SLUM LORD

by Steve Deutsch

This is what an eviction threat from Donald Trump looks like. (From a 1987 case involving an elderly couple living in the building at 100 Central Park South.) —CNN, March 28, 2016

You send the beef
in bowling shirts
and shitkicker boots
every Sunday morning
to collect from the perennial poor
in the claptraps
you own on Stone Avenue.

Rumor has it
the hobbled wretch
who begs at the five and dime
offered lip
instead of money
and they showed him out
through a third floor window.

Dad’s mom lived
on the fourth floor of #720.
A refugee from the shtetl
she was well prepared
to live without heat
or running water,
to navigate the teeter-totter stairs
in the half light of a 40 watt bulb,
to coexist with roaches and rats,
the acrid smell of cabbage,
untended garbage,
and the methodical cruelty
that humans without hope
inflict on one another.

I know you.
You have the health
and building people
in your ample hip pocket
and while you might
hire some people to spit
shine your shoes
and some to break legs,
you spend every Sunday night
counting and recounting
the stack of smalls,
the nickels and dimes—
because for you,
Donny,
a sumptuous view
of the New York skyline
can never compare
to the heft of a roll
of nickels.

Steve Deutsch lives in State College, PA. His recent publications have or will appear in Panoply, Algebra of Owls, The Blue Nib, Thimble Magazine, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Ghost City Review, Borfski Press, Streetlight Press, Gravel, Literary Heist, Nixes Mate Review, Third Wednesday, Misfit Magazine, Word Fountain, Eclectica Magazine, The Drabble,  TheNewVerse.News and The Ekphrastic Review. He was nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2017 and 2018. His chapbook Perhaps You Can will be published in 2019 by Kelsay Press.

TIS THE SEASON

by Howie Good

A street person
with fingers as fat

as sausages holds
a piece of cardboard,

Kindness Is Karma
shakily written on it

in black Sharpie. Just
do what everyone does.

Pretend not to see him
and walk straight past.

Tears can drown even
the strongest swimmer.


Howie Good is the recipient of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry for his new collection Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements.

ACCOUNTING

by David Radavich

Image credit: gemenacom / 123RF Stock Photo

A culture’s values
lie in its treasure chests.

What people spend
money on day in day out.

Rock concerts, sporting events,
hairstyles, boob jobs, four-wheel drive,

airline tickets
to the Caribbean .

What we buy we love,
and that loves us,

breath of life
and song and sight.

These coins I hand
to the beggar

before me
is small pittance

for a world
that doesn’t care.

We can even
sell our blood
and zygotes

for a big new screen.

The better to see
ourselves

in a good story

full of racing death.


David Radavich’s recent collections include America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011). His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe. His new collection is The Countries We Live In.

KEEPING INDEPENDENCE

by Archana Sankaran

Old Beggar With a Boy - Pablo Picasso, 1903

I will keep my
strong sense of independence,
my fierce will,
precious freedom
and hopefully,
creative lust.
Until the minute coffers
where I pinned my
existential insecurities,
stand near empty.
But empty, it does not
scare me anymore.
I have seen empty,
spread those bowls of begging
and received often pity
but sometimes crumbs
that were and are of
much value to me.
That some people can
be kind, never mind if grudgingly
to strangers.
There certainly is
a clarity, a looking at truth
a freedom at empty.
Oh, what a wonderful
place I am at, tonight.
Happy at going to full.
And happy to get to empty.


Archana Sankaran is a poet based in India. She is also an artist . She finds writing poetry often emotionally cathartic. And is grateful for the gift of writing.

INHERIT THE EARTH

by Richard Schnap

Barcelona homeless. Image source: Nae's Nest

 
“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” -- Pope Francis, November 26, 2013



There’s the one who appears only on weekends
To stand near the crowd at popular restaurants
Asking passersby if they can spare a quarter

And the one who disappears for years at a time
To return outside the local supermarket
Pleading for change for something to eat

And the one who sits on a corner sidewalk
With a cardboard sign and a Styrofoam cup
Wrapped in a blanket as she falls asleep

And no matter what changes befall the world
There will always be those caught in its shadows
Whose voices are lost in its bitter winds


Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY

by Howie Good

 Image source: archaeology & arts

I waved a dollar
out the window.
We brushed hands
as he took it.

Thank you,
he said.
I said nothing,

just rolled
my window up
and waited

with renewed
impatience
for the light
to change.

You know
how it is,

I couldn’t help
but doubt,
at least a little,

the crudely
lettered sign
he held.

Then I remembered
that cavemen
depicted
running animals
by giving them
eight legs.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.