Feature Poet:
Tom Guarnera

THE SHADE TREE DEPARTMENT

The "Shade Tree Department"
asleep in my town,
it only finds life
to cut old trees down.

The howl of the chainsaw
drowns out all debate.
No second opinion—
they must amputate.

Amputee stumps, left in place,
grow on unaware
   Phantom limbs
   phantom green
   phantom birds
   phantom air

THE GRAD STUDENT’S LAMENT

There was an old scholar and critic,
so full of himself and sadistic.
    Though my thesis was sound,
    he sniffed, "That’s not profound!"
Now he’s dead, after I went ballistic.

FLUSHED

I’m sure the plumber was impressed
by all my bathroom culture:
"The Song of Roland" on the floor,
a Goya print on the wall,
a range of better magazines
stacked neatly on the tank.
Without a hint of finer things,
every flush-job looks the same:
a shallow, stagnant pool.
It will do his soul some good
to test the waters swirling ‘round
a higher class…of ass.

SO MUCH
(for Christine)

So much struggle, so much strength
to keep what’s least at arm’s length,
to hold what’s most close to heart.
You tremble, almost burst apart,
so filled with life: there to obey,
there to master. You stop and pray,
dream and rage. Your family knows
this burning drive—how bright it glows!
My love is blind, so washed in light
that pours from you by day, by night.

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Tom Guarnera

Tom is a mild-mannered marketing manager by day and not-so-mild mannered writer and performer of poems by night. He is a 2001 prizewinner in the Bay Area Poets Coalition annual short poetry competition, and his work has appeared in several on-line publications (running the gamut from CafeMo to the Cosmic Baseball Association). Tom is also represented in Off the Cuffs, an upcoming anthology of poems about the police. Selections on this page are from Tom’s new chapbook, For Better or Verse, published by Rogue Scholars Press. For Better or Verse is available at the Pink Pony West Bookstore, or can be ordered from t_guarnera@hotmail.com.

THINGS

Find the things that bring you peace,
find the things that bring you joy.
There is no choice, there is no plan.
The world has too much pain to bear.
Its gravity is everywhere;
it holds us spinning in our place.

Touch the things that bring you peace,
touch the things that bring you joy.
There is no bargain to be made,
there is no promise you can keep.
The cities will burn, as we sleep;
the children will cry, as we love.

Hold the things that bring you peace,
hold the things that bring you joy.
However slight, do not let go.
They tempt and fade, an echo's dance—
a longing lost, a secret chance—
yet they endure, more real than real.