More postcard poetry. . . (see part 1 https://racinewir.com/2026/04/03/postcard-poetry-part-1/)

custom postcard art by Dan Nielsen

For Gail Waldstein

Open
Pension
Ensignia
Nostalgia
Ostentations
Stenography
Tension

3/5/26

—

For Matt Schumacher

Gem-clicker clockface
Eyes closed,
Crashtastic
Pool mites in perpetual motion
Cinematic scores
are soooo predictable

3/18/26

—

For Bob Ericson

Groggy from the pork
Drinking fools
Echo baby, echo
Paint chips, not pertinent
Resolved to fall
Resolved not to die
like the unforgivable
like broken glass
like the King of Denmark
There is nothing left

3/19/26

—

For Marcella Durand

Why
Why not
Why not live
Why not live in
Why not live in fiction

The good part makes the back end wiggle

3/18/26

—

For David Abel

Portraits
So piquant
Lurking like feelings
Closeted corners
gone to ground
Bleed me your moment
Now it’s over

3/18/26

—

For Kathryn Winograd

Once again we are changing
Changing promises
Changes in the weather
Changing passwords
Whether or not
We pound them into
Manageable fits of
increasingly meaningless
importance

3/18/26

—

For Jelani Fossenbell

Imagine a trapdoor
I’m not fishing for irony
Genuine predator shifts
In inquiry notions
Fit the management tense

Not for show
Not for nothing

3/18/26

—

For Laura Stuckey

There there
And why
By dimensions
That are
Said don’t
Make him
Forms and
Where or
From whatever
Things might
Be home.

3/18/26

—

For Jacob Smullyan

America let you
People hear
What you thought
We are for

You took the world
A convenience
Back to reality

The corners that
Keep us nowhere

3/18/26

—

On Creeley, for Jeni Rinner

Here’s here
Chopped the people
Age like at across
Leading Zipzap roar
Faded on Florida
Old legs reddish
Long still to which
Charlemagne to you
All but in and lost
On but and now
And. . . And. . .

3/19/26

—

Most of these were written at Vintage & Modern Books in downtown Racine during the final week of the project.

I’ve got one more small batch of these poems (written in early March, between the ones I posted in part 1 and these I posted tonight) which I will share next week!

Jay Mollerskov
ArtRoot Writer-In-Residence – 4/10/26