Daniel Nester Suspicious Minds Lately I've sat here afternoons just listening to the gluttonous newsmen argue about fathers who kill their wives and kids then spirit off to Mexico. My life's knee-deep in fathers, embedded in my own shaky tenor, and though mine's as good as dead my life still wakes up and pees. My world's still on fire. If I could be anywhere else in the world, if I could be anything but ham-handed today, I could cheer on the vacationing comedian who finds one this morning hidden in a hut. I could be vindicated. What I mean is all this father-surrendering gets me tired, that it's getting old, that it's the most difficult part of my day. Late Anniversary Madrigal May you find help from action figures I keep. May you find them in the top drawer And bring them out while you sleep And I welcome darkness-- The flickering TV, helicopters hopscotched overhead. May these nightdolls help you, When every questionnaire questions you, When diagonal smoke Mafficks treetops. Use this antidote liberally. May your walk to the F train be not alone. Deaf Rush Limbaugh's Macaronic Blues Soon I'll hear your voices, people, and you'll sound like Donald Duck. I'll hear every car horn honk, every plink and plunk and plonk. And you'll sound like Donald Duck-- one voice, indistinguishable, under God. Every plink and plunk and plonk. Comprised of pitches and lengths, One voice, indistinguishable, under God. It was like free jazz there towards the end, Just comprised of pitches and different lengths. Soon I'll hear your voices, people, every immigrant, businessman, pundit. And you all sound like Donald Duck. There's Got To Be A Morning After I heard it once, smoothed-out by gallons of coffee, chest husking like a plow and pulled it into a basement. Cardigan-wrapped the next morning and only then was it true, only then was I so hungry I could eat at the roots of it, and lay down like a napping aristocrat dreaming of pendulums potbellied, empurpled, pissing outside, and my boombox played it again, its notes encircled by my poor shy ghosts made quiet speeches to the wind saluted this song's toasting. Daniel Nester's poetry has appeared in such journals as CrossConnect, Minnesota Review, The Cortland Review, Water Stone, Slope, and South Carolina Review , and he has work forthcoming in Open City , Verse, Nerve, and Spinning Jenny He is the editor in chief of La Petite Zine and a senior editor of Painted Bride Quarterly. You can learn even more about Daniel at his home page, Unpleasant Event Schedule