Author: Jared A. Conti

Circling the Wagons

| Jared A. Conti

McGuffin’s got nothin’

but to propel

this darn

campfire yarn

done spun

from

a deserted 

ice cream party

at the Just A-OK Corral.

Thumb and finger

circling back around.

Your release

to the great halfpipe

in the sky

consequently coincides

with the remastered

Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

Games we used to

play

at being adults

someday, having to grow up

yet

let

it languish

for twenty-some 

odd years.

360°

circles back around.

Hanging back, you

duck out early

as was your habit.

No need to be the center of attention:

that was Bob’s job.

Puff, puff, pass.

It’ll circle back around.

Longing 

to pick it back up again

where we left off

nostalgia

welcoming

with open arms

carrying me

drunkenly

to sober up

in the pokey.

The missing windows

of last night’s 

bar fight,

whites 

in my beard

stragglers no more

reflected in 

the boarded up plate glass

you escaped from.

Rowdy crowd

circling around back.

Awake

and baked,

the hardpan

blazing already

at this time of day.

Feet of clay

I didn’t think

I’d have been caught

in this time-sink

drink tank

quicksand

of a calamity

I’d never prepared for,

dusting off these

trailing 

wailings

dry gulch parched

and perched

a vulture

waiting 

for my demise

circling back around.

Circling the Wagons first appeared in Daily Drunk Mag’s “Nostalgic AF: A Video Game Anthology”

edited by Nick Olson

You can read the rest of the poems here

Or you can support the poets by buying it here

Kindled

| Jared A. Conti

stacks of notebooks

like cordwood

fending

off the cold

paltry fire

barely big enough

to keep my fingers warm

so i can write

and count the pages

as they flutter

into the fire.

via negativa (for us)

| Jared A. Conti

The admin of the poetry newsletter

posts his name

and address

in the email signature

dry

droll

“Daring” 

Dave Bonta

Podunk, Penna.

An invitation

beating down his cabin door

but much gentler 

these poets

oh, they know it

they just don’t yet know 

how to learn 

at the foot

of this towering

mountain

hermit.

Pilgrimage

for his presence

and the wit

unsure

what to make of it.

the muse and I

| Jared A. Conti

the muse and I

are having yet another

state of the union

addressing

affairs of the heart.

she has spread out before me

love letters

my chest so full of pride

the intoxicating scents 

waft, slipped into

envelopes

moistened with her tongue.

no longer do we speak the same language

which threatens

an already uneasy alliance

backroom negotiations

the players

have changed

but this cold war

has never ended

temperature 

kept well below freezing

pen, hovering above the page.

a dream i can’t recall

| Jared A. Conti

I adore this.

musings and mishaps of an unconditional lover

a dream i can’t recall
9 November 2018

in autumn we embrace brown
but in the spring we will it away

in spring it’s all promise of green
watching whiskey melt the ice
rust colored trees, matching the burlap wrap
the tonic to settle the nerves
The uncertainty of love

tonight we embraced for the first time
for three years I waited for those arms to wrap around my torso
hoping for a peace to settle on our hearts
a false pretense worn away

if the color brown had a smell it would be this:
sun setting on your commute
darkened dinners with the furnace running
breathe caught in the crisp chill of forgiveness
the promise of another season

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STUNTED

| Jared A. Conti

Like the precursor

to a best-selling

teen dystopian novel series

with half-heartedly-made

cash cow movies,

the cherry tree in our front yard

has failed to blossom

for the first time

in twenty-six years.

We do not buy 

into symbolism,

yet trees being 

the lungs of the earth

those that still stand tall at the capitol

boughs branching out

embracing

amid further political unrest

pushing back

against barricades

for certain unalienable rights

each ones’ ideas 

of freedom

under banners

such are false flags

and comes at the cost

of choking on the pollen

that is tear gas

as flowers fall

gracefully

like defeat.

But home

is where the heart is 

    (no insurrection here

though unsure as to what this lack of affectation means)

while our love

written in lines of 

poetry, stories

carved into the skin

M.L.M.

    +

G.R.H.

like tattoos

bleeding that sap

sticky, sweet lifeblood

still pumping 

rings 

true

for you, our children

rings 

chronicling the years

the orbit around the sun

rings

around the rosie

ashes

take upon new meaning

as we hold onto life

neverending.

Another Chore

| Jared A. Conti

I found a teakettle

at the high water mark

after years

of riversong

movements

magic lamp

water djinn 

beaten up

broken in

boiling off

impurities

because all that mess

is still serviceable.

Three wishes

after dishes

because we still have cleaning up to do.

Reflections

| Jared A. Conti

i rested so long

woke up in my room

saw my shadow

and seen I’d turned into bones

time moved on

as it often does without me

slipped through my fingers

found this no longer was my home

echoes of ghosts

glimpsed in the mirror

looking at yourself

through haunted eyes

chains been done rattling

dem bones dem bones gonna walk around

connected to the heart

but all that’s left are empty sighs

Rip Van Winkle

off in the woods to take a tinkle

after playing nine pins

and drinking with the dwarves

I’m naught but an old man

twenty years grows a long white beard

friends and family all passed on

which is something I’ve long feared