2 Poems (Netflix at Room Temperature & The Carnie at the Switch)

Netflix at Room Temperature 

Without Chill, one’s just watching movies

solo dolo, picture-stories that may uplift

or lack an overall effect. The pleasure then

is snacks. Without a warm body,

sole control of the remote is the apex benefit.

Cold comfort to the detached or the socially

un-jacked-in who respectively won’t or can’t

raise a companion who’ll land in spooning position,

start with upright intentions then miss

the rising action of the film.

The Carnie at the Switch

 It’s day three paroled with Jackson Prison fading

into a bad memory. I see hardscrabble alcoholics

set up the carnival downtown. My people.

Made my own fruit liquor in lockup.

Find the boss-man. I tell him,

“I can Tilt-o-whirl like a motherfucker.

What’s the meal plan?”

He says, “Quit swearing. No drugs.

Don’t flirt with the women.”

About the contributors: Todd Mercer was nominated for Best of the Net in 2018. Mercer won 1st, 2nd & 3rd place of the Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Prizes and the won Grand Rapids Festival Flash Fiction Prize. His chapbook Life-wish Maintenance is posted at Right Hand Pointing. Recent work appears in: Down in the Dirt, The Drabble, Praxis and Softblow.