Breath & Shadow

POETRY

By Bob Boston

There are way too many people writing poetry, and not nearly enough people reading it. It seems to me poets write for the credits. They collect them like rare stamps. Each aiming, I suppose, to be the next Charles Bukowski or Langston Hughes, or Mary Jo Bang  .  .  .  or the next Lyn Lyfshin. They all want to be nominated, it seems, for that damn Push–Cart.

I already have one of those. It's the metal basket I wheel down the avenue with my bottles in. I write my poems on discarded newspapers. On yesterday's papers, I write

my own news today. I steal pens from the staff at the shelter I live at when they're not looking. During the day,

when I'm not at the shelter, or meeting with the doctor, I'm at the library. There's an awfully dainty woman

who works there. In her spare time, she manages to email poems of mine to editors, here and there.

Sometimes, I get lucky. I drop by the library once a day to see what's doing. Once I leave there, me

and my cart sometimes make our way to the city green where I sit on a park bench and write poems for the minds of

scholars. I've been published here and there, but I've never won nor been nominated for a Push–Cart. I'm not even sure

what a Push–Cart for poems is. Is it anything like mine? Why wouldn't they just give us poets

what we need more of? Some paper? A few pens? Envelopes? Stamps! Instead, they aim to give us, a cart.

I suspect the amount of people who bring their empty bottles back to the grocery store, is just about the same

as the amount of people  .  .  .  who actually read poetry. But I don't have any life insurance. I'm thinking

if the Pushcart Prize is an actual cart, depending on its size, it might just make one hell  .  .  .  of a nice box.

Bob Boston is a poet residing on the East Coast. He has been writing for several years. Bob has recently had poetry accepted for publication by The Verse Marauder, morsel(s), and Sinister Tales. Bob has his Ph.D, but he feels no need to wave it around like a trophy. Mr. Boston believes the best poetry comes from within the soul. He feels language merely helps the words come more concisely.