Following up on my last post—Three Poems to be Published—I can now post two of them, below. (Once a magazine comes out, the rights revert back to the author). The first is from the magazine Constellations; the second, from the British magazine Seaside Gothic.
The One-Time Grandma
Was only four
the one time ever
she came to see me
brought me a truck
filled with hard candy
doors opened, tires rolled
just this one gauzy image—
her abundant, smiling face
craning down to me
a face that held a theater
I couldn’t know
of cobwebs and cold corners
of unpainted pain in triplicate
and difficult wishes boiling in pots
on an ancient stove
ears that held the screaming
of her sister being raped
over and over
by a mob of men
and of distant death
and death too close
at the hands of thugs and militias
hate, rape, thievery and murder
in the pogrom of 1905
as it had been for Jews
for millenniums
What Happened When We Emerged from the Ocean, Anyway
What happened when we
emerged from the ocean, anyway
returned from eternity
and the Moses shores
Reborn in the Jersey lights—
the high sheen of industrial
blood and glitzy sin
Here on the boardwalk
where kids fly across lit towers
and lizard eyes spy from wild rides
The wooden coaster tattoos
the horizon like a snake goddess,
great wheels topple to the music
of clatter and screams
A cavalcade of plush figures,
necklace of chance stands and fry huts,
where lunatic visages frame dark portals
with invitations to cheap seduction
Ghosts of Freud and Coney Island
yet watch from the grandstands
play Fascination with Madame Twisto
and the Mule-Faced Boy
Ten-wheelers tear the ancient sands
flowers show from the boxes
of jeweled motels where Jews
and Italians once shared radio songs
of Rosemary Clooney and Johnnie Ray
Wow, this is dark. And very cool. 
Allen Shadow 