The Poems

Old School

From the Halloween, 2008, issue 

(No. 21)

And I find myself driving through the neighbourhood,

the baseball diamond, the church, the smoke & gyp,

the place where I was born.

It occurs to me: monsters are as real

as the New York Times, as the headlines.

Revelation has more facts in it than a history textbook.

I should know. I know them both, equally.

Kids believe in magic.

They come right to your door.

Trick or treat. Oh, it would be a treat

to trick with you.

Zip ties changed the whole game.

No more keys to lose, no more rattly handcuffs.

Quick. Quiet. Nice and smooth.

Those Internet freaks, with their electric trophies?

Those onanistic losers that every parent’s terrified of?

Amateurs. Rank fucking amateurs

who wouldn’t know beauty

if they found it in their soup.

Patrick Rawley lives in Christie-Ossington. His work has appeared in This, Word, Dig, and the anthology The I.V. Lounge Reader (Insomniac, 2001), and he knows all the words to the Spider-Man theme song. He has contributed to the magazine since 2001. Last updated Halloween, 2008.
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