SATURDAY'S POEM

J.C. PENNEY HAIKU
by Michael Kriesel

Love songs repeating
and posters of pre-teens in
neon bikinis

*

bitching about men
and work they stay anyway
employee discount

*

pushing garbage cans
past the jewelry counter
totally happy

*

try explaining joy
to a girl with seven coats
or celibacy

Michael Kriesel is central Wisconsin's hermit poet. We visited the hermitage near Wausau last August and interviewed him, starting here. Kriesel is the author of Chasing Saturday Night: Poems About Rural Wisconsin published by Marsh River Editions. He has received three Pushcart Prize nominations, and the 2004 Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. He serves on the Wisconsin State Poet Laureate Commission. His poems have appeared in The Progressive, Bitter Oleander, and Rosebud, and his reviews appear in Library Journal and Small Press Review.

-----------------------------------

A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to [email protected] . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some few high class readers. Click here for complete index of and access to "Saturday's Poems" poems published prior to September 18, 2004.

Comments

[Peter]

That second stanza is a fine haiku!