The June Featured Poet is

Fred R. Kane

Please feel free to email Fred at: manfred_arcane@yahoo.com

EATING VEGETABLES

When I was seven, my step dad’s mother: a registered nurse, and a strict disciplinarian,
thought she could force me to eat calf’s liver and Brussels-sprouts. For my own good, you understand.
After I tried resisting for time seemingly unending, I finally gave in.
The evil dish, made worse from going cold, didn’t sit right in my gut.
I blew liver and sprout chunks all over step-granny.
I had it easy, I guess. Now, times have gotten harsh. I mean, the other day
I read how another step granny made a little girl run until she died from dehydration.
Made the poor child carry a fifteen pound piece of wood while she ran.
Things like this come to call when I’m eating vegetables.

After the Liver and Brussels-sprout trauma,
It took awhile, but
I finally got to where I can eat green things without blowing chunks:
trained myself to be up for new taste sensations.
Eating vegetables ain’t so bad anymore—
a little unresponsive, though,
and I hate having to roll ‘em over in their hospital beds.

SOME PARTY

Waking up in a bath tub full of ice:
touching stitches on my chest.
See writing on the mirror:
“Thank you for your heart.”

Some party—
sure beats living.

WHEN THE PLAGUE DOCTORS CAME TO CALL

It was no great news when the plague doctors came to call.
They really had nothing to offer. Theirs: a backward
and fruitless practice.
Looking like penguin monks
with walking sticks
poking around in the pestilence,
stirring the shit—
Still,
the bodies are fewer than before,
the rats are leaving town.
The plague is dying off,
and somebody has to get it back on its feet again!

Uncomfortable with writing self bios, Fred R Kane, usually cops out with the phrase: “Born late, lived fast, slowed down—I came, I saw, I shrugged.” 

Although he considers himself primarily a song lyricist, Kane has been accused of writing poetry on occasion. Besides writing verse, Kane has written two short stories. They can be found in Necrotic Tissue #6, (or Necrotic Tissue: Best Of Anthology,) and issue #6 of Morpheus Tales.  If he could keep his knees out of the breeze long enough, he might finish the other three stories he’s working on.