Peter M. Gordon

THE DEUCE - 1978

How I miss that drug dealer chorus chanting, “Acid and grass,”
all wearing black suits, sunglasses, fedoras, occupying every doorway
between Seventh and Eighth Aves. Tongues darted between teeth

like snakes trying to mesmerize me into buying their wares. Women next
to them wore bright, tight shorts, low cut blouses, in orange, hot pink, red,
to stand out from bustling crowd, cries of “want a date?” brassy trumpets

to pimp’s baritone sax helped create the symphony, along with car horns,
calls from strip club touts, “Twenty girls, no cover charge!” punctuated
by beat of walking feet. In the thirties, the song sang Forty-Second Street

was where underworld met the elite. Moviegoers from then would have
been stunned to see theater marquees offer martial arts double bills
or straight porn like Horny Stewardesses, a triple X delight, lines of furtive

men in dark glasses, hats low, lined up to buy tickets. Block between
Seventh and Eighth Aves always mobbed with people, some commuters
walking the shortest, most dangerous route to Port Authority,

tourists with cameras slung around necks wondering what went wrong
  with their guidebook, con men seeking their next mark. Once plain
clothes cops arrested a dealer three feet in front of me, shoved

him up against a wall to frisk, just like in the movies. They pulled
  a .22 handgun out of his pocket, while I gaped but most of the crowd
kept walking. Why did I love it so? Why does the toreador confront

the bull? Those dens of vice gone now, replaced with legitimate
Broadway theatres and first run films; even a Madam Tussaud’s
Wax Museum. The Lion King plays at Seventh and Forty-Second Street

in a theatre once owned by Flo Ziegfeld, now restored. Today’s ripoffs
limited to overpriced pretzels and ‘I Love New York’ tee shirts. I sip decaf
in my Florida kitchen, feeling nostalgic about long-ago bravado,

my walk past bums, whores, drug dealers, junkies, pimps, runaways,
and realize I never lifted a finger to help any of them. I did not see them
as people; they were just part of the show. Guess I was a tourist after all.


Peter's YouTube reading of "The Deuce - 1978"


Peter confesses: "I was watching Taxi Driver on cable and was struck by the thought that young people watching it today might think the film's view of New York in the seventies was a fantasy, made up just for movies. That made me reflect on my experiences on 42nd Street during those years, and why I kept going back there."

PETER M. GORDON is an award-winning poet with over 180 poems published in various magazines and websites, He's authored three collections, and his latest is Middle Age Spread, available on amazon.com. Peter founded Orlando Area Poets, and is involved in several other poetry groups. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Peter M. Gordon

ASYLUM

What if you could only take what fits in your pockets
and one backpack? What will you leave behind?

The framed family photos will remain on walls.
House and car repossessed by banks. Furniture,

flat screens, autographed baseballs, books,
and vinyl records painstakingly collected

over decades, never seen again. Say goodbye
to that room full of craft projects and material.

At least you won’t need to worry about unwashed
dishes or dust on the gilt frame holding Grandma’s

portrait. Sure, upload digital videos of treasures
and poems to the cloud, hope where you end up

has internet. But don’t feel bitter about your life
in America during those days we led the free world.

That way lies madness. Accept you weren’t
brave enough to stay and fight for rule of law.

Remember the fate of ancestors who stayed too long
in Russia, Germany, Armenia, Rwanda, Somalia.

Upload your savings to off-shore accounts
and Swiss banks. Only numbered accounts.

No place is perfect but you can find some where
you can be free. What good are things, anyway,

if you can’t take them with you? Sell what you can
for cash, put silver and gold coins in money belts,

fill backpack with meds, jewels, identity papers,
flash drives, change of underwear, one notebook.

Your most important assets stay with you –
brains, skills, experience. Keep low. Stay alive.


Peter's YouTube reading of "Asylum"


Peter confesses: "An immigration lawyer told me that they’re receiving a record number of calls from people who are thinking about leaving the US. I thought about how hard it must have been for my ancestors to leave their homes to come here. Are there any safe places?"

PETER M. GORDON is an award-winning poet with over 180 poems published in various magazines and websites, He's authored three collections, and his latest is Middle Age Spread, available on amazon.com. Peter founded Orlando Area Poets, and is involved in several other poetry groups. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Middle Age Spread by Peter M. Gordon

Frequent contributor Peter M. Gordon sends word he's published a new poetry collection on Amazon.com:

In Middle Age Spread award-winning poet Peter M. Gordon delves into the mysteries and shared moments between friends and family, along with his thoughts about 30 years living in Central Florida. The collection includes the "Best of the Net" nominated poem, "Florida Man," the Thomas Burnett Swann Poetry award winning trio of "Home of the Brave," "Amateur Night, and "B & K Bungalow Colony," and many other contest and award winners from the last few years of Peter's poetry career.

Peter M. Gordon

JOE CHILL

Thomas Wayne, man in a hurry, didn’t fear
  hoodlums, rushed family through Crime Alley,
a shortcut. Joe Chill, waiting in the shadows
for rich pigeons, drew his .45, said, “I’ll take
 
those pearls the woman’s wearing.” Thomas
  thrust body between mugger and Martha,
his wife. Chill’s slug ripped through Thomas’
  chest and Martha’s heart, just another day 

at the office. Eight-year-old Bruce saw Chill rifle
  through father’s pockets, rip mother’s pearls off
her neck. Bruce spent Thomas’ fortune to train
body to physical peak, hone mind to knife-edge,

become The Batman. Chill, two-bit hood, changed the world.
  
For over eighty years Batman’s battled evil, inspired
billionaire crime fighters like Oliver Queen–Green Arrow;
Steven Grant–Moon Knight. Enabled acceptance of anger-
filled heroes-Wolverine, The Question, The Punisher.

In every generation Batman’s reinvented, from Adam
  West’s campy TV series to today’s Dark Knight.
Batman knows evil exists, innocents, die, but proves
when properly prepared, good can fight and win.

In the comics Batman told Chill he knew who murdered
  the Waynes. Chill, a boss now, laughed, until Batman
removed cowl, showed face of boy victim, now adult avenger.
   Fear stopped Chill’s heart. The Batman fights on.


Peter's YouTube video reading of "Joe Chill":



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Peter confesses: "This poem began from a poetry prompt: Write something about the word "Chill." My mind immediately went to Joe Chill, the mugger that murdered Bruce Wayne's parents in Crime Alley, and launched the chain of events that led young Bruce into The Batman, and have been explored in many different reboots in the DC Universe and tv shows like "Gotham." In The Prince, Machiavelli writes that all great nations are the results of a great crime. If not for Joe Chill, Batman would not exist."

PETER M. GORDON is an award-winning poet with more than 100 poems published in various magazines and websites, and over one dozen poems on The Five-Two. He's authored two collections, Two Car Garage, and Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. Peter is a founder and current President of Orlando Area Poets, a chapter of the Florida State Poets Association. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Peter M. Gordon

BAD HABITS

If I still smoked, now would be a good time to slip
outside, spark a match to tubed tobacco, suck blue

fumes into lungs, feel lazy alertness nicotine bestows.
After I stubbed out the butt I’d walk back in the bar,

order another scotch, neat. Luxuriate in slow spread
of warmth, from solar plexus to shoulders, toes, fingers.

It relaxes my gluteus maximus so I can sit on this stool
long enough to offer the tipsy blonde next to me

a drink. By then I’d be sure no woman could resist
my charms, yet invariably she would resist, pick up

her cosmo and stroll, unsteadily, to a high table a few
yards away. I’d gulp my scotch and follow, bar chatter

fading away as I tried to remember my best pickup line.
“What brings you to a place like this?” “He did,” she would

say, pointing at a barrel-chested barfly buzzing over fast,
twenty years younger, mad drunk. Instead of retreating I say,

“The lady’s with me, punk.” We go outside; instinct
helps me duck his first right, even land a couple jabs,

before a left crashes into my temple like a tire iron. Wake
in the alley, wobble home, ice on head, medicate with

a sea of Scotch, swear to quit -- until one day I did.
I’m safer now, hold a job – but it’s quiet. Very, very quiet.


Peter's YouTube video reading of "Bad Habits":



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Peter confesses: "Mark Twain said, 'Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.' That might work for some habits, like forgetting to shut lights out when you leave a room. This poem is about the bad habits that grab you by the throat so you must rip them out of your routine. They become such a part of your life that quitting them, even if you know you will be better for it, is like losing your best friend."

PETER M. GORDON is an award-winning poet with more than 100 poems published in various magazines and websites, and over one dozen poems on The Five-Two. He's authored two collections, Two Car Garage, and Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. Peter is a founder and current President of Orlando Area Poets, a chapter of the Florida State Poets Association. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Peter M. Gordon

READY TO GO

Packed a bag December, 2016.
Week’s worth underwear, tee shirts,
jeans, cotton and wool socks, sweaters,

extra pair glasses, three months of pills.
Canteen, protein bars, five hundred cash,
American dollars, good most places.

I fight for causes, register voters,
give money to non-profits, write
Congressmen and editors–

Digital footprint makes me a target.

I will not stand like sheep for slaughter,
like ancestors who hoped Nuremburg
Laws would blow over in a year or so.

Transferred assets offshore for easy access:
gold is heavy, slows you while fleeing.
Pray my side wins, work toward victory—

but know, deep in my bones, how many
believed neighbors never would herd them
into gas chambers, or deliver to killing fields.

Almost unpacked December, 2020.

After January 6, rearranged stuff to make
room for matches, compass, strong rope,
water purifier, Swiss Army knife, diamonds.

The Talmud tells of towns taken after siege,
women raped, men and children tortured,
and provides rules to guide people through.

Rule Number One—don’t get caught.
Awful to abandon home, books, dog.
Still keep my bag hidden by front door.

Always be ready to go.


Peter's YouTube video reading of "Ready to Go":



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Peter confesses: "Robert Heinlein quoted what he called a Chinese proverb – “In life, a wise man must be prepared to abandon his baggage many times.” The importance of being ready to go has been proved throughout history. I would not be here today if my ancestors had not left oppressive regimes to come to America."

PETER M. GORDON won the 2019 Thomas Burnett Swann Poetry Prize. He's had over 100 poems published by journals and web sites, along with collections Two Car Garage and Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Peter M. Gordon

I WANT A FILM NOIR FEMME FATALE

like Jane Greer in Out of the Past.
Cigarette smoke curls around alluring
eyes; wrapped in a tight white dress she’s
an angel of desire in a dark cantina.

I know there’s nothing pure about her,
except my white hot lust so strong
I’ll risk death from the gangster who
hired me, if Jane can be mine.

One honeymoon with Lizbeth Scott worth
every second. even if our affair ends
when she puts a hole in me, like she did her
husband, over stolen loot in Too Late for Tears.

A few fiery kisses from Barbara Stanwyck,
and we’re plotting her husband’s murder
and how to share our Double Indemnity
insurance windfall. I know she loves me.

Forties films could only imply how femme
fatales bewitched their men, but easy
to imagine silk sheets, naked bodies,
earth shaking orgasms, shared cigarette after.

John Garfield and I can’t stop staring
in Lana Turner’s blue eyes. She wears
a white blouse pulled up to show bare
midriff. Dropped lipstick rolls toward

stunned Garfield, past his feet and on my
living room floor. Lana looks at me; I reach
for the cool metal cylinder and fall into
that black and white world -- small, cheap

California diner where Lana’s so desperate
to escape she plots to kill her nice guy husband.
The Postman Always Rings Twice, Garfield
learns at the end, but right now Lana’s

mouth meets mine, I smell perfume, taste
tobacco on her tongue. She pulls me up to bed,
starts to strip off clothes, but I freeze, realizing
in this version of the film, I’m the husband.


Peter reads "I Want a Film Noir Femme Fatale":



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Peter confesses: "I’ve become a regular viewer of Noir Alley on TCM and enjoyed seeing how those femme fatales seduced men. In response to Gerald’s call for Valentine’s Day crime poems, I wondered how a date with Jane Greer or Lizbeth Scott might end up for me."

PETER M. GORDON won the 2019 Thomas Burnett Swann Poetry Prize. He's had over 100 poems published by journals and web sites, along with collections Two Car Garage and Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Peter M. Gordon

MOUTHPIECE

Uncle Mack built his practice
getting guilty clients acquitted.
“That’s the way our system works,”
he told me. “the worst criminal

deserves the best defense.” I knew
Uncle Mack was rich. Big house,
enormous lawn, hilly Westchester
suburb – Paradise compared to my

family’s Brooklyn apartment with
its air shaft, concrete yard. I was
too young to understand why Dad’s
shoe store couldn’t buy a palace

like his younger brother’s. Mack
concealed his belly bulge in tailored
tweed suits. He smelled like my
barbershop; even his nails shone.

I loved to read his name in the papers
every time he defended New York’s
most notorious mob heroes. I didn’t
know Mack made his fortune as a

bagman, carrying payments to cops,
judges, DAs. But the FBI knew.
After my uncle’s arrest I visited him
in his new Big House. His prison

greys gleamed. “Press ’em myself
in the laundry.” He grinned. “Did
a favor for a guy. That’s the way
our system works.” Mack turned

States’, sent his clients away, vanished.
Guys in the old neighborhood called
him ‘rat.’ But that’s the way our system
works. You look out for Number One.


Peter reads "Mouthpiece":



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Peter confesses: "I grew up in Brooklyn, where everyone knew who was connected, even if you weren't. Uncle Mack is an amalgam of a couple of criminal lawyers and relatives I knew."

PETER M. GORDON won the 2019 Thomas Burnett Swann Poetry Prize. He's had over 100 poems published by journals and web sites, along with collections Two Car Garage and Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Peter M. Gordon

YOU CAN'T QUARANTINE CRIME

When the Universe closes one door
a window opens somewhere a thief
can enter. Since the coronavirus came

my home phone rings every hour
with offers from fund raisers to donate
to victims and veterans, extend car

warranty before it’s too late, and,
ominously, speak to an officer before
my social and bank accounts are shut.

Peddlers of miracle cures swarm,
touting benefits of medicine meant for other
diseases, or their drink of silver solution,

snake oil, pressed juice, vitamins, steroids.
Gun sales escalate—so many ripe targets
in rich homes and poor to defend, so many

police on the sick list. One thing's sure:
grifters, grafters, and thugs will find marks.
I suspect it’s always been that way.


Peter reads "You Can't Quarantine Crime":



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Peter confesses: "I'm working from home here in Florida and have had time to field all sorts of class from scammers and contemplate the perilous world we find ourselves in"

PETER M. GORDON won the 2019 Thomas Burnett Swann Poetry Prize. He's published several poems at The Five-Two, along with two collections: Two Car Garage and Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. He enjoys watching film noir.

Peter M. Gordon

MARKS

I feel bad, sometimes, taking their money.
But they’d feel bad not giving it to me.

They want to believe there's a way to wealth without work.
Wake up early, slip on khakis and button-downs,

slap an ID on their waist, attached by wire
to their belts like a dog leash that binds them

to mortgages, car payments, family holidays,
wives every day, getting older, not sexier.

They believe only a big score can set them free.
I rope them the minute they slump into my office.

Rolex, Lexus, fine wine, pictures of mansion,
of each house, South Beach clubs, celebrities

all photoshopped. First time they ask me to
manage their money I say "no," once, twice,

three times, but on the fourth ask I give in.
I spend a little on them, -- golf, dinners, limos,

send them statements showing those fortunes
I say they’re making. By the time they figure out

they're poor, I’ve moved on. New name, new Social.
Come on, if you saw fifty dollars on the sidewalk

you'd pick it up, right? They heard about Bernie Madoff.
I tell them investing is a risk, but marks keep coming.

Marks want an easy score, like me.
They get hope. I get rich. We're square.


Peter reads "Marks":



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Peter confesses: "I recently read about a man in Florida arrested for running a Ponzi scheme that bilked people out of millions of dollars. I wondered, what sort of person could do that, and who would give them money. I wrote from the POV of the schemer to answer both questions."

PETER M. GORDON won the 2019 Thomas Burnett Swann Poetry Prize. He's published several poems at The Five-Two, along with two collections: Two Car Garage and Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. He enjoys watching film noir.

Peter M. Gordon

ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS

I'm that kid Santa brought a cowboy riding an ostrich
from the Island of Misfit Toys, when storms grounded
his sleigh and only Rudolph could light the way. I had
asked for a real cowboy outfit with six gun and star;

when did Roy Rogers ever ride an ostrich? Mom and Dad
always said I wasn't good like everyone else, and now
I had proof Santa Claus agreed with them. I started
to study normal kids, to see why they deserved good toys.

Even after the cowboy told me how happy he was to have
a boy to play with, I still felt alone. None of the other boys’.
toys talked to them, and if Howie the tough kid knew
my toy talked he'd hit and kick me harder.

I could only be safe in silence, so I learned to blend in,
even excel -- girlfriends, straight A's, soccer team captain.
If I ever forgot my true self my cowboy and ostrich
reminded me. I'm old enough to buy a real six shooter now.

I filled that misfit toy full of lead until only the cowboy's
hat and ostrich's tail were recognizable. After reloading,
I slid the still warm pistol into my pocket.
I'm done studying. Time to graduate.


Peter reads "Island of Misfit Toys":



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Peter confesses: "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is one of my family's favorite holiday specials. I watched its premiere in 1964, and just about every Christmas season since. This time, I got to thinking about what would happen to the self-esteem of the children who got some of the misfit toys for Christmas."

PETER M. GORDON has over 100 poems appear in publications including Slipstream, the Journal of Florida Literature, Poetry Breakfast, and others. He is the author of two collections: Two Car Garage and Let's Play Two: Poems about Baseball. Peter earned a BA from Yale and MFA from Carnegie-Mellon, and teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Peter M. Gordon

FLORIDA MAN

When breathing air feels like drinking swamp water
and sweat falls unevaporated to sizzle on sidewalks

Florida Man emerges, to start a fight in a pizza joint
when wrong cheese is applied to his garlic knots.

Florida Man provides pot and ecstasy to reward his
children for good grades. Florida Man writes his cell

phone number and address on the stickup note to
make it easy for the teller to send more money after

the robbery. Only Florida Man snorts bath salts and meth,
walks next door to bludgeon his neighbors and eat their flesh

raw, in their driveway, where everyone can see him.
Perhaps it’s this thumb-shaped peninsula’s fault, the

right-angled thrust into the Atlantic that causes lightning
to clash over its center, illuminating all our dark places,

that makes us all a little bit Florida Man, waiting for the
weight of sin to sink our sandbar into primordial swamp.


Peter reads "Florida Man":



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Peter confesses: "Even though I've lived in Orlando for almost a quarter-century I am still amazed at what some of our citizens do. This poem arose from my reading Florida crime news and from my worry that there may be something in the air that gradually infects everyone that lives here."

PETER M. GORDON has published over 100 poems in publications such as Slipstream, the Journal of Florida Literature, Poetry Breakfast, and others. He is the author of two collections: Two Car Garage and Let's Play Two: Poems about Baseball. Peter earned a BA from Yale and MFA from Carnegie-Mellon, and teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Peter M. Gordon

CONFIDENCE MAN

I met Bill in a bar on the lower East Side.
He liked to drink and I liked to listen.
After one martini Bill shared his secret:

"Always tell the mark what he wants to hear."
Bill made good money on the grift, as he
liked to call it. Now in his sixties, hands

no longer steady enough to deal off the
bottom of the deck or switch two-dollar
bills with twenties, he reminisced about

how he roped marks like a rodeo champ.
Ponzi schemes, wire cons, badger games,
the Iraqi dinar, the Spanish Prisoner.

He played them all in his heyday. Lived
high. When drunk, Bill could still give a
cold reading to raise the hair on your

neck. I wondered why such an artist
sat on a stool night after night swapping
stories, caging free drinks. After I paid the

tab Bill snapped, "Give me a fin."
I passed him a fiver. "Come back
tomorrow," Bill said. "I’ll bilk you again."


Peter reads "Confidence Man":



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Peter confesses: "I met hustlers of all stripes growing up in New York City. I was reading about current cons in AARP and remembered how hustlers liked to brag about their scores. Bill is an amalgam of several guys I knew when Hell’s Kitchen was still a tough neighborhood."

PETER M. GORDON's poems have appeared in magazines, books and websites, including Slipstream, the Journal of Florida Literature, 34th Parallel, Cultural Weekly, and Sandhill Review. He's a past President of Orlando Area Poets, the largest chapter of the Florida State Poetry Association. He has two collections in print: Two Car Garage and Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. Peter teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production M.F.A. program.

Peter M. Gordon

BROKEN WINDOW THEORY

The couple next door got some more
marriage counseling from the cops tonight.
My wife and I set our clocks by the first
sonata of their Saturday night symphony.

Sally owns the house; Donnie owns the truck.
For a year every time I went to trim bushes
Sally'd lurch over, breath like cleaning fluid
to confide she and "Donnie" didn't get along.

Like we didn't hear their screams, crashes, crying.
Or see rotating blue lights through our bedroom
window. First time cops came we sympathized.
Said we'd watch out for her. After the sixty-second

time she took him back we shut our shades.
Pretended sleep to avoid the practiced steps of
their dance with weary cops. Maybe we just don't
comprehend co-dependency. Or maybe, now, we do.

Does shutting our eyes to small evils allow
great ones to roam, like failing to fix
broken windows leads to more street crime?

What if the windows don't want to be fixed?
Are we truly responsible for each other?

Hell if I know.


Peter reads "Broken Window Theory":



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Peter confesses: "I was thinking about when I lived in Greenpoint in the 1980s. It wasn't hip then; it was a working class neighborhood where the bars opened at 8 AM. We had neighbors who received regular visits from the cops. At the end of the decade the police were starting to clean up the streets by targeting areas of vandalism and petty crime. I put the two together to meditate about how much we can help people who won't help themselves."


PETER M. GORDON recently released his second poetry collection: Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. His first collection, Two Car Garage, is available from CHB Media. His poems have appeared in The Five-Two, Slipstream Magazine, Poetry Breakfast, the Journal of Florida Literature, and Sand Hill Review, among other magazines and anthologies. Peter teaches in the MFA program at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.

Peter M. Gordon

SYMPATHETIC MAGIC

You thought me cute
when I asked for a
lock of your hair

that afternoon we
met at your salon.
You giggled as I

pressed blonde ringlets
into a shell-shaped locket.
slid it in my pocket.

You didn't ask me to
return that token
of love when you

threw my engagement
ring into the East River
during our last quarrel.

I haven't heard from
you
but I heard from your mother

you're suffering mysterious
pains, empty appetite.
she begged me to visit.

I know it's not unrequited love
gnawing at your marrow.
It's the sharp hat pins I stick

into the round faced doll
pasted with your blonde locks.
Tonight I'll stretch her limbs

just a little farther
then pull the pins
before I come to see you.

You'll find pain only ends when
I'm near. You'll come to believe
reprieve from pain proves love.


Peter reads "Sympathetic Magic":



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Peter confesses: "I was sorting through some old family possessions (couldn't really call them 'heirlooms') and I thought how we associate certain objects with people. And what if those objects really did have power over the people they touched? Any resemblance to old girl friends of mine is completely coincidental."


PETER M. GORDON is a poet and journalist whose poems have appeared in The Five-Two, Slipstream Magazine, Poetry Breakfast, the Journal of Florida Literature, and several other magazines and anthologies. Peter's poetry collection, Two Car Garage, is currently available from all online books stores. Peter teaches at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.

Peter M. Gordon

OFF THE GRID

I use burner phones
So no one can find me
I always check my six
So no one gets behind me
I study Houdini
So no ropes can bind me

Don't try to reach me
I'm not friendly
Don't try to preach me
I'm a brick wall
Don't try to breach me

I'm not paranoid
They're really
out to get me


Peter reads "Off the Grid":



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Peter confesses: "I started writing this poem after the line about burner phones popped into my head. I had volunteered for a group that helped homeless people in Orlando. Once I thought about their lives living in the woods outside of town, the images came rather quickly. I don't usually write poems that rhyme, but it seemed appropriate for the poem's persona. I remain on the grid in real life -- for now."

PETER M. GORDON's poems have appeared in magazines, books and websites, including Slipstream, the Journal of Florida Literature, 34th Parallel, Cultural Weekly, and the Provo Canyon Review. He's President of Orlando Area Poets, the largest chapter of the Florida State Poetry Association. CHB Media published his poetry collection, Two Car Garage. Peter lives in Orlando, Florida and teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.

Peter M. Gordon

TARGET

That last March winter Sunday
Walking to morning coffee and bagels
I realized how easy I was to kill.

Regular habits yield predictable movements.
Easy to place a knife-wielding assassin
Around the corner from my apartment for that
Quick slice across my throat.

I shop at the same grocery store every day,
Push on the subway every morning at seven-thirty,
Fight crowds home every night at six-fifteen.
A simple matter to sprinkle strychnine on my arugula,
Blow poison gas under my door when I'm home,

Place a dark man with a high-powered rifle
Behind anonymous windows of a high-rise.
By the time I notice a bright flash of light,
Wonder what it meant—a signal—the bullet—
I wouldn't even feel it.

Today I varied my patterns:
Walked ten blocks north to take the cross-town bus,
Never shop in the same store twice. Create algorithms
To randomize movements. Switch bank account weekly,
Swivel my head over my shoulder constantly,
Double back on routes.

Don't allow anyone
A clear shot.


Peter reads "Target":



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Peter confesses: "In The Godfather: Part II, Michael Corleone says, 'If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught anything, it's that you can kill anyone.' I wrote this poem because I realized how true that was, and how easy it is to get to anyone who doesn't have Secret Service protection."

PETER M. GORDON's first collection of poetry, Two-Car Garage, was published in 2012 by CHB Media. His poems have appeared in Slipstream, The Journal of Florida Literature, Provo Canyon Review, and a variety of magazines, anthologies and websites. Peter is President of Orlando Area Poets, a chapter of the Florida State Poets Association, and has over 30 years experience creating content in areas ranging from live theater to digital video. He holds a B.A. from Yale and an M.F.A. from Carnegie-Mellon, and currently teaches in the Film Production M.F.A. Program at Full Sail University.

Peter M. Gordon

$25 A DAY, PLUS EXPENSES

I blow a stream of smoke out my nose.
I watch the shop across the street.
I wear a double breasted suit, white shirt, short tie
A fedora jammed low on my head.

I'm in glorious black-and-white
My .45 in my hip pocket.
No dame can resist me

During commercials
I sit on my couch
In living color
Munching potato chips.

I wear a tee shirt and boxers
Baseball cap, thick white cotton socks
My beagle sits at my feet
Lapping up crumbs.

The real me is black-and-white
Takes a punch now and then
But ultimately triumphs.

I need the guy on the couch to
Pay the cable television bill
And buy groceries
So I can investigate.


Peter reads "$25 a Day, Plus Expenses":



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Peter confesses: "I'm a huge fan of film noir, particularly The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon. The poem grew from my dream to someday say in a real life situation, 'You killed Miles and you're going over for it.' This is one of the first poems I ever read aloud."

PETER M. GORDON's poems have appeared in several websites, magazines, and anthologies including Poetry to Feed the Spirit and Love and Other Passions. His first collection of poetry, Two Car Garage, was published in 2012 by CHB Media. Peter has created content for everything from live theatre to digital video. He moved to Orlando, FL to launch Golf Channel as its first head of programming. He now works as freelance writer and journalist.