Vox Populi
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Jason Irwin: Two Poems
Morning in Metropolis
Outside the Greyhound terminal
they take their places like actors on a stage:
the bejeweled pimp, flashing his Come to Daddy
devil’s grin, at the midwestern girl with stars
in her eyes whose just ridden for over thirty hours,
trying to escape her life; a homeless woman
picking through the trash, & a huckster
with a hair-sprayed comb-over, who glides
walnut shells across a card table
like a Quija board’s planchette.
On the corner, a folk singer plucks
an out-of-tune guitar & cries, Is this the end,
my friend? Satan’s comin’ ‘round the bend.
~~~
Coming to Terms with My Childhood
Was that me—purple streaks
running through my hair,
a perpetual ring of dirt,
like a birthmark circling my neck—
that unconsolable, pain the ass
my father claims never listened,
never, ever took a word of advice—
the one who stole
from the liquor cabinet, pissed
in elevators & screamed obscenities
whenever I passed the School for the Deaf?
~~~~
Copyright 2026 Jason Irwin
Jason Irwin is the author of the memoir These Fragments I Have Shored (forthcoming from Apprentice House Press in 2026), as well as the poetry collections, The History of Our Vagrancies (Main Street Rag, 2020), A Blister of Stars (Low Ghost, 2016) & Watering the Dead, winner of the Transcontinental Poetry Award ( Pavement Saw Press, 2008).
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Poignant, pure poems of pure loneliness and the human condition. Such acute observation & unflinching emotional courage. Bravo.
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These poems are perfect together. The images are getting me there. And, yes, when we were kids…
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yes, the poems are perfect together. As Sean says, the outside and the inside.
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Jason, such wonderful visual poems. Images in my mind from reading your words. Congratulations!
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Thanks Michael!
and thanks Sean.
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Dark beautiful poems, Jason. Thanks for being willing to share these.
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Holy Shit Michael!
Another fabulous poet from Pittsburgh!
Maybe I’m going to leave here.
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One of the reasons Eva and I moved to Pittsburgh in 1987 was to join the vibrant poetry and arts community here, and it has continued to grow since then. I’m very grateful to be a Pittsburgh poet.
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A wonderful brace of poems set together, fleshing Outer and inner worlds. The first is like Picasso’s rose period painting of the “Saltimbanques” description every bit as sure and vivid, and that awful boy. Oh shame! Who isn’t affected by this heartful self deprecation? I’ve been willing to turn against myself my whole life. Does it stop?
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Yes, capturing the disgust the older man feels for his younger self is very difficult. Most of us don’t want to think about how selfish and unaware we were…
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