Frank Reardon was born in 1974 in Boston, Massachusetts and spent his first 28 years living there. Since then he has lived all over the country in places such as Alabama, Kansas City, and Rhode Island. He currently lives in the Badlands of North Dakota, still looking for a way to get out. Frank has been published in various reviews, journals and online zines. His first book, Interstate Chokehold, was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2009. Frank is in the process of completing a third poetry collection For Punk Hostage Press, titled: Blood Music---------
Sometimes it gets so bad that our failures are all we've got left to celebrate
We arrived in Pittsburgh
at 2 a.m.,
it was always
2 a.m. in Pittsburgh,
the bus driver
told us
that we could smoke
inside of the cage,
& like the cow
before
the sledgehammer
we slowly filed
inside
& lit our cigarettes
in unison
we stood in different
sections
of the cage, saying
nothing
to one another
with our head-clouds
of smoke,
& glowing cherries,
myself, I thought
about what day,
& what time
I would arrive
in Huntsville,
I thought about
my ex wife
& how she couldn’t
care less that I lived
on buses,
how she gladly
counted out
the last of my money
I had sent her
the week before,
how she laughed
out loud
because I lived off
of Slim Jim's
& how everything
I owned
was inside
of one suitcase,
how she mocked me
to her friends,
& to the universe
that I was off
in the world
writing poetry,
trying to find
a voice
& how I was going
to be a huge
failure,
then, an old woman,
who smelled
like a bag of shit
left on a porch
for 4 days,
asked me for
a cigarette,
I gave her one
& she continued
to stand
next to me
for what seemed
like an eternity,
the smell got so bad
that I began
to celebrate it,
& when the bus driver
finally called out
for us to return
to the bus in 5 minutes,
I lit another one,
I gave the shit
stinking lady
another one, too,
I leaned
into her smell,
as if half of me
was inside another
dimension,
& lit the cigarette
for her,
she thanked
me with a nod,
& while we watched
all the people
inside the cage
stomping
out the cigarettes
with a nervous frenzy
& start rushing
for the bus
so they would
not be left behind,
the smelly old lady
looked up
into the Pittsburgh
sky, blew out
a huge cloud
of smoke & said:
" thank god,
we still
have the stars"
at 2 a.m.,
it was always
2 a.m. in Pittsburgh,
the bus driver
told us
that we could smoke
inside of the cage,
& like the cow
before
the sledgehammer
we slowly filed
inside
& lit our cigarettes
in unison
we stood in different
sections
of the cage, saying
nothing
to one another
with our head-clouds
of smoke,
& glowing cherries,
myself, I thought
about what day,
& what time
I would arrive
in Huntsville,
I thought about
my ex wife
& how she couldn’t
care less that I lived
on buses,
how she gladly
counted out
the last of my money
I had sent her
the week before,
how she laughed
out loud
because I lived off
of Slim Jim's
& how everything
I owned
was inside
of one suitcase,
how she mocked me
to her friends,
& to the universe
that I was off
in the world
writing poetry,
trying to find
a voice
& how I was going
to be a huge
failure,
then, an old woman,
who smelled
like a bag of shit
left on a porch
for 4 days,
asked me for
a cigarette,
I gave her one
& she continued
to stand
next to me
for what seemed
like an eternity,
the smell got so bad
that I began
to celebrate it,
& when the bus driver
finally called out
for us to return
to the bus in 5 minutes,
I lit another one,
I gave the shit
stinking lady
another one, too,
I leaned
into her smell,
as if half of me
was inside another
dimension,
& lit the cigarette
for her,
she thanked
me with a nod,
& while we watched
all the people
inside the cage
stomping
out the cigarettes
with a nervous frenzy
& start rushing
for the bus
so they would
not be left behind,
the smelly old lady
looked up
into the Pittsburgh
sky, blew out
a huge cloud
of smoke & said:
" thank god,
we still
have the stars"