Poetry by Brian Rihlmann

               Dane CC



​Old School 
 
The old man--
he’s definitely old school.
I can see him now
standing in the kitchen,
talking to me
on the wall mounted phone.
 
Maybe later he
thumbs through the yellow pages
looking for a shoe repair.
His boots need new heels again,
and the old place in town
just up and disappeared.
 
“Fuck that internet shit,”
he always says,
“Too much information...
and why is this guy
twittering or twattering 
or whatever the hell it’s called?
He’s the president.
I don’t think he should be doing that.”
 
Every morning he steps out
and grabs the daily paper
from the driveway.
 
One day he calls, says,
“Sorry...but I read in the obituaries...
your friend from high school, Mike?
He just died.”
 
Then we talk for a bit, laughing 
over some of the stunts
he and I pulled, 
the trouble we got into. 
 
And the old man says,
“Yep, he was a crazy bastard
but still a good kid.
He did all right.”

​

Brian Rihlmann was born in New Jersey and currently resides in Reno, Nevada. He writes free verse poetry, and has been published in The Rye Whiskey Review, Slipstream, Chiron Review, The Main Street Rag and others. His latest poetry collection, “Night At My Throat” (2020) was published by Pony One Dog Press.

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