TWO POEMS by JEREMY FREEDMAN

Golden Years

In August we really went to town on it, ethics be damned.

You helped me spend that gangster cash, and it was a juicy story.

We were eating the world’s best breakfast sandwich

in anticipation of the best summer day, the last desultory day

before the earth’s axis hits tilt and the light begins to fail

like it’s slowly going blind and the lion eats the lion tamer

with all the complex sadness of its rage. Bowie says run

for the shadows when the sun burns too hot for the days to number.

I’m finally gonna get that Joan Jett tattoo removal kit in the mail.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Let’s get ready to rumble.


Present Tense

This December day with its throat cut

is bleeding out. Dead-handed trees

excoriate the wound. Ah! This has to be

another poem about my feelings.

I didn’t want to make this my bio and yet

form changes form from present to past

from boredom to passion on this interstate

highway as I drive my reckless old car

into the rut of night, blasting the Clash

in mercenary fashion.

Beneath the arc of glass, the lowering

moon, resentful as a glowering traffic cop,

eyes enfolded under shadow,

mutters “fucksa matter with that guy,

he’s way over the limit.”

I hope my death, when it finally arrives,

in its incomprehensibility, will bore me

to my utmost human capacity.

And speaking of a mature destiny:

what am I to those darkling trees,

in their nature, or they to me?

Form is form only until time lessens love.

We should have done it in that rest stop

bathroom where it was safe and warm

and we had not yet heard any future music.

That was where the poetry happened,

that time I wrote on the cracked mirror

of my joy. I used your blood-red lipstick.


Jeremy Freedman lives in in New York City, where he writes poems and takes photographs. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks: “Apophenia” (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and “Douchebag Sonnets” (Bullshit Lit, 2022) and his poems have been published by Unique Poetry Journal, Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, Anti-Heroin Chic, Pioneertown, Lillet Press, and many others. His photographs have been exhibited in Europe and the United States and have been featured in numerous journals. Each year, he spends up to twelve hours in elevators and a full day brushing his teeth, but usually not all at once. More work can be seen at jfreenyc.com and on Instagram @jfreenyc.

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A THING by MIRANDA STEINWAY