Poetry by Dave Roskos

              ​​​Daniel Wehner CC



​POEM for George Chewkanes
1/14/1976 - 10/11/2020

the last time I saw George
he was working at The Windmill in Belmar,
hooked me up with a free chili dog.
It was around midnight
& still Open
the young guy working with George
clearly looked up to him
& was listening to his every word
as they cleaned up the place
& got ready for closing time
talking about Recovery
& working their shift
in the ghostly mostly empty brightly lit
Hot Dog Stand made of glass
at the crossroads of two highways
across the way from a river named after sharks.

--Dave Roskos
10/14/2020





"enough! or too much!" --Wm Blake

too many bird brains
too much bird shit
too much auto exhaust
too god damn hot
not enough dissonance
not enough, nvr enuf
money

& a monkey
in a peekaboo head-dress
shimmied a war whoop
across the concrete
dust that littered
my stoop
& loitered in mid air
w/o a challenge or care
w/ saxophone bleeps
& the smashing of snares
& they beat w/ hammers
to the hum of a stammer
& rime w/o reason
or work, just cause they
like how it sounds

--Dave Roskos
July 3, 2002





the autonomous watchmaker sets her alarm

water drips
off copper pipes
sweating dysfunctional
disease in the
dew drops last renderings,
done with our wanderings
we embark
meandering
melancholy moorings
drugs stashed
beneath the floorboards
the face
of the forward-thinking
brake-lite frowns
fictitious
a white rat is
put up for adoption
a tortoise shell kitty
takes a car ride
the autonomous 
watchmaker
sets her alarm
nothing can undo our love
for one another
or do us harm
create your own world
& live in it
hand out one dollar bills
indiscriminately
in the street
wash one another's feet
the bright blast
of the broken bleat
gurgles from the
slit throat
of the sacrificial
goat

--Dave Roskos 
June 2011



​Dave Roskos is the editor of Big Hammer & Street Value poetry zines. he also publishes chapbooks, broadsides, pamphlets & books as iniquity press/vendetta books. several books including FALL & ALL, Poems for Losers, and LYRICAL GRAIN, DOGGEREL CHAFF & PEDESTRIAN PREOCCUPATIONS.