PSH: Poets of the Week

Bio (auto)

B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; The Literary Review; Denver Quarterly; Hawaii Review,; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

In a Cafe

Voices lowered
all hands
on computers
Ethiopian coffee
moves as clouds
at the edge
of a clouded cup,
a ray of sunlight
through a fixed glare
of a window bird
searching for bread
and a cousin
thought lost
with a bass
on his shoulder
stops by.

C.L. Sostarich
Carly1707@aol.com

Bio (auto)

C.L. Sostarich lives in Blakeslee, PA with her husband, four children, and their weird little dog. In the good old days she edited the literary print magazine Maelstrom and she is nearly done paying off the debt from that after twelve years.

Dinner On Sunday

On Sundays, the bars were closed.
In reverence for the Lord,
drinking,
Smoking,
swearing,
and abusing women
Were a treat for hearth and home.

A special occasion such as this
Required head sized blocks of meat,
Gravy, and mountainous mountains
Of snowy, butter -fluffed tubers.
The tallest glasses of milk
You’ve ever seen.

Six-pack Jack watched John Wayne drawl
While he waited for his feast to be served.
Curling up his lip in a snarl
And gunning up his bad-ass cowboy gruff.

A table set for a worshipped king,
A dinner that was cooked from morning
Until beer-fart scented night.
A plate thrown to the floor
Because that shit wasn’t fit for the dog.