Roaming Danverts

c. 1996

This book was me being an asshole, really.  I wrote it during my second semester at Shimer College, while taking a poetry class that made me question my own sanity.  I remember something about the word "insipid" and something about interpretive dance at the ATM, and that pretty much sums up this chapbook!   I released two of the poems as separate, tiny chapbooks (hand-illustrated and handwritten): "Last Week in the City I Never Went To" and "Develri".   This was probably a failed experiment, but it meant something to me at the time.

Here's a gem among the rubble:


Nothing Stops the Presses
(Newsprint Bouquets)

("it was New York and beautifully snowing...")
lost in my springtime, the fields of long-stemmed roses
and cold, crumbling cement blocks
running after me through alleyways
with switchblades and .45's.
there are no taxis in my part of the woods.
a smog of businessmen and bums,
riding the monotony subway, 9-5,
such dirty grey flurries in my
april sunshine.

(for S.I.N.)