At Fabiola’s

Ancient women being extracted
from Fabiola’s with canes and walkers
after getting their hair starched and tinted
are being helped into their waiting transportation
blocking the flow of traffic
every time I try to pass by.

John J. Trause, the Director of Oradell Public Library, is the author of Why Sing? (Sensitive Skin Press, 2017), a book of traditional and experimental poems; Picture ThisFor Your Eyes and Ears (Dos Madres Press, 2016), a book of poems on art, film, and photography; Exercises in High Treason (great weather for MEDIA, 2016), a book of fictive translations, found poems, and manipulated texts; Eye Candy for Andy (13 Most Beautiful… Poems for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, Finishing Line Press, 2013); Inside Out, Upside Down, and Round and Round (Nirala Publications, 2012); Seriously Serial (Poets Wear Prada, 2007; rev. ed. 2014); and Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off Broadway.  Marymark Press has published his visual poetry and art as broadsides and sheets.  He is the subject of a 30-on-30-in-30 essay on The Operating System, written by Don Zirilli, and an author of an essay on Baroness Elsa at the same site, both in April 2016.  He serves as the moderator, performer, and panelist for the Poetry Tent at the Passaic County Book Festival. He is a founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative (The Red Wheelbarrow) in Rutherford, N. J., and the former host and curator of its monthly reading series.  He is fond of cunning acrostics and color-coded chiasmus.