Other Poets/Other Poems

Anonymous, Issue 17

Antler, Issue 36

Amy Beeder, Issue 16

Boyd W. Bensen, Issue 31

Donna Biffar, Issue 15

Kimberly Blaeser, Issue 27

P. W. Boisvert, Issue 39

Rick Cannon, Issue 28

Jared Carter, Issue 24

David Chorlton, Issue 40

Billy Collins, Issue 1, Issue 18

Steven Coughlin, Issue 39

Philip Dacey, Issue 6

Denise Duhamel, Issue 13

Stephen Dunn, Issue 34

Stuart Dybek, Issue 41

Dave Etter, Issue 14

Norma Hammond, Issue 22

David Hernandez, Issue 23

Susan Holahan, Issue 12

Angela Just, Issue 32

Lisa Kadous, Issue 20

Julie King, Issue 30

Lyn Lifshin, Issue 19

Mary Lucina, Issue 26

Louis McKee, Issue 5

Pamela Miller, Issue 8

Lisel Mueller, Issue 29

Alexis Orgera, Issue 35

James Reiss, Issue 26

Len Roberts, Issue 2

Kristopher Saknussemm, Issue 10

R. T. Smith, Issue 38

Cathy Song, Issue 21

Judith Valente, Issue 37

Charles Harper Webb, Issue 25

Mary Ann Waters, Issue 11

J. D. Whitney, Issue 33

Bayla Winters, Issue 3

Lila Zeiger, Issue 4

Return to Sample Poems

Happiness Epidemic

Without any warning, the disease
sweeps across the country
like a traveling circus.

People who were once blue,
who slouched from carrying
a bag of misery over one shoulder

are now clinically cheerful.
Symptoms include kind gestures,
a bouncy stride, a smile

bigger than a slice of canteloupe.
You pray that you will be infected,
hope a happy germ invades your body

and multiplies, spreading merriment
to all your major organs
like door-to-door Christmas carolers

until the virus finally reaches your heart:
that red house at the end of the block
where your deepest wishes reside,

where a dog howls behind a gate
every time that sorrow
pulls his hearse up the driveway.

--David Hernandez
Copyright © 1999 by Free Lunch Arts Alliance