Across the Grid of Streets

Quincy Lehr, a son of Oklahoma finding himself in Galway, Ireland, via New York City, has published his first full volume of poetry with Seven Towers, Dublin. It is called Across the Grid of Streets, and it’s available in hard and soft cover. There is also a companion chapbook.

Quincy is well known in the world of formal verse, though he is fluent in free verse as well. I have read much of his poetry and it comes highly recommended.

WHY THERE IS NO SOCIALISM
IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

At 4:15 AM, the city bus
Had pulled up to the curb, its silhouette
Marked dimly by the light that crept through grates,
Fencing in empty stores. I paid my fare
And squeezed beside a sleepy Barnard girl.
She moved a centimetre to her left—
Away from me—and twitched a pinkish nose
Below grey, narrowed eyes, accusing me
Of something, so I leaned against the glass
And stared at greasy, distant streaks of light.
Each one of us was tired, pissed-off, and bored,
Angry at the hour and with those pricks—
That fat-assed bitch, who muttered at a cell phone,
That rat-faced airline worker at the front,
That punk-ass hoodlum, glaring at his feet,
That stuck-up twat, that sad-eyed brown-haired schmuck
Gawking at New York’s predawn, backlit blackness.
And if we were united, our disdain
For every dumb-shit creep—in short, ourselves—
Had fused our isolations into one.

~Quincy R. Lehr ©

The Holiday Season

–Westmoreland Bar, Westmoreland Street, Dublin, September 12th 2006

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