Poetry: Vin Whitman

PRAISE the Social Networks

 

PRAISE

the social networks, where the subconscious

                         (biases)

Vin whitman

of Humanitor sit in haunted little cubes, our

             junior high school bathroom stalls

lit up & mutating like a… …kaleidoscopic virus

 

New and fancy cyber-plexes shouting deco pinks

      beyond the skyline & the vanishing point

                        of the basement

 

I was invited to this network

                           & didn’t have to lug my body along

It was the grandest party I’d ever

                               attended for a decade

I didn’t have to pick at hors d’oeuvres

                    or feel deprived of any wine

           or compliment the treatments of

                                   the host

       (though I often did)

 

I only had to arrive,

      my most sublime smile photographed

      from a hundred stories above & pasted

                     to the playful ledge

***

 

In Which the Kindness of Friends Comforts After a Summer Spent With a Sociopath: July 27, 1995

 

I’m a bruised apple after my shower

Even wet trickles a threat to my core

I scrape on some clothes, flinching

 

At fabric’s cruel advantage

I take myself to the mailbox

The stupid gait of a lobotomized saint

There in the parabola of grey

Lurks a fat package

My male name (I had one even then)

Scribbled on its face

My pals in New Jersey know

I fell down crying behind the cash register

The other day…

So much novelty in that envelope

I laugh, an apple in remission &

The phone rings —

The home phone of old giving no indication

Of who’s calling —

I pick up quick

(Though there’s an 11% chance it’s HER)

RELIEF to hear it’s someone else

The honey-crisp hello from

A friend long ago &

We trade voices till I have to leave

For work — a place I’d never want

To go

If it weren’t for my solar-skinned

Co-workers & their arms flaring

Into afternoon hugs

If only we could close the door

To customers & stand like this

All night

***

FRANK AND KIM

How to confirm

There were minutes enough

Between prayed upon pillows

And potty breaks

For this meeting to take place

How to confirm

He took her hand

Or pressed her pair of fishy lips

To his pescatori ring

How to ever confirm

He gave thanks for

Courage that serves a boss

With no shape to his face, a signature

So airtight

With authority

No tiny law prints can tiptoe over it

How to confirm the rosary was a token

Of affection not a valid proposal?

***

Vin Whitman is a former funeral director, radio host and poet living in Jasper, Indiana, USA with his cat Pixel, his rabbit Portugal, and his human partner Tony. His chapbook ‘True Stories of the Odd Equinox’ is available through Alien Buddha Press. His work has appeared in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Crow Hollow, Peeking Cat, and Yellow Chair Review. He loves using strong images to convey certain times and events that led him to the place of strength he inhabits today.

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Setu, December 2021