Michael Pruchnicki Poems

Once I lived in a village not far
from the thirty-eighth parallel
near Kaesong, in fact
...

Listen up, I speak to you
from the region of the damned
and those who lust after fame
and wealth as a poet
...

I'd like to write a romantic comedy
in four acts like Will Shakespeare did
Tragedy's not for me, you can see
by the bells and cap I wear
...

Taverns along Milwaukee Avenue
near the expressway are bright
with red neon beer signs
...

Every Spring I look forward to the storms
of November that roll down from up north

Green trees and warm sun adumbrates
...

Once I saw a black & white photo
taken by a Japanese tourist
of London schoolboys
walking briskly to grammar school.
...

Far from the raging sea
folks born and bred ashore
live in a town called Limbo
tucked away in a green glen
...

It was the eve of Thanksgiving
and a night black and cold as hell,
with a stiff north wind blowing
down across the barren slopes
...

One summer I taught with a guy fixated on flicks
I mean those 16mm films teachers used
to get away from textbooks
...

Let me tell you how it went, Skipper,
that day we came to the first of the islands;
our barge struck a coral reef about 1500 yards offshore.
We sat high and dry in the shallow waters.
...