David LaBounty
I live in Royal Oak, Michigan with my wife and two sons. My poetry has appeared in several print and online journals, and I've written two novels, the first was a science fiction novel titled The Perfect Revolution under the pen name of Oscar Deadwood, the second and most recent is The Trinity. I served in the navy, worked on the blast team in a gold mine in the Nevada desert and also spent time as a mechanic, a salesman and a reporter.

A Thread

it’s me and
the other
dads on
the team,
standing on
the sidelines
not watching
our kids

and the
other dads,

they talk
about golf
and business
and the price
of all of
their possessions
and these
topics just
take seconds
to exhaust
and I stand
silent and
rigid as I’m
the lonely
boy in the
cafeteria
again, my
face down
in bologna
and cheese
or maybe
a cup of
applesauce
or diced
peaches,
and me
and the
other dads,
we have
nothing
in common
except
credit cards
car payments
mortgages,
satellite dishes,
phone bills
double chins
and
pasty white
skin that
gets dry
in the winter,

making us itch all of the time.

 

In Almost One Breath

he told me
that tea bags

chamomile wet and cold

would take care of
the puffiness around
my eyes, and tires
he said,
you can’t have
a lot of stress
selling tires.

well, I said, you
still have to
deal with
people, and
we get
all kinds.

well ain’t that
the truth, there
are a lot of nuts
out there he said
and he told me
about his dying
health food store,
how the economy
and shoplifters
were bringing
him under and
how the average
health food store
shoplifter was
a woman in
her forties
suburban and maternal.

he stopped talking
after that and
I watched him
drink coffee
from a styrofoam
cup. he held
the cup with his
left hand, and
his right hand
had to hold
the left, merely to
keep the coffee
still.

 

Amen

we are all clichés.

we stand around
the table, beer and
wine is offered and

refused and the
ghosts of dead
birds and pigs
float in the air,
their burning souls
encircle us in
odor and contentment.
an uncle cracks
a joke, says
something about
a black and a Mexican
and uncles and
nephews laugh
while nieces
and aunts drop
their faces and
smile into their vaginas.

the laughs give
way to sports
and no one
really wants to
watch the football
game that is
playing on the
TV across the
great and open
and wasted space that
separates the kitchen
and family room and
then the talk turns
to babies and relatives
and the uncles and
nephews drift to the
family room
to face the football
and there they
sit silently, no mention
of politics or religion,
no mention of the
almost revolution
that was started forty
years ago, long before
the rebels had
earned and
eaten too much

the birds and pigs are carved

the swollen faces
painted with
ash sit at the table

their dull incisors
start tearing
into so much
commoditized flesh.