
#2
Love and Lagniappeby Michael Pollick
This is how easily two stiff souls
can learn to bend,
And pivot around the mulberry times
Like dancers,
defining their time and space.
Completed

#3
Auxilliariesby Michael Pollick
The five older ladies have poured their tea again,
And look to each other for recognition.
This has been quite a summer, yes it has,
And Charles and William and my boy W...
Completed

#5
Cleft for Meby Michael Pollick
Four small whispers can now leave rehearsal,
the last cigarette has been ground to ashes.
It was once important for us to kill some Negroes,
no matter how many times the...
Completed

#6
Petty Theodicyby Michael Pollick
Theodicy is a philosophy which examines God's apparent silence during times of human need. I wrote this piece as if God had returned to Earth and no one even noticed.
T...
Completed

#8
Plane Wrecksby Michael Pollick
Leaving Iowa behind simply cleared
the mind of many a pop idol;
Farmers' sons and factories' daughters
loved to twist and bellow,
flaming out to immoral race records...
Completed

#9
Pinaud's Tonicby Michael Pollick
Five disabled dollars later, this man is cleansed-
Briefly allowed to borrow some human sunlight
On another stranger’s bench.
Completed

#10
Surprise Makeoverby Michael Pollick
we tried to stay away
from anything plum,
which looks so garish
in the cold fog
of authority,
as the neighbors report
nothing new between
those two.
Completed

#11
Urim and Thumminby Michael Pollick
Your tattooed stigmata is showing, my dear-
that spot of willful blood lies dormant;
while greedy hosts of Angels draw illicit lots,
and seek redemption in performanc...
Completed

#12
Foot Washingby Michael Pollick
I could never understand her need to wash His feet;
I did not come from Magdalene's world,
That nervous sticky world
of anonymous diddling,
Which mixes its shekels
with...
Completed

#14
Ovenby Michael Pollick
I see in her mottled skin
such visions
of dishwater pain,
The desperately overturned
second-hand furniture,
stripped bare of our lunch money.
Completed

#15
Brother to the Dragon, Companion t...by Michael Pollick
Somewhere in the white hot core of the Dancer's spirit
lie the remnants of too much vision,
lies the residue of a thousand broken treaties:
lies the child who bartered w...
Completed

#16
Pearl Killersby Michael Pollick
The Allegheny is an ancient river
by most standards-
You'll find plenty of evidence
that shells once ruled the Earth;
It was on this river that my Dad
used his firs...
Completed

#17
Makebelieve Ballroomby Michael Pollick
and when all that remains of
our dimestore dances are scuffs
on aching linoleum,
I shall consider you carefully,
and know that we were gods once.
Completed

#18
Gate Knowledgeby Michael Pollick
This is where the desperate stitches
begin to take hold -
In the wary edges of unproven cloth;
In the delicate fears of virtuous women,
In the fevered robes of noble sol...
Completed

#19
Collateral Damage Reportby Michael Pollick
Let us skip, you and I,
through certain half-smelted streets;
where time and conscience dissolve like watches,
and glass shadows catch the first sun's rays
fully on thei...
Completed