Some Raw Poems from RAW NerVZ HAIKU

by

John J. Dunphy

RAW Nervz HAIKU was a Canadian-based journal that published disturbing, cutting edge works. These are just a few of the poems I had published in it.

______

eighteenth birthday

he draws a cake with candles

on his cell wall

_____

ANOTHER FAG IN HELL

protesters wave signs

outside the funeral home

_____

battered women’s shelter

staff gives the new client

a baby shower

_____

street corner

child places a rose inside

the body’s chalk outline

_____

preacher’s benediction

at the anti-gay rights rally

“Let us prey….”

_____

dining out

homeless family scrounges through

a restaurant’s garbage cans

_____

golden anniversary

couple toast themselves

in the soup kitchen

_____

inner city

a gala Christmas wreath

chained and padlocked to a door

_____

Nam vet

stares at his Bronze Star

in the pawnshop window

_____

artificial intelligence

the politician delivers

a prepared speech

_____

inner city

the cookies left for Santa

nibbled by a rat

_____

inner city

teacher deletes another name

from her class roster

_____

divorce court

woman testifies

through her wired jaw

John J. Dunphy’s poetry works include Old Soldiers Fading Away, Zen Koanhead, Touching Each Tree, Stellar Possibilities and Dark Nebulae. His prose works include Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials: The Investigative Work of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, 1945–1947, From Christmas to Twelfth Night in Southern Illinois, and Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois.