Frederick Pollack
Not everything, sometimes surprisingly little,
appears on social media. But at twilight
those with a yard sit beside or amidst
the yard with, in this neighborhood,
a bottle and glasses, not cans. Relationships, even
gender are hard to discern at
this distance, but the tone is more
the more pressured exchange of friendship
than the comfortable growl of marriage.
What is the confidence, the data? Some
variables or rather constants remain
undefined, and the crux may be
a change of spouse, affection, fortune, or merely
of residence; the departure, physical or otherwise,
of children. There is not the respect
that greets disease in others, the monotony
about one’s own, or confession. As
they drink, tears seldom,
more often a sort of laughter
and wisdom worn to featurelessness calm
and slur the voices. Which my distant mic
picks up, and on which could be based
an empathetic masterpiece
if I could break the code.
Frederick Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS, both Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press. Two collections of shorter poems, A POVERTY OF WORDS, (Prolific Press, 2015) and LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018). Pollack has appeared in Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Magma (UK), Bateau, Fulcrum, Chiron Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, etc. Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire Review, Mudlark, Rat’s Ass Review, Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, etc.