Mark Blaeuer-

 

Indulgences

 

Vendors on Xanadu subway

hawk their effigy food,

plasticware and paper napkins

next to a ticket booth.

 

A balladeer by a staircase

sings out the wrongs of our planet.

She holds an object carved of polished wood,

open at both ends, hollow as a drum:

 

a woman’s torso.

Punctuating lament, she

hits her eerie cylinder with a stick.

We all walk home, hungry.

 

 

What Once Was Darkness

 

Winter dawns,

radioactive blood,

rare choice in the palette

of Erebus

imbued with television glow.

 

 

Mark Blaeuer, a gentleman of 58 who lives in the wilds of Arkansas, has had poems in dozens of magazines over the years, including: Asphodel Madness, The Camel Saloon, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and The Found Poetry Review.