City

City of exits

City of blind hits

City of pulled punches

City of white glyphs

City of whispers

City of shadow theater

City of lost miracles

City of immaculate tricks

City of graffiti runes

City of snow tracks

City labyrinthine

City of smokestacks

City of spilled blood

City of badges

City of stealth

City of bagmen

City of crows

City of green bridges

City of twilight

City of liquor

City of cop cars

City of fires

City of dope drops

City of wires

City of shipyards

City of ghosts

City of riddles

City of burned notes

Wheels and Walls

“There are some things that work. Well, you know what? A wheel works and a wall works

--- Donald J. Trump, January 2019

wheels and walls

walls and wheels

medieval technology’s

the best

wall in the white

house to protect

us from him

tattoo a burning

wheel of fire

on his ass

moats and drawbridges

swords and armor

reclaim the kingdom

of our brains

from the blank cloud

tweets he issues

like a nervous

and sclerotic bird

perched on the edge

of a collapsing damn

while he tries to rig

the wheel of fortune

to land

always for him

the wall of a desert

death march

is not enough

an unsacred monolith

must rise from the sand

all the words

All the words

We encountered

In books

But never learned

Gather in the eaves

Of the room

Sloshing about

Above our heads

all the great ideas

all the great ideas

we had but

never wrote down

hover now

in the air vents

cartwheeling

shining

silverbacked

and blue lit

waiting for us

to find

and reclaim them

changed now

with time

into our

great ideas but

with new degrees

of distance

between their edges

and their glowing centers.

At the Mechanic's

Behind the caramel corn tub

The doggie treats

The Christmas cookies

Behind the monitor

She asks are you looking

Forward to a break

The young woman in jeans

And a sweater

With blue hair 

Responds no but

That's okay 

I like my job

We're tracking a meteorite

That's due to cross

Into photographic range

And it's exciting

Because it's made

Out of material

As old as the earliest

Solar systems

Fishtank silence

Okay and you're due

For an oil change

In three months time

• 
  

• 
  

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,

or

Dan Hanrahan

danletras@yahoo.com

(773) 430-7306

The Harder the Job, The Lower the Pay.

The hardest job I ever had was washing dishes for minimum wage. It was the one job among the twenty or so I've had in my life that I literally could not do physically or mentally and had to quit. The dirty plates and glasses would avalanche in at such a pace at the popular vegetarian restaurant, that I couldn't load the machine quickly enough and everything started to pile up haphazardly, like assembly line widgets in a Buster Keaton film. Arriving in an atmosphere of easy grace, would be the real dishwasher – a portly guy with a wry smile, sporting a tie and a clear plastic apron. Through a series of gestures I still do not understand, he would approach the conveyor belt-style dishwasher, the teetering mound of dishes and proceed to resolve the back–up within in a matter of minutes – expending about the same amount of effort it might take for him to brew a pot of tea or water the plants.