Three Poems
by
David Messineo
NOSTALGIA FOR THE EARLIER CENTURY
Still see them, apoplectic
in matching red
ties:
Congressmen, all men,
afire with anger
hour
upon hour, declaring
the greatest threat facing
our
great nation:
Monica Lewinsky.
I long for those
days:
budget surplus, thanks to
our Democratic
President.
Give that man a cigar.
Rewind the clock
pre-Y2K,
open door to the DeLorean,
take me back
to
Back to the Future.
Do you remember
when life was
simpler,
The Cosby Show #1
for four years?
Do you
remember
when our greatest
philosopher was
Alf?
RETURNING TO A HOUSE THAT ISN’T A HOME
Visiting my childhood home is
walking through a tossed salad memory,
as if some houses had sipped Alice's
"Grow" potion, while the street
partook of "Shrink Me."
The hundred-plus-foot trees --
maple, ash, oak, birch --
have all been ripped away, and I
walk a neighborhood beaten down by time.
What can one say when a fireboat searchlight
at the top of the fourth front porch step
is one's earliest memory? How the whole house
becomes river view on all sides every few years?
The rec room window is now up 20 feet,
upon a cement foundation
required by an insurance company
only on homes whose mortgages aren't closed,
adjoining bare plots of land now government-owned,
homes torn down of those who just gave up,
the neighborhood a grim reminder of
what it's like to never smile.
GAME OF TOMES
Tonight, a high-pitched whine of
increasing intensity
caffeine in the late-night
hot chocolate the culprit
who needs crossbows
or armies
or dragons
just layer on sodium
deep-breathe the heart-racing
awaken with bloodshot eyes
a new season has arrived
wonder if you'll survive.
David Messineo is publisher and poetry editor of Sensations
Magazine. He is the author of nine
published poetry collections. “Game of Tomes”
was originally published in the anthology On The
Verge: Poets Of The Palisades III.