Greasy Spoon Saloon: To David


“How you gonna cross-stitch those faces
Into your dream-catchers, face catchers,
Tender cottonwood branch mandalas?”
Says the mighty derelict,
The immaculate scumbag,
The simple bum, me,
To the artist of the awful,
Artist of the ugly,
Who crafts eight-eyed beasts
And gnarled toads
And Frankensteinian dead-eyed worms
In his waking-mare,
That sleepy-frowned
David Gonzalez of Pittsburgh.

Crooked Apache shoulder shrug.

He will with slight-of-hand,
Slight of foot,
Cross-stitch the awful beatific
Of all mysteries onto tiny
Canvasses and finger-built feathers
From here all the way to Pittsburgh’s
Hot Metal Street.

By Tony Burfield

Last words of a dying man

Sadness, grief and sorrow are emotions we all experience. Poets and writers have long realized how expressing your emotions with words can help in dealing with the pain. To give words to your deepest feelings, to shape your most painful emotions into verse, to release the pain locked in your heart; this is the true power of the poem.Some of the most famous poets lived sad, dark, depressed lives filled with pain, loneliness, depression and even suicide. These poets were artists who used words to express their painful and sad feelings and share them with the world. These words joined together became poetry, sad poetry filled with their yearnings for relief from their pain. Their unbearable sadness was the catalyst for some of the best poems ever written.