By Joe Engel (This poem was previously published in “Harpur Palate”) The rusty train cars are twenty  empty handed merchants sitting silent but ready like always; stubborn in the wind which whips a lash of brittle howls across this iron framed picture of sleep, this ubiquitous breeze, flustered  by forgotten ways of freight, tosses  a…

I wrote this poem when I was 23, living alone in a basement efficiency. It was inspired by my fascination for a girl I admired from a distance. We were both extremely reserved and I never did approach her. Anyway, the only distractions in the basement were the cockroaches, and ants, and my own thoughts…

by Joe Engel Gabriel grinds his teeth smooth in his sleep but he can’t remember his dreams. He scoops up fallen maple leaves and drops them near the canon in the park, watches how they rock like a dinghy on their short descent to practice letting go. On the marble bench near the garden, a…

by Joe Engel After the bathroom, I sat in my chair, the one passed down by my brother; a tan corduroy armchair, peppered with cigarette burns, that was the closest thing I had to a feeling of home.  I watched a line of ants march in order, single file from the baseboard, towards what looked…

by Joe Engel I listened to Matt as I stared through my own reflection in the window.  Everything was in a dark autumn glow.  The lounge was lit by wall mounted lamps and candles in the kind of oblong holders you might find at a pizza parlor.  My rust colored beer was getting warm and…

by Joe Engel Here is a poem that was first published in “Other Poetry”, an English poetry journal, about a decade ago. I wrote it at about that same time. It came about from late night runs to 24 hour grocery stores. It was a great time to shop. There were no lines, there was…

by Joe Engel The bulldozer beeps as it backs up, warning us. Some repairs take days, some take years, that car on cinder blocks slowly turning to rust. It seems this renovation is going nowhere. In winter, construction stops and I am left with familiar floaters in my eyes like seeing my brain cells  swimming…

by Joe Engel My mom released the mail to the kitchen table as if it blew there. “All junk,” she said and asked us to help with the trunk load of groceries.  My friend had just prodded me enough that I pinned him to the carpet before I hopped up and passed  through the kitchen…

by Joe Engel I rub the refurbished chair I sit on for spirit. My cell phone sleeps. Across the room a woman’s story unwinds  like witnessing a flood  breech the foundation  of someone else’s home. But there is a crow on my shoulder- the crow I ignore. My ear is just carrion. Some nights my…

By Joe Engel The road crew is knee deep in a mirage. Silvery waves rise from the heat they can’t see, heat which raises sweat from their skin and causes them to draw frequently from the ice water in their thermoses, whose saintly clanking seems to descend from somewhere other than these miles of assigned…