by Jeremy Szuder
The grumpy old white men
walk the avenues of this village
at nine in the morning.
I’m washing my children’s clothes,
their ballet tights and
their Taekwondo robes.
I push past the dinosaur days
of primal, guttural instincts and
oversized pickup trucks,
I push past leering elder stares
at beautiful black women who
stand in line just ahead of me
in our stodgy old banks, cashing
checks and filling up on rolls
of quarters.
I replace stickers that I’ve stuck,
on signposts and mailboxes,
removed because the old time
religions didn't like my artwork.
The riptide of hatred is lost
as I push hard against the attempt
at stirring unforgiving waters.
And I look at my reflection in
the windows of these shops,
and I’m the same pigment as
these gravediggers are—
these Polo shirts and these mad,
sad, unfaithful souls.
These grumpy old fools, scratching
at everyone else's eyes instead
of just conveniently staying home
with their curtains drawn and
their fearful guns cocked and
loaded.
Jeremy Szuder (he/him) lives in a tiny apartment with his wife, two children and two cats. He works in the evenings in a very busy restaurant, standing behind a stove, a grill, fryers and heating lamps, happily listening to hours of hand selected music and conjuring ideas for new art and poetry in his head. When his working day ends and he enters his home in the wee hours, he likes to sit down with a glass of wine and record all the various words and images that bear fruit within his mind. Jeremy Szuder only sets the cage doors free when the work begins to pile up too high. In this life, Szuder makes no illusions of being a professional artist in any way, shape, or form.
