(with a nod to Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California")
What fears I fear this fine afternoon, Allen,
old friend, as I walk through the parking lot
of Crossgates Mall on Thanksgiving Sunday
In Border's, the Border Songs pipe along like merry train wrecks
Whole families in the cafe stuff themselves
with scones and muffins and giant cookies
Whole families flightless and full of mirth
Look, Allen, at the shelves where the nudges and winks
of the crazy and avaracious of the earth
Sit side-by-side with Elie Wiesel's Night
Steve Hellyard Swartz, a regular contributor to New Verse News, has piles and piles of poems ready to be published. He has won Honorable Mention in the Allen Ginsberg, Mary C. Mohr, and Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards. In 2009, poems of his were published in The Paterson Review and The Southern Indiana Review. In 1990, Never Leave Nevada, which he wrote and directed, opened at The U.S. Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. He was recently selected Poet Laureate of Schenectady County in upstate New York.
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