Poetry
Spotlight on…
Special Poetry Feature…
Selections from “The Shadow Man Poems”* (inspired by the art and life of NYC street artist Richard Hambleton)
by David Estringel
“See how they duck / see how they / cover / to the coolsexy superfly acid jazz groove— / out of sight, man / out of mind / out of time— / b’yond eyelines of the madding hungry hunter pride”
*The full “Shadow Man Poems” collection is currently available for view at The Daily Drunk.

Three Poems
by David Harrison Horton
“There are workers up and down / the block again. / Construction never ceases / in this city.”

Commute to a birthday party
by Ani Bachan
“Three crows gather dead center on the road / Scatter for cars, then return in some strange ritual…”

Three Poems
by K. Fern Lauth
“I scan the wavelengths / stop on channel you…”

Six Poems
by Kenneth Pobo
“Earth / seeing up / through branches / using eyes / of violets.”

Five Poems
by Daniel Edward Moore
“Earth is the biggest Queen / I know, all stubble & lipstick, / ripped nylons / and sorrow.”

The Cafe, Sunday, 11 AM
by Valentina Reetz
“Everything is a sign: / a word from a stranger / a space anomaly / repeating numbers in the train schedule / patterns in the carpet..”

Four Poems
by Marc Meierkort
“Ferris wheel / junkies arrive in droves. Love / musters up the courage to say / what people are afraid to say.”

consider reducing the journey at large— regarding each step and calling out the self
by R L powell
“If the brain can budge a pen / without an ounce of lead—the smallest / shave is made too sharpen its means…”

po(L)em(IC): A Manifesto
by Patrick Johnston
“I’m a poet / I get paid by the thought / Most of my thoughts / Are worthless”

Three Poems
by Bryana Fern
“It wasn’t like the soft beginning / of a film where the lights fade / away and you’re safe in that moment / from everything outside waiting for you.”

Curved Edges
Poetry by Kristy Snedden
“On this trip / we ate at restaurants / with the best meatballs / in the city / and me a vegetarian.”

Five Poems
by Naa Asheley Afua Adowaa Ashitey
“I refuse for Black women to be the reason another qualifier has to be added behind ‘feminism.’”

Three Poems
by Pulkita Anand
“ID, Ego, and superego, it’s enough, Mr Freud.”

Four Poems
by Eric Robert Nolan
“Presented with bread / one plumping, sullen robin / indicates disdain.”

Two Poems
by Naomi Borwein
“As metal ruts stapled back, and / folded in toward the grooves of / her [glowing] ribs.”

Six Poems
by Jack Mackey
“Casual but carefully done up in her A-line / and her clip-on earrings––thin mother-of-pearl / discs outlined in rhinestones––she reaches across / the painted steel dashboard & adjusts the plastic / Madonna with quiet superstition.

The Laundry in Kilmanaugh
by Christopher Dungey
“…tautly unfurls on clotheslines / rigged by wives of migrant workers— / blue denim shirts their men wear / while chopping weeds out of sugar beet / rows…”

Flip the Hourglass and Quicksand Sinks
by Mercury Sunderland
“flip the hourglass & quicksand sinks / down a deep chasm & escape / barred by a deep glass.”

Two Poems
by Frederick Pollack
“The alchemist is about to pour / a tincture of sulfur / and sprinkle shavings of antimony.”

RUGGED INVISIBLISTS
by Gerard Sarnat
“ali, ali, oxen free, / logged into DARPA*’s Darknet, / my brain is a mess of chattering neurons.”

Featured Poetry…
“to: Black women who have never known a life free from the burden of defending your skin and having to reclaim your femininity”
by Naa Asheley Afua Adowaa Ashitey
“I refuse for Black women to be the reason another qualifier has to be added behind ‘feminism.”