11Oct 2025 Paul Smith

How Potatoes Work

featured in the poetry forum
You take one to the back yard dig a hole and put it in there then you wait you water it of course and in time it sprouts into this... Read More
editors note:

If you leave now, you can be in France in time for the release of the Beaujolais Nouveau. Goes great with Potatoes Au Gratin. – mh clay

22Apr 2025 Paul Smith

Gridlines

featured in the poetry forum
Everything could be reduced to gridlines now we could bend the world to our tastes every intersection of the grid is flexible so that each neighborhood each township each water... Read More
editors note:

Lately, we’ve certainly got a circus but, where’s the bread? – mh clay

4Jun 2024 Paul Smith

Let’s Pretend

featured in the poetry forum
Let’s pretend nothing is wrong our bills are paid the market’s strong the barn is full the wheat is up the kids are healthy and wonderful the corn is tall... Read More
editors note:

Turn your pretense into peace. – mh clay

1Jul 2023 Paul Smith

The Worst

featured in the poetry forum
Of all the things we have to live with betrayal is the worst unrequited love requited love that ends up badly because you’re a jerk are nothing poverty bankruptcy foreclosure... Read More
editors note:

All gone but the regret. – mh clay

27Jan 2023 Paul Smith

The Vigorish

featured in the poetry forum
We should have a better way of branding all those things we find significant and troubling things that shout to be recognized insurrections plagues beheadings ethnic cleansing the emotional toll... Read More
editors note:

Oh, my word! – mh clay

21Nov 2021 Paul Smith

Twenty Two Pairs

featured in the poetry forum
Twenty two pairs of shoes on the wall twenty two pairs of shoes I called Betty at AMVETS twenty one pairs of shoes on the wall Twenty one pairs of... Read More
editors note:

Disseminating the deceased’s detritus, the time it takes to grapple with grief. – mh clay

28Apr 2021 Paul Smith

Understanding

featured in the poetry forum
She mowed the grass she raked the leaves she shoveled the snow she cleaned up the place she cooked the food and put it on the table that wasn’t enough... Read More
editors note:

To have is to hold. Understand? – mh clay

28Oct 2020 Paul Smith

Sir

featured in the poetry forum
Sir is what we called the Jesuit scholastics who taught us Latin, Greek, and the classics at Loyola Academy and in return they called us Mister The first time someone... Read More
editors note:

Call me Mister, call me Sir, just don’t call me late for supper. OK? – mh clay

21Feb 2020 Paul Smith

Disconnected

featured in the poetry forum
Telemarketers have it easy compared to how it was four or six hour shifts of nonstop rejection now an automated assistant answers when you pick up your phone no one... Read More
editors note:

Consumer rage reduced to quiescent compliance. Oh, for the good ole days… – mh clay

5Sep 2019 Paul Smith

More Or Less

featured in the poetry forum
The older the priest the shorter the sermon the smaller the despot the bigger the hat the smaller the burger the greater the fries the Lesser Antilles give me the... Read More
editors note:

And, far as we’re concerned, willie can keep’em. (Where’s my hat?) – mh clay