Poetry by Rich Furman

 

And life just carries on

 

Nowhere ghetto streets

we live near and

step out from the bar.

Hear, white boy this.

white boy that.

Play me that song

of my shameful guilt

too many year. Free.

Silence, four am,

too still to write

everything jumps and cold

die a few hours,

until more nothing.

Moon too tired

doing naked cartwheels.

The piranhas

with loafers. Pennies.

Irradiated carrots.

Eyes to creamy soup.

Philadelphia a dying shanty.

Minds goat cheese feaster

The Pacific too far.

Sand crabs

live no more.

 

 

 

 

About the Author

 

Rich Furman, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Colorado State University, his poetry has been published or is soon to be published in Red Rock Review, Colere, Pearl, Hawai’i Review, Black Bear Review, The Journal of Poetry Therapy, Poetry Motel, Penn Review, and well over 100 poems in nearly 100 literary journals. His work has been described as neither street nor beat nor meat nor academic, but an emotionally evocative mix of styles that can be brutally imagistic or powerfully terse. His scholarly writing is concerned with social work ethics, international social work, friendship, social work theory and social work practice. He teaches group and practice courses in the BSW and MSW programs. He is married to a wonderful women who has more freckles than there are craters on the moon, has two children, loves to mountain bike, and is slightly obsessed with his two spectacular, drooling American Bull dogs. He loves Vietnamese beef noodle soup, Pho, and would gratefully accept any express mailed shipments of it from regions afar. You can’t find it in the plains of northern Colorado. Mostly, he just likes to live as fully as possibly. He welcomes feedback, comments and dialogue about his work. His first chapbook of poetry, of only average intent, was printed by Snorting Dog Press in 2002. He is currently seeking a publisher for his first full-length book, The Trotting Race of Time, 72 pages of poems which subtlety deal with the social conditions in Latin America, alienation, and triumph. He is also working on a anthology of poetry about friendship.