Featured Poet: Rick Kearns
Raven Rabbit Ram is proud to publish three pieces from Rick Kearns. This is the first publication for "Killer Cold" and "Artists for Spare Change." "Doc and Ellen" can be found in the 2018 chapbook The Dead Go Swimming.
Rick Kearns (aka Kearns-Morales) is a writer, teacher, and musician of Puerto Rican and European heritage from Harrisburg, Pa. His poems have appeared in over 70 literary publications, most in the US but a few in Ireland, UK, Puerto Rico, and Argentina. He was named Poet Laureate of Harrisburg in 2014. Kearns is also a freelance journalist. His author’s website is: rickearns.com
Killer Cold
Back in those days
I worked frontline
mh emergency crew
called in when mostly
poor or working class
people were snapping
or
had a psychotic break
or
they didn't want to handle
whomever
it was a day like this
killer cold, they said
I got the call
church across the street
trembling voice telling me
"he's just laying there"
and he was
older homeless guy
stretched out on the
sidewalk
facedown
who didn't quite
make it to the church's
backdoor the night before
I never found out
if they ever located family
I always think of him
when I hear the phrase
killer cold
I remember leaning down
and patting his shoulder
kneeling by him for a minute
killer cold
only happens
when no one else
who cares
is there
Artists For Spare Change
the young ladies
of Avignon
move slowly
down the stairs
and onto the square
by the hairy saxman
jamming on 2nd Street where
the old Spot used to be.
When they tore down
the original Spot
they discovered a
circle of grease with
a diameter of 30 feet.
Scientists and archaeologists
were called in to create
The Allnight Diner Museum.
Shopping cart Mary
was "re-located" to a
garage on the hill and
all the pawn shops
and adult theaters
were torn down to increase
the possibility of
proactive synchronicity.
Van Gogh's crows
fly en masse
out of windows of the
abandoned steel plant
downriver from
aggressive toupees and
their touch scream uphones
and artisanal gas chambers.
Rats, opossums, and ghosts
speaking 10 different languages
scamper and fly around
the old steel mill
still unreachable to the
robocalling vulture fund managers
who are eager to eat your children
and accept your master race card.
Doc and Ellen
the old lady is still there
sitting on a porch swing
long gone
smoking virginia slims