New and Improved

New-old
pours into
full glass

you
marked down
spillage.

Knowledge to
say yes
thank you

leaves you
unfit
for more.

Nice guys
first
finished

wear vintage
throw off
scent.

Alcohol
dulls
delivery

the joke
that isn’t
punches

holes

 

Yarrow

Gold ingots cast feet
kicked to curb.

Wounds want bricks
bleeding out stage.

Flies flare up,
can’t eat old shit.

New boils,
bush burns.

Second hand orgies
told out of new school,

hand jobs
to fan flames,

wolfish hair
crying whore.

Cut own strands,
offend growth.

Suckerpunch drunk,
praise forward swan’s throat

Hands on
exact spot.

No sound
one more year.

Abyss open mikes,
levies five minutes more.

I wink hard

lose cure.

 

Mock Stones

Forced to double
as benches
offamylawn
old men type
defactolandlords
too big to move.

Wall wedged
backyard,
backwood hoots
do hoot,
roar way up no ladder,
cemented fear,
falls lower.

Pond skipped
televangelical pebbles
proclaim godliness,
all bragging rights
brought back to shore.

Defrocked inmates
water’s bottom
behold new rock
walking water.

 

Fete

Sniff the poems.
Who smells like Chad
Parenteau?

Hold hands outward
long enough to spoil
before begin.

Salvage ingredients
tossed aside
last kitchen jam.
No
thing throwaway.

Colleagues mustn’t know,
never flattering, best to stay
forever unflinching.

Center clever
elsewhere,
fill in exact

can’t work with
lesser truth.

Bottom simmers
restaurant garbage
closing time.

Ersatz messiahs
scoop free samples
wooden sandals.

If you have to ask
how taste smells,
you’re already lying.

 

Chad Parenteau is the author of Patron Emeritus, released in 2013 by FootHills Publishing. His work has appeared in Tell-Tale Inklings, What Rough Beast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Ibbetson Street and Wilderness House Literary Review. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine.