Letters from North Prospect by Richard Carr

My dear friend,
There must be more than ten thousand young women in this town sleeping within a one mile radius of where I sleep. I've kissed one of them on my couch, and danced outdoors with two. The polka. Nothing here stands in mute testament. The land is dry and worthless--to all of us who do not claim it, a hated corpse. My apartment is nice. Mine. Green. I've noticed, there is a long tradition of dying among humans. Not me. For me there is a motorcycle, a barstool, and a pack of smokes. There is a truth that I doubt with all my heart. There is a concert grand of mahogany and deadly precious ivory crafted in the workshops of my hope. There is a blade of grass on my shoe. I doubt with all my heart, and so test worth. I'm looking in the wrong place. A wasteland of

Letters from North Prospect

By Richard Carr

Winner of the 1997 Frank Cat Press Poetry Chapbook Competition.

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welcome mats. Someone is at the door, about to knock. (Angels. Armed and dangerous.) Let them. I remember, when I met you I was half the man I was. Now I'm a quarter of that. (Zeno has me by the balls.) The old one dwindles. Soon, out of his last mote, a dragon will emerge, slowly, and compose, not the dirges of symbol and myth, but still, symphonies of false joy. (Pretty dragon. Where is your harp?) It's okay. I'm making new friends, drinking buddies that know to call me Skeeter. Or Maximus. When I am alone in bed, thinking of morning, such friends become unreal, figments of the commonsense. Really, who needs a head? The weather is fine, hot. If you think of it, tell me your name again. I always liked that story.
Yours