Vox Populi
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Daniel Lawless: Velda the Seer
We all have a little fortuneteller in us,
She would say, years later, recalling
The day Mick, my sister’s wounded punk/gear-head
Boyfriend in the seventies vamooshed
For good again, hauling ass Killing Joke blaring
Down Eleanor in his Camaro straight-pipe;
.
Touching my own cheek as she says this, as if she can see
The red palm slap there, courtesy
Of Raymond, sweet sweater-y sexagenarian
Raymond. The red palm slap and the bruise
That bloomed beneath the bruise
And the one beneath that one.
Copyright Daniel Lawless, 2018. From The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With (Salmon Poetry, 2018). Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
Daniel Lawless is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Plume: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry. He lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.
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It’s always amazing to me how a poem can carry so much pain and yet with imagery and quiet cadence that lets us bear it with the speaker. A long way for me to say, wow.
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Yes, the poem is a glimpse into the pain of this boy.
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Tight and tough and poignant and brutal and restrained and so moving. I remember reading it in The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With, and shivering…
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Good description of Danny’s style, especially evident in this poem. Thanks Laure-Anne!
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