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Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com.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, December 05, 2011

MONDAY, UNEMPLOYED

by E. F. Schraeder


A dream of new beginnings marks
the calendar, but a blank schedule

opens the day like a cracked foul egg
leaking fluid into lifeless oblivion
another week of dread
and avoidance begins

ripe with unapologetic regret
while the sun shines on and on
spreads its optimism into the busy
world around me

people move on, get up
go to work
but the clamoring emptiness
pounds in my ears like a dirge

as a child for two weeks I couldn’t eat
without vomiting after
then I learned how to ignore,
to bounce back


E. F. Schraeder's  creative work has appeared in On the Issues, Haz Mat Review, New Verse News, Blue Collar Review, Kicked Out, and elsewhere.  She currently lives in the midwest and hopes for the best, sometimes despite reason.

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