The Newspaper by Doug Holder
The Newspaper The Long Island Railroad- all the Dashing Dans fortresses of print- winged tabloids and fedoras the headlines splayed on the counter in the bar car-- "Headless man--found in topless Bar!" And the long scrolls of newspapers in the Boston Public Library felt like I was reading the Torah. The morning coffee, the slap of the rag on my table, my glasses-- four eyes are now part of the ritual. At night I saw the New York Times flutter in the wind an ephemeral bird flapping toward a street light to come out of the dark. ***** Dashing Dan was an emblem on the Long Island railroad phased out in 1966. My work has appeared in Spoke, Toronto Quarterly, Poetry Bay, Rattle, Constellations and elsewhere. I am the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press and a lecturer of Creative Writing at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass. I have run poetry groups for psychiatric patients at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. for over 30 years. I direct the Newton Free Library Poetry ...