Anecdote Of The Edibles

 

Frank Iosue

 

 

                             All night, I can hear them

                             in the walls. They scratch

                             along the window sills, go

                             up and down the stairs.

 

                             Their bodies are like

                             cupped little hands

                             holding something secret in...

 

                             houses alive with

                             little inner things

                            that devour them;

                             that make them emptier.

 

                             In the morning, I yawn.

                             Go down to do

                             my teeth and shave.

 

                             From the kitchen comes

                             a "snap" and a lingering

                             rattle of wood against wood.

 

                             In the trap, another one lies.

 

                             Gutside down.

                             A broken back.  

                             The morning light

                             dancing on its eyes.

 

                             For a moment,

                             the stairs are silent.

                             The walls still.

 

                             In the mirror, my face

                             smiles back at me.      

                                               

                             The razor in my hand

                             starts eating me away.

​

​

Gone Viral

 

Frank Iosue

( for Tim Ramos )

 

 

you want to live dangerously

be a world traveler

with a taste for asian cuisine

and exotic java

 

the cookie in every port

the darling of the platforms

 

an egosurfing netizen

who friends herself on facebook

and trolls herself on tinder

 

a twisted bachelorette

who doesn’t fit the profiles

who’s taken a few too many hits

and prefers it unprotected

 

ersatz placebo

nano-morphing noob

that dreams

the dreams of pathogens

and goes by the handle

#pangaean

 

whose digital footprint

 

having dispensed

with all the protocols

 

is finally trending

​

Frank Iosue was born in Los Angeles, California in 1951. He holds a

Bachelor Of Arts degree in English from California State University, Los Angeles and a Master Of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing / Poetry from The University of Iowa / Writer's Workshop.

 

He has conducted writing workshops, been a featured reader at venues around Southern Arizona, and has served as a judge for numerous national poetry competitions through the National Federation Of State Poetry Societies. He also served as judge for the 2022 California State Poetry Society Annual Contest. His poems have appeared in numerous publications and online journals. He has published 11 chapbooks of poetry, which were compiled and published in his volume The Au Revoir Of An Enormous Us : Collected Poems ( 2017 ).

He lives near Tucson, Arizona.