POETRY

Poetry by RICKY GARNI

GREG

Someday we must go skeet shooting
at dawn or to the Waffle House
at dawn. The point is – someday, 
at dawn, you and I, Greg, we must
do something.

THERAPY

I feel slow and sluggish and not
          very capable,

          except when I am
                 watching Gene Hackman

     on TV,

           driving what should be

                     a slow car,
                                           fast

ASKING FOR A TRANSFER

Listening to Herbie Hancock speak 
made me a better piano player today
and I only listened to him for ten 
minutes and he didn’t play a note 
but he did say “I can’t be you –
you must be you.” I thought about
that for a moment and realized: 
that’s true. I then proceeded to 
play a tune just like Chick Corea
because that’s the kind of person
I would like to be when I am me.

GRAMMAR WORLD

I was going to say that she flew through the world 
like an exclamation mark, but I didn’t because she
would not have liked that, now that she is no longer
flying. Now she is somewhere like this but different,
and beautiful, designing question marks for children.

Ricky Garni is the author of The Eternal Journals of Crispy Flotilla, My Favorite Fifteen Presidents, O-Polanski, and A Concerned Party Meets A Person of Interest, which will be released Fall 2019. He works in Carrboro, North Carolina as a graphic designer for a wine company.

Be sure to check out this exclusive interview with Ricky on the Orson’s Publishing blog.