Poetry by Jason Baldinger

                        garann CC



spook the horse

the waitress offers 
a fifty-cent bounty
on every fly dropped

the cathance river
runs in my head

a pitbull sits 
patiently, waits 
for any lost scrap

goose Island
covered 
in halos

one fog
obscures 
the ocean

words fat, beautiful
gray, hang over the sky
words like
damariscotta
skadumpha
words that no longer 
belong to a tongue
 
if I close my eyes
I’m lost 
in a wyeth painting 

rafters of turkeys
cemeteries materialize 
from nowhere

buggies wave
along blinn hill vistas
I slow down, I don’t want
to spook the horse

​



midnight sasquatch

nights aren’t meant for sleeping
restless three am
barefoot walks around town
hawaiian shirt fouling 
up the moon light
or shirtless in a straw hat
with notebook and pen
listen as small towns sleep

crickets chirp a town square
flaccid flags, oily night
sprawled on park bench
scribbles under street lamps
cop cars passing wave
midnight sasquatch ain’t no thing

trains pass every night
regular as alarm clocks
whistle for twinkees
as they rattle past the lumber yard

midnight sasquatch
wonders where those engines
disappear to, which place wherever
maps are oceans
dive in anywhere

he gets close to hopping one
every now and again
never does
his feet are stuck
maps may be oceans
dive in wherever

wherever is too far away

​
​

Jason Baldinger is a poet from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvaninia and  former Writer in Residence at Osage Arts Community. He has multiple books available including the chapbook Blind Into Leaving (Analog Submission Press) as well as the forthcoming Afterlife is a Hangover (Stubborn Mule Press) & A Threadbare Universe (Kung Fu Treachery). His work has been published widely in print journals and online. You can listen to him read his work on Bandcamp and on lps by the bands Theremonster and The Gotobeds.