly Saturdays

Orange Julius when you got off was where I picked you up

Just to see your mouth was making love midnight planes

bumbling into SFX near Canada College, the roundabout

where we’d make out and watch. The deer, cricket

seesaw scintillation. Sparkling lights along the bay

Stretching south. All news all the time KCBS 7:40

Why the “f” would you ever wear a watch?

I grew to know every part of your body.

From every angle such only probably happens once.

Remember the ledge outside Ms Pink’s

office Woodside High school corridors

Their wax paper windows all pulled up?

We both had a free seventh. Heaven.

Could we kiss a hundred times

before the bell went off?


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