Lyrical Grain, Doggerel Chaff, & Pedestrian Preoccupations by Dave Roskos
Copyright, Dave Roskos 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Edition.
Book cover by Angela Mark & interior design by Kayla Riportella. ISBN-10:0991152395 1SBN-13:978-0-9911523-9-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015957648 . Cat in the Sun Books 5 Edgewood Road Binghamton, NY 13903 Joe Weil, publisher Emily Vogel, editor Micah Towery, advisor.
Special thanks to Jen Dunford, Matt Borkowski, Ken Greenley, Bob Surbrug, Joe Weill, The Anti-Civilization League, Michael Basinski, Bertha Sanchez Bello, John Bennett, Joel Bertin, Gene Bloom & Entrails-the magazine of Happy Obscenity, Bree, Don Catena, David Aaron Clark, Jim Cohn, Cait Collins, Dave Cope, Michael Darrah, Edie Eustice, Len Fulton, Ed Galing, Andrew Gettler, Anthony George, Miriam Halliday-Borkowski, James Harbough, Loring Hughes, Boni Joi, Dwyer Jones, Herr Klaus, Tom Kryss, Deborah LaVeglia, Donald Lev, Zakit Levine, Angela Mark, Arthur Milgrom, Todd Moore, Tom Obrzut, Harvey Pekar, Michael Pingarron, Tom Pulhamus, John Lunar Richey, Bob Rixon, rjs, Kell Robertson, Scott Roskos, Stuart N. Ross, Kelly Ryan, Joe Salerno, Louis Schwarcz, Betsy Robin Schwartz, Pedro Angel Serrano, Michael Shores, Hal Stacey, Lamont Steptoe, Jerry Weido, Larry Weissenburger, S.Clay Wilson & Micah, Kayla, Emily & everyone else at Cat in the Sun Books.
These poems were written between 1983 & 2014. They are not sequenced here in the order they were written. Some of were published in the following publications:
Black Swan Review, Arbella, The Aquarian, Bouillabaisse, DIONYSOS (The Journal of Literature and Addiction), Drive-by Books, Flipside, Green Panda Press, Guts, Half Dozen of the Other, HEATHENzine, The Outlaw Bible of American. Poetry, TOO MUCH Tales of Excess. (Unknown Press), The Energy of the Flesh, (Iniquity Press), Intensive Care (Black Rabbit Press), Lyrical Grain, Doggerel Chaff & Pedestrian, Preoccupations (Iniquity Press), JACK HAMMER (Beehive Press), Home Planet News, Temp Slave, Big Hammer, Street Value, Fall & All (Iniquity Press), LUMMOX Journal, Nerve Bundle Review, Poems of the Plague Fighters: Voices from the Needle-Exchange Milieu (NASEN), Lost & Found Times, Quimby, Long Shot, Cheap & Easy Magazine, Cokefish, New Jersey Bowel & Bladder Control, FUCK!, THE-HOLD Underbeat Journal #2, 48th Street Press Broadsides, The Mas Tequila Review, Barbaric Yawp, Working Hard for the Money (Bottom Dog Press), Blue Collar Review, RENEGADE FLOWERS: The LevyFest 2014 Anthology (Hydeout Press), Big Scream, Napalm Health Spa, Babel mag, COVER, Curare, Weird Poetry (American Living Press), The Paterson Literary Review, The National Alliance, Nerve Cowboy, Saint Vitus’ Dance, Without Halos, Rubber Puppy & online at The Outlaw Poetry Network, POETS on the line, Babel, Napalm Health Spa / MAP (Museum of American Poetics), Busted Dharma, Misfit magazine, Concrete Meat Sheet, The The Poetry, The-Hold. Thanks. Apologies to any pubs I couldn’t recall…
Lyrical Grain, Doggerel Chaff, & Pedestrian Preoccupations will remind you that everything – waste paper emerging from melting snow in a lot, the memory of midnights in bus shelters at twenty below, tangled skeins of work places that read like a manual on how to survive without really suffocating, spectacles of solidarity with those who have nothing to give but themselves — is, by far and away, worth our time and reflection. Accompany Roskos to, for instance, the Laundromat where on this particular occasion successive buffers of bad luck pinball him through so many twists and turns we almost lose sight of the equanimity of the human spirit and the humor that often informs moments of loss. Hunch down next to him in the shadow of the nacreous wall as he pulls the crushed pack from his coat and regards it with what amounts to a curious mixture of distaste forbearance before looking you straight in the eye and asking the question he’s asked so many times it’s taken on air of guarded expectance, taps once, twice, allows your own hand to make the next move. — Tom Kryss
Miles To Go
listening to bitches brew
working on poems
it’s not birth of the cool
or kind of blue
but it’ll do
__ Dave Roskos