To speak of his woe
Daniel Nester

posted Nov 13, 2007

A man of woe and small substance, a man of holy names and rattles on the wall, a man who wipes her bruised eyes on the stairs, a man of a crank-sent excuses and parrot-friends, a man of discoursed threats, of ticketbacks, a man who remembereths the old trinkets that his sweeties used to sit and gyrate on, a man who says “Give me all of your money and I’ll spend it,” a man who will slit my throat now, a man who would’ve done it eventually, a man unfortunate to say anything he means, a man only a woman can protect, a man now-thwarted, a man smart enough to start with supplication, a man who is not “Anonymous from Schenectady,” a man on the message boards, a man utterly unmysterious, mischaractered, happy to keep his own patterns, to concuss riddles in his skull, out-of-context, unbedeviled.

Daniel Nester is the author of God Save My Queen, God Save My Queen II, and The History of My World Tonight. His writing has appeared in The Best Creative Nonfiction, Third Rail: The Poetry of Rock and Roll, The Best American Poetry 2003, Open City, and elsewhere. He writes articles and reviews for Poets & Writers, Time Out New York, PoetryFoundation.org and Bookslut, edits the online journal Unpleasant Event Schedule, and maintains a website at danielnester.com.