Potential Conflagration

At the base of the ridge that undulated
like a snake, the party was happening—

twenty guys and a keg of beer near where
the land ran down to the unseen creek,

an undercurrent not unlike the threat
running through the imbibers attempting

to revel though split between two packs,
a blaze bound to ignite if spark struck and lit

since either was little known to the other
—and no welcome relief of women in sight—

so dry tinder on a hot summer evening
that was sinking almost silently into a night

that suggested a fire storm flaming up,
whose coming flames, a few attendees,

climbing back up to the level road and out,
were happy to leave in the simmer down there.

Pension

A rolling stone gathers no moss goes the saw
so a sitting tire on its aging air certainly will grow

green as I have seen, as if a black stone standing
on end under the rusting frame of a van that the seventies

of the previous century spawned, now showing its age
and inability to attract anymore some happenin’ chicks

so sitting out of memory in some obscure, untended alley
under scrawny sumac shade on a crammed, cindery

lot whose privacy is usually sealed, assured except
for the curious eye in rare chance passing that notes

the emerald sheen which has colonized the rubber long
since still, a companion in retirement, quiet, even

content to dream with the surely drained battery
and the spent hulk of bitchin’ rides and making the scene.

Facial Recognition

All of that generation in the area
know the history of his disfigured

face so much that the familiarity
erases the scars and reconstructed

flesh and replaces them with the features
previous to the shotgun’s blast

with its little brutes of buckshot
pocking the teen visage with leaded

holes far deeper than acne with its red
of inflammation and greasy pressure

pain, paling to the permanent marking
of close-range spray that invited

an extended convalescence and hospital
stay, finished long ago and healed, pain

evaporated so far back, old news so no
news, just the way of things for those

in time with the true tale, numbed these
days into forgotten and who cares.

Caution Close

“Dougherty, don’t worry about Domanski—
you’ve got him beat by forty pounds”

but the former insisted on expressing his fear
and twisting his neck at all those sounds

that signaled only a leaf dropping to the walk,
but danger is a crop that best abounds

when one is unaware of common clues
so goes about oblivious to every care

but Dougherty was keen to every threat
and not—so avoided black eyes with that stare

pinned upon the appearance of that perceived beast
who never arrived—unlike his constant despair.

John Zedolik an adjunct English professor at Chatham University and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and has published poems in many journals– including previously at this site, here.