Tom Sanchez Prunier lives in Richmond, Virginia and entered poetry through the side door of slam. He founded the SlamRichmond poetry venue and was a competitor in the 2007 National Poetry Slam, where he was a quarterfinalist in the National Head-to-Head Haiku competition. Tom supports his local community of poets by leading workshops and hosting events throughout the city. Raised in New Jersey, Tom is still fascinated by the culture of the South – specifically the obsessions with college football, the Civil War and Waffle House. Outside the lines, Tom is a journalist and screenwriter and credits most of his recent success to his writing partner, a retired racing greyhound named Betty who sleeps next to his desk all day long.

Three Poems (October 20, 2009. Issue 10.)

Sunday afternoon, barside

Second bottle gone
like years awash in science fiction,
jazz, mythology, Far East studies,
whatever.

He notices choir of liquor
piled high against mirror,
obscuring his falling through cracks
of his own façade.

Guy next to him takes notes,
so he tries to speak poetry,
but can only ramble improper nouns,
incoherent metaphors.

Waits for something else to happen
when shapely bar maid answers phone,
Queen of the Universe?

Later reveals she's Kathryn, with a y.
He asks her if she wants
to be immortalized in a poem,
like his scribble about painting naked,
entitled, Painting Naked,
to break ice long-ago melted
into neighboring gin and tonic.

It all plays out on dark wood
beneath televised sports
like an unbroken chain of thought
injected into his own genre
called sci-fi-jazz-myth-Far-East-whatever.

All proof that in an emergency,
the mind can also be used
as a flotation device.

dear friend,

I miss your been-there-done-that gait,
late and impatient, sulking in the corner, waiting
for that miracle blonde or brunette or redhead
to whisper a story worthy of a round of drinks

or a lovers’ leap in front of a cross-town bus.
I wonder if I missed your funeral,
last chance to drop a flask into your casket
and embellish our adventures until dawn.

I know your drowsy shadow has been whitewashed
by the caffeine glow of this world passing you by.
It won't wait for you to whisper “Stop,”
hold out blackened roses, dare everyone to inhale.

Your speed is afternoon gin, evening joints
and breakfast at three in the morning.
I mourn your empty barstool: the tower
atop which you hid, forever waiting for

that miracle blonde or brunette or redhead
to write playful sonnets inside your eyelids,
each one ending with you making a lovers’ leap
in front of a cross-town bus.

fifty little men inside my head with jackhammers

Seems to me this world is painted over every night
an apartment building becomes a franchise whatever
nail salons shell-game up and down the block
homeless like trash on gum-spotted cement as a reminder

Economic acid reflux corrodes sandwich carts
pounds rooms full of memories into powder in name of progress
like blossoming women struggling to solve world's problems
with small talk

They listen intently to my inebriated pontification
gasp in awe as I push away free beer
laughter fades into contorted faces punching clock
behind my eyes long before dawn

jackhammering deep into where brain cells crept off to die
each one taking with it a pocketful of memories