Our poet this issue is Chad Parenteau.  Chad is a poet and freelance writer living in the Boston area. His poems have appeared in Ibbetson Street, Beacon Street Review, Meanie and others. He will appearing on Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer on SCAT, Channel 3 at 5 p.m.,  Feb. 8.  To have your poems considered send them to: Doug Holder  25 School St.  Somerville, Mass. 02143

Sonnet for Ginsberg

I could put my gutter mouth to the wheel, or write lines

so long they could link around this page, but I figure

with all the cloning tributes, you’d appreciate my own lines.

And I’ll give you honesty, which you may appreciate more.

I heard of your death three days after the fact. I spent the weekend

finding an apartment to feel less homeless, serving huddled tables

of customers, watching everyone lose the human

war. Once on Mass. Ave, the smell of a steaming manhole

made me think of gym socks. Then I thought, if Levine were here,

he’d imagine the souls of countless workers who had to return

to their families unclean. Were Simic to take a whiff, he might declare,

"This is Satan Farting!" I felt inferior then, for my own

image, but after you died, I thought it would work fine

and started writing, not wanting to be in my right mind.

Doug Holder   http://www.authorsden.com/douglasholder