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Rothco Press | Professor Clown on Parade: Poems from Burlington, Vermont, Waterbury, Vermont, Portland, Maine, and Hartford Connecticut. “A brilliant, beer-fogged take on America by one of the funniest, smartest poets around.” ~ Alexis Rhone Fancher, poetry editor, Cultural Weekly, seven-time Pushcart nominee “…a work that’s underpinned by a depth and decency you don’t see very often in this world, let alone in a book that will make you laugh out loud.” ~ Daniel McGinn, Author “1000 Black Umbrellas”, Write Bloody Publishing Rick Lupert’s 18th book, and latest in his poetry-travelogue series, takes him through the gorgeous north-east where everybody in Vermont gets a free hug and no-one in Hartford Connecticut believes he and his wife are vacationing there. Join Rick on this poetic adventure along with stops in Waterbury, Vermont (where so many free food samples are given) and Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where Norman Rockwell is still very much alive. Watch me reading poems from the book in the Facebook Live publication reading here. |
Poetry from Professor Clown on Parade
New Potato
In Allentown, Pennsylvania
my father in law walks in from the back yard
a stack of fountain pens in his hand
asks my mother in law
Do you have an old potato you’re not using?
She tells him she only has new potatoes.
He asks if he can just have part of one
and she explains, essentially it’s all or nothing
when it comes to potatoes.
He wants to use the potato to clean his fountain pens.
She gives a new potato to the cause.
It’s okay.
Getting more potatoes
is not really an issue.
On the Cheese Trail in Vermont
Our first cheese in Vermont is at the Farmhouse Tap and Grill.
We wait a hundred years to be seated but all signs point
to this being a good idea. The walls are comfortable.
My head sinks in when I press against them.
I want these walls at home.
They also have a beer garden.
I want Vermont beer seeds to take home.
Maybe grow a bush. I could breed it with
a cow and have all the cheese I ever needed.
My short hair is out of control.
Soon the cheese will come.
I know exactly what to do with it.
Thoughts at Breakfast*
I wonder if Ben & Jerry’s has a mascot.
Maybe a cow named Moobert.
I tell Addie when we get there
I’m going to march in and demand to see
Moobert. She doesn’t react at all.
Is tending to her head, she tells me.
Later says she is just glad I didn’t say
I was going to be nude
when I marched in.
*An uninspired poem title.
Inside the Cryptozoology Museum
I remember elementary school
In Dewitt, New York where my
friend Kevin told me, in third grade,
that the bathroom in our classroom
smelled like lemons which meant that
Bigfoot lived on the roof of our school.
I took it as fact and this was the
beginning of religion for me.
haiku
The Seagulls are the
ever present, camera shy
soundtrack to Portland
At City Steam Brewery
The singer is good.
All covers. He handles it.
But he clears the room
because people just want to talk.
Even we leave, and we love
when people make music
out of nothing.
Ringing Rockwell’s Bell
Outside of the museum
a sign says
Ring the bell if
you enjoyed your visit.
I ring it once.
Addie rings it twice.
We both enjoyed our visit
the same amount.
She’s just
a wild woman.
