Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Monday, February 09, 2009

GRILLE NEEDS GOV'T BUYOUT

by Earl J. Wilcox


At Larry’s Grille,
home of hot dogs and hamburgers,
business has taken a dive.
Breakfast crowd’s dwindled
to a few seniors, couple of truckers.
Lunchtime is no better. The dog
crowd can’t afford fries or chips.
Water’s the drink du jour.

Like bankers and brokers, Larry
needs a bailout, an infusion
of customers with money
just to tide him over, you understand,
until Pearl from the beauty parlor,
Ralph from the reality firm,
Sam from the shuttered shoe shop
are on their feet again.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.
_______________________________