Dan Nowak


Promoting World Peace


Family Feud is more interesting
drunk in Spanish in a hotel room.
Cheap vodka sits next to me;
I laugh when something sounds
like semen. I get six channels,
but only understand four. Learning
Spanish is difficult at Mexican
restaurants where numbers are key
words for quesadillas and international
diplomacy. I promised myself
to learn Spanish before I leave
this hotel, but it will require another
bottle and a Police Academy rerun
in which Hightower’s deep voice
can be heard across barbed borders.


Borrough's After Midnight

Valentine’s Day became post-modern
when you showed up at work with flowers
and counter-culture literature. You cried
by the bar as I waited on couples
ordering cheese fries and steaks. Was it
for me or the dead cow surrounded
by vegetables? I should have offered
to drink with you afterwards, gold tequila
on a black day. I told people our salad
dressings for eleven hours that day. My house
was too quiet that night so I hung your
flowers upside down and left them until
gravity ejaculated all of their petals.
Midnight came and I kept reading without you.


Giving Directions

Turn left onto Monroe,
there will be a church
on your left. I spent
eight years stuck in their
uniform pants. Mass
was mandatory even if
there wasn’t enough faith
for me. Keep going and
watch for the Chinese
buffet that’s replaced
the lesbian bar. That strip
mall is full of dying arts
in this town. A coffee
shop without trademarks
and a jewelry store that
turns you green in the shower.
Applebee’s turn head right.
You’ll go past the hospital
I stayed in last summer
with chest pains. My muscles
ripped off my ribs. Turns out
I was too stressed. I drink more
now. The next light will be it.
There’s a Christian bookstore
where an old lover works. He’d
fill me with his spirit. Across
from there is the tattoo place
I decorated myself at. Their work
is the black parrot on my white
back. The less sun I get
the more impressive it is. Understand?


I'll Take the Superfriends Anyday

It’s un-American to not love
mutant spiders, especially those
shaped like men. Mr. Parker

we sympathize when you cry
and wonder: are those tears
radioactive? OK, never come

to Toledo, you will lose your
charm walking between crimes.
There’s not much swinging

between ranch houses, trust me
I’ve tried. Besides, I want a super
hero with a bigger enemy than

depression. Hell, if a second class
poet can get a date, you should
be able to get laid. What happened

to the Russians or terrorists or bad
acting as crimes against humanity?
I need someone who can fly or run

faster than a pen can scribble. Give up
the red, white and blue tights and let
someone who deserves a job have yours.

-all poems previoulsy published at Frigg Magazine