GATEKEEPERS

If I say “Lock out
the gatekeepers!”
does it make me
a gatekeeper?

Some gates slam shut so fast
they can sever a limb

Other gates more lackadaisical,
hinged on whims

Saint Peter, the ultimate gatekeeper!
(Heaven must be quite a club)

Robert Frost said “Good fences
make good neighbors.”
Wonder how he felt about gates?

Some gates keep people out
Others keep people in

Guess you could say
the same about
doors

I don’t feel like
writing this poem
no more

 

them woods

there’s teenagers
in dem woods
skippin’ school
& smokin’ weed
getting all
the education
they’ll ever
need

them woods
them woods

littered with bent beer cans
& overpopulated with deer
I like to be there
walking & breathing air
when I’m not here

them woods
them woods

glad I don’t
live in em

 

 

 

like a dry shave
in a tar paper shack
during a blizzard

the bad poems come

one by one
line by line
like this one

begun
with the word
like

& a cliche
of a simile

bad poems in abundance

For a pittance

 

would like to be taken up
in a spaceship sometime soon.
I’m ready to explore space,
meet extraterrestrials,
dance on the tip
of a star.

 

About the poet:

Dave Roskos is the editor & publisher of Big Hammer & Street Value magazines and Iniquity Press/Vendetta Books. His poetry has been published in Exquisite Corpse, The New York Quarterly, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, & many other publications.