FEATURED POEM: “Finally, Someone Made a Fashion Week Video That Feels Like a Ketamine Trip on a Farm!”
Yes, I was (occasionally) a very bad boy in the '‘80s. I plead YOLO. I’m delighted to have this poem published in The Southern Review’s Summer 2026 issue. Perfect for these over-heated days.
After you’ve read it, go back and read just the end words of each line from top to bottom for a little surprise.
“Finally, Someone Made a Fashion Week Video
That Feels Like a Ketamine Trip on a Farm!”
––Rachel Tashjian, GQ.com, September 17, 2020
Marlene and I gave side-eye and said, “Finally!”
at exactly the same time, when Buzz and someone
named Jaeger who he used to hang with made
it at last to the St.s Mark’s Bar & Grill. They’d paid a
visit to the candy store and got whatever was in fashion
then. We sat in the same corner week after week,
downing cheap cocktails, porn and punk-rock video
tripping across the bar’s big-screen TVs. That
particular summer was hot––hot like how it feels
in the backroom at CrowBar on Friday night, like
a sweat-soaked T-shirt after dancing to “My Sharona.” A
friend of Jaeger’s who’d just sworn off Ketamine
knew where there was a hole (isn’t that a trip!)
in the fence around the public swimming pool on
Carmine Street. We went skinny-dipping, high as a
hedge of sunflowers hiding pot on an upstate farm.
READ SOME OTHER POEMS (Click on the hot-linked grey text)
“Monkey in a Red Fez,” NIne Mile Magazine, Spring 2026 (scroll down; poems are alphabetical by author’s last name)
“The Prize,” Indianapolis Review, Spring 2025
“Boy Jumping Off a Cliff,” “Audrey Hepburn and the Southern Belle Soirée,” and “Highway at Night,” South Florida Poetry Journal, Issue #33, May 2024 (scroll down; poems are alphabetical by author’s last name)
“A Friend Writes from Paris” and “Inventory,” The Inquisitive Eater (New School Food), 2024
“Red Geraniums,” The Rainbow Project (Poets Wear Prada)
“Act III” and “Lo Stadio dei Marmi, Rome," Inlandia Journal
“Sonnet with Birch Trees, Tatars, and Crayolas” Cider Press Review, Vol.25 Issue #1
“Somewhere in Georgia” and “Belated Valentine for Alex,” Under a Warm Green Linden
“The Death of Heidegger,” Penn Review
“Christ of the Frogs, with Thieves,” “Catchment,” and “Operating Instructions” Full Bleed, (Maryland Institute College of Art)
“On the Sayville Ferry,” The Westchester Review
“Boy, Stepping from the Shower, a Towel around His Waist,” Full Bleed, (Maryland Institute College of Art)
“December 31st,” The Inquisitive Eater (New School Food)
“At the Precise Moment of the Solstice” and “First Encounter,” Marathon Literary Review (Arcadia University, Philadelphia)
“Monet vs. The International Pop Art Exhibit,” Honorable Mention, E. E. Cummings Prize, New England Poetry Club.
“Cytokinesophobia,” Palette Poetry
“Questions for Anthropophogists” - The Inquisitive Eater (New School Food)
“Predilections of the Carnivores” - The Inquisitive Eater (New School Food)
“Self-Driving Tesla Involved in Fatal Crash” - New Verse News
“Correction” - New Verse News