Poem Excluding Religion
And on the seventh day we wandered into
obesity. You wouldn’t stop bleeding soda
pop from a paper cut on your index finger.
A toothless man gave us a city map made
entirely of Milk Duds. Our stomachs hummed
with what could only be described as a Sleepy
Congress. Vultures circled us as if we were
already decomposing. And we were.
Poem Excluding Nature
In my finest pair of blue jeans, I win the
lottery. You give me everyone else’s face on
your deathbed. “No news is good news,”
you say. But you want to say more. You want
to say things that bring to mind only rain.
I check my watch, my piggy bank, and the
weather channel before responding.
Poem Excluding Witnesses
As a way to fall in love again you join a co-ed
softball team as a mascot. Your hairy body in
a hairy costume every Tuesday of Summer.
People’s faces in the dugout map the holy
places you read about as a teenager. It’s
always the beginning and everything has
changed. During the 5th inning, you dance
your way into the souls of an entire
generation in the industrial part of town
where the sky loses every time.
biography
NOAH FALCK is the author of Snowmen Losing Weight (BatCat Press, 2012), and several chapbooks including Celebrity Dream Poems (Poor Claudia, 2013). He lives in Buffalo, NY, where he works as education director at Just Buffalo Literary Center and co-curates the Silo City Reading Series in an abandoned grain silo along the Buffalo River.