PAINTING WITH THE COLOR PERFECT

In the anybody, nowhere world
Of soft skies, ice cream
And daffodils
The sick don’t get much heed
Because it’s not
That we don’t want to see
Them suffering so
We just don’t want to know,
That’s all
And if some ANYbody / NObody
Dies in an emergency ward
With NObody there to care
Or help,
We’ll say eulogies later
After all the guilty
Are punished
And all the newspaper ink
Is published

So just for you to know,
Just some newsYoucanuse -
We really do care,
Yes, we really, really do,
And if you watch the stocks
Downward spiraling
And the price of fossils
Flying up, up and away,
Just blame it on another slow
News day,

This world is a far mile
Or two to heaven
And nobody around here
Has a halo whirling around
The top of his or her skull
& a few emergency ward
Survivors swear they’ve
Seen Hell but there’s no
You Tube proof or candid
Camera shots from down
There-so don’t blame us
If we aren’t as perfect
As the angels in heaven,
Hell or even the fake ones
In Hollywoodland.

Sam Vargo worked most of his adult life as a newspaper reporter and editor. Vargo taught English Comp. at Youngstown State University, West Virginia State University, Univ. of North Florida, Florida Metropolitan Univ., Hinds Community College (Jackson, Miss.), and Jefferson Community College (Steubenville, Ohio). He was awarded an MA in English (from Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, USA)j. He received a BA in Political Science from YSU, too. He was fiction editor of Pig Iron Press, Youngstown, Ohio, for 12 years. Vargo’s creative writing has appeared in Ascent Aspirations, Bent Spoon, Blue Fifth, Centrifugal Eye, The Circle, Clark Street Review, Connecticut Review, The Cynic Online Magazine, Dandelion, Edifice WRECKED, Electric Acorn, Glass: A Poetry Journal, Gypsy Blood Review, Higgensville Reader, Late Knocking, Licking River Review, Lynx Eye, National Lampoon Humor Network (College Stories, The Frown, Points in Case), The Nocturnal Lyric, nthposition, Ohio Teachers Write, Poetry Motel, Projected Letters, Red Dancefloor, Reed, Small Press Review, Verve, undergroundwindow.com, Why Vandalism?, White Leaf Review U.K., Yasse, and numerous other presses and literary journals. A literary press – Literary Road from Seattle, Wash., will be publishing Vargo’s first collection of short stories sometime during the first half of 2008. It will be published under the title, Electric Onion Head and the Rotating Cyclops of the Month. Vargo is also marketing a book-length collection of poetry.

Email: Sam Vargo

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