Tom D’Angelo is member of the English Department at Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY, where he works in the Writing Center and teaches in the college’s creative writing program. His current projects include a series of creative non-fiction essays on his formative years in 1960s and 70s Astoria, Queens.
Poetry by Tom D'Angelo
Parallel Structures
Looking at these structures
there is a divinity to their rebellion,
to their refusal of justification,
to how they brave strangers on the train,
and how always, always
there is narrative, the unclassified narrative
that every eye wants to snatch
a peek at
under the skirt, behind the tie.
Object Sex
What she bears is the gift
of tongues.
A type of catastrophe.
An infinite quest for loose talk
to expand the map
though the crossings are fraught with
goals, with plans, with expectations.
And she is afraid in the dark,
for it sounds
of shame
of roadside assistance
of making house.
The Last Shall Be First
Be afraid of them
breaking the glass slipper.
Fear their hijinks
as they leap into neo-sorcery
with a gothic smile.
With sound mind and body
the 51%
no longer Sleeping Beauty
but nurturing a theater
of the conspicuous absence.
Who’s afraid?
Who knows their secret tongue?
Who maps the way to their
Secret city?
These sweet-scented aliens:
Is this the final good-bye
in Berlin as the first cornerstone
is laid?