Three Poems
by David Messineo

NOSTALGIA FOR THE EARLIER CENTURY

Still see them, apoplectic
in matching red ties:
Congressmen, all men,
afire with anger

hour upon hour, declaring
the greatest threat facing
our great nation:
Monica Lewinsky.

I long for those days:
budget surplus, thanks to
our Democratic President.
Give that man a cigar.

Rewind the clock pre-Y2K,
open door to the DeLorean, 
take me back to
Back to the Future.

Do you remember
when life was simpler,
The Cosby Show #1
for four years?

Do you remember
when our greatest
philosopher was
Alf?



RETURNING TO A HOUSE THAT ISN’T A HOME

Visiting my childhood home is
walking through a tossed salad memory,
as if some houses had sipped Alice's
"Grow" potion, while the street
partook of "Shrink Me."

The hundred-plus-foot trees --
maple, ash, oak, birch --
have all been ripped away, and I
walk a neighborhood beaten down by time.

What can one say when a fireboat searchlight
at the top of the fourth front porch step
is one's earliest memory?  How the whole house
becomes river view on all sides every few years?

The rec room window is now up 20 feet,
upon a cement foundation
required by an insurance company
only on homes whose mortgages aren't closed,

adjoining bare plots of land now government-owned,
homes torn down of those who just gave up,
the neighborhood a grim reminder of
what it's like to never smile.



GAME OF TOMES

Tonight, a high-pitched whine of
increasing intensity
caffeine in the late-night
hot chocolate the culprit

who needs crossbows
or armies
or dragons
just layer on sodium

deep-breathe the heart-racing
awaken with bloodshot eyes
a new season has arrived
wonder if you'll survive.




David Messineo is publisher and poetry editor of Sensations Magazine.  He is the author of nine published poetry collections.  “Game of Tomes” was originally published in the anthology On The Verge: Poets Of The Palisades III.