new from above/ground press: 13 more songs the radio won’t play …, by Stan Rogal

13 more songs the radio won’t play …
Stan Rogal
$5

Comes Love

Why, baby, why, baby, why, baby, why?
Questions of the soon-to-be-slain.
Where fat grim orange jack-o-lanterns leer
& empty vases you endow with flowers
fill the gloom.
That’s all brother (don’t try hiding).
Comes love, nothing can be done.

It’s a cheating situation, yes?
Love shall be blonder, slimmer, younger.
Will be the bomb, the door in the wall,
an offer of instantaneous intimacy,
of perpetual (e)motion.
That’s all brother (don’t try hiding).
Comes love, nothing can be done.

Ah, sweet easing away of all edge, evil & surprise!
The sometimes mouth that masticates or gags.
Everything that acts is actual.
(I believe it’s the auratic quality that sucks one in).
Comes a sad song, give your nose a little blow.
Comes the devil, you can tell him where to go.
Comes love?
That’s all brother (don’t try hiding).         
Comes love, nothing can be done.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
December 2021
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Stan Rogal lives and writes in relative obscurity in the hamlet known as Toronto. He has been rumoured to have published widely and is the apparent author of 25 books (6 novels, 7 story and 12 poetry) and several chapbooks (most with above/ground press). He is a former Master bowler and retired dart champion.  

This is Rogal’s sixth above/ground press chapbook, after In Search of the Emerald City (1997), “THE CELEBRITY RAG: Opá” (STANZAS #44, March 2006), All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (2004), muscle memory (2018) and ALAS & ALACK (2020).

To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com