The Futures Market
by Keith Reid
Love’s a lie
And the truth’s a target
The well’s on fire
In the futures market
Greed runs riot
And the rumours spark it
It’s day for night
In the futures market
We’re clear of pork bellies
We’ve gone soft on jellies
Our stance is pro-active
Any chance is attractive
How much have you got
How soon can you pay
These are the questions
We face every day
Are you a winner
Do you understand
If you can’t deliver
You ain’t worth a damn
We’re focused and vocal
Commitment is total
We’re maxing the plastic
And skipping the fantastic
Positions are vital
Commissions delightful
Consumption is growing
Our prospects are glowing
Love’s a lie
And the truth’s a target
The well’s on fire
In the futures market
Greed runs riot
And the rumours spark it
It’s day for night
In the futures market
Gary Lawless has won the prestigious Constance H. Carlson Public Humanities Prize
Long-time TCR contributor and supporter Gary Lawless has won the prestigious Constance H. Carlson Public Humanities Prize from the Maine Humanities Council! Join us in celebration. #MaineHumanitiesCouncil #MainePoetry #Poetry
Queen of Cups Issue Thirty-Six featuring Megan Grumbling
Check out the latest issue of the Queen of Cups featuring poems by our Reviews Editor, Megan Grumbling. You can check out more about this publication here: http://tinyletter.com/QueenofCups/letters/queen-of-cups-issue-thirty-six-megan-grumbling-and-the-high-priestess. Below is an excerpt about this issue featuring Megan’s work!
….”Welcome to Queen of Cups Issue Thirty-Six featuring Megan Grumbling and The High Priestess. ……. The poems appear in Grumbling’s collection Booker’s Point, published in 2016 by University of North Texas Press. Booker’s Point has been called an ‘oral-history-inspired portrait-in-verse’ and centers around old-time Mainer Bernard Booker. Grumbling captures the meandering, oral storytelling nature of Booker often in stylistically formal, metered verse. That juxtaposition strikes me as very ‘old New England’, ironically, as oral narratives which might appear open-ended and loose are in fact well-honed from years of telling. I’ve spent at least a few afternoons talking to old timers just like Booker! Many are working farmers who have a million and one things to do, but make it appear as though they have all the time in the world to spend on this one story. So the listener, by association, has all the time in the world too. Give them a few props: shapes of stones in a hearth, ‘four warped planks’, a red bike like that other red bike from around 1938, then sit back and enjoy. Impromptu oral storytelling is becoming something of a lost art as we have, or take, less time to reminisce, and also less face to face conversation with people who don’t already know our stories.”— from tinyletter.com
Dana Wilde
Dana Wilde lives in Troy, Maine. His writings have appeared widely in literary and academic journals, books, magazines, and newspapers, including The Café Review, Detritus, Exquisite Corpse, House Organ, Antigonish Review, North American Review, and many others. His poetry reviews column Off Radar currently runs bimonthly in the Central maine.com newspapers. His recent book is Summer to Fall, published by North Country Press.

