<div class="line">The long line leaning toward the doorman’s crossed</div>
<div class="line">and tattooed arms, the stamp of stymied heels,</div>
<div class="line">the sighed frustration of the vape-exhaust,</div>
<div class="line">the outright bribes and liner-eyed appeals</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">are beautiful because they mean belief</div>
<div class="line">the thudding dazzle in that box is worth</div>
<div class="line">steep anxious ache, belief that even brief</div>
<div class="line">bottomless freedom can be found on earth.</div>


Year Six

How to Become a Professional Folk Singer

Club Escape

<div class="line">In a torn hoodie, out of spite,</div>
<div class="line">a beggar is alive tonight</div>
<div class="line">beneath great failure and a gruff</div>
<div class="line">snowstorm. He can’t get small enough.</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">Look how that innocence of his</div>
<div class="line">diminishes, diminishes</div>
<div class="line">as no hand ever offers up</div>
<div class="line">even a quarter for his cup.</div>
<div class="line">It’s hard to grin and keep the faith</div>
<div class="line">when threads from Goodwill on West 8th</div>
<div class="line">can’t keep the bitter from the bone.</div>
<div class="line">None of us should be that alone.</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">I know his story: from the prairie.</div>
<div class="line">He lives on eleemosynary</div>
<div class="line">pittances but won’t go back,</div>
<div class="line">since, out of spite, in spite of hack,</div>
<div class="line">spit, shivers and a telltale fever,</div>
<div class="line">he is the truest true believer</div>
<div class="line">that ever took a Greyhound bus</div>
<div class="line">to Penn Station to be with us.</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">I, who have starved, like him, in hope,</div>
<div class="line">have nothing much to help him cope</div>
<div class="line">with hunger, unsuccess, hard times:</div>
<div class="line">just poetry and a couple dimes.</div>


On the Problems of Empathy

My Uncle Asked

Unromantic

<p class="epil"><em>72nd St. &amp; Central Park West</em></p>
<div class="line">After you leave the banks where moist sod yields</div>
<div class="line">beneath your feet, you labor up a steep hill</div>
<div class="line">and reach a garden called “Strawberry Fields.”</div>
<div class="line">Our poem hoped never to reach this scene,</div>
<div class="line">but here we are, and we will see this through.</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">Look at the flowers, every bloom, bud, sepal;</div>
<div class="line">look at the trees, dogwoods and river birches</div>
<div class="line">from all around the world. Here’s what they mean:</div>
<div class="line">America is good at shooting people.</div>
<div class="line">Yes, we are violent, we are sick—it’s true.</div>
<div class="line">Not just the wars, I mean the annual quota</div>
<div class="line">of massacres at schools, shows, stores and churches.</div>
<div class="line">Here’s an example of what our worst can do:</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">In 1980, on December 8th,</div>
<div class="line">a person of perverse religious faith</div>
<div class="line">followed John Lennon back to The Dakota</div>
<div class="line">and pumped him full of hollow points because</div>
<div class="line">the former Beatle had proclaimed his band</div>
<div class="line">“more popular than Jesus” (and it was).</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">So now, across the street, we have a stand</div>
<div class="line">of elm trees, we have flame azaleas,</div>
<div class="line">and geriatric strummers sit and croon</div>
<div class="line">songs like “Imagine” in the afternoon.</div>
<div class="line">To shrive a crime the world will never pardon</div>
<div class="line">America gives prayers and a Peace Garden.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/PoochigianFields.mp3"></audio></figure>

Visiting My Mother’s Wars

Poets Respond

The Fire

Strawberry Fields

<div class="line">I.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Up a collapsing asphalt road</div>
<div class="line">there is a quaint coal-mining town</div>
<div class="line">that lost its priest and postal code</div>
<div class="line">because brimstone will not stop burning</div>
<div class="line">from casket-deep to two miles down.</div>
<div class="line">When no amount of higher learning</div>
<div class="line">could suffocate the fires of Hell,</div>
<div class="line">the Feds bought all the locals out</div>
<div class="line">but me. Me. Someone needs to tell</div>
<div class="line">the tale of still evolving wrong.</div>
<div class="line">Call me Gasp the Landlocked Trout,</div>
<div class="line">and ragged is my song.</div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">II.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">A coughed updraft</div>
<div class="line">through crack and shaft,</div>
<div class="line">Cretaceous</div>
<div class="line">exhalations stain</div>
<div class="line">a vanished Doughnut Shop,</div>
<div class="line">a lost Laundromat, absent St. Ignatius.</div>
<div class="line">A purple sign on Main</div>
<div class="line">says <i>Stop</i></div>
<div class="line">to vapor. There are no police</div>
<div class="line">cruising what had been neighborhoods,</div>
<div class="line">and there is no disturbance of the peace.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Sometimes, out for a Sunday drive,</div>
<div class="line">I’ve seen odd fauna in the sooty woods:</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">a stiff</div>
<div class="line">stag jutting from a sinkhole, smoke</div>
<div class="line">issuing from his nose and eyes, as if</div>
<div class="line">he had been burnt alive.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">And once—no joke,</div>
<div class="line">and I’m no drugged-out tourist—</div>
<div class="line">what were</div>
<div class="line">the noxious dead, I guess,</div>
<div class="line">in indignation swirled</div>
<div class="line">out of the cracked earth screeching “Leave!”</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">(And the indignant forest</div>
<div class="line">echoed, “Leave!”)</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Come close, now, world,</div>
<div class="line">and heed a burr</div>
<div class="line">that is a mess</div>
<div class="line">of phlegm:</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">may no reprieve,</div>
<div class="line">no trick of time, redeem</div>
<div class="line">the reckless them</div>
<div class="line">who zoned a dump</div>
<div class="line">atop an old coal seam.</div>
<div class="line">And him, the chump</div>
<div class="line">who, by igniting trash,</div>
<div class="line">birthed an inferno, hollowed out the land</div>
<div class="line">and turned our breath to ash—</div>
<div class="line">I curse his hand!</div>


Ashtray

Morir Soñando

Centralia, PA

<div class="line">10, 9, 8, 7, 6 …</div>
<div class="line">so many things are tough to fix—</div>
<div class="line">love-lives and people, politics.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">Me? On the threshold of the year to come</div>
<div class="line">I hope to lose at last</div>
<div class="line">the sad reluctance of my past,</div>
<div class="line">like a grasshopper shedding his exuvium.</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …</div>
<div class="line">now, with the old year nearly done,</div>
<div class="line">my molting labor has begun:</div>
<div> </div>
<div class="line">I swear harder than I have ever sworn</div>
<div class="line">that I will live all-out</div>
<div class="line">and all-in and to Hell with doubt.</div>
<div class="line">You hear me, everyone? I am a man reborn.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/PoochigianCountdown.mp3"></audio></figure>

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January 1, 2019The CountdownAaron Poochigian

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