Three Poems by Steven Grant

End Jamb

The conversation was rife

with well timed

pauses; intended

to keep balance at

bay. I raised my glass, sipped

slowly--deliberately.

“We really need to

talk” echoed over

the tinkle of

glass and silver

night.

“Maybe some time” // “apart”

(caesura)

The evening’s exchange wore down, then end-stopped.

Inside Joke

A phone rings in the darkness

of a Tuesday night and I

raise my glass and whisper,

“please leave a message at the tone”

I am chasing heart failure in bathtub

or aspirated vomit on a toilet seat,

but I might be a few corrosives short.

The footsteps outside my window

continue to come and go, but they

only motivate me to turn up the radio

and crack another tax stamp.

You told me once that all things

have a beginning as well as an end,

and I laughed at your pessimism.

As I sit here alone on the crest

of Wednesday morning crash

I can’t remember why

I thought that was funny.

Lycaon of the Lower East Side

Full moon Friday calls:

The promise of night

cloaks the travertine

and glass temples of man.

Silhouettes shape-shift

beyond streetlight glare

and gather in the shadows.

I am the seventh son;

dark ruler of alphabet city,

hungry in the lunar phase.

Satisfaction struts

in 4 inch heels

down Bleecker Street,

Chanel marinade

follows the footfall.

I watch with amber eye

and hold my tongue

behind eager teeth.

Tonight she will be my love,

and I will finally sleep--

safe from Aconitum dawn.

Steven Grant

is a hospitality sales professional living and working in New York City. A former journalist, musician and slacking underachiever, his first volume of poetry “Another Hotel Room” is currently languishing unsold at Amazon.com Steven’s poems have appeared in The Writer, The Ampersand (&) Review, The Melancholy Dane, Spring Harvest, VVC Drama & English Literary Journal, The Flask & Pen and any web site with low enough standards to accept his work. He graduated from a school you’ve never heard of and had so many majors that even he is confused as to what his degree is in. His languishing book o' poems is available here.