Richard Newman

Gossip

It wets our willies
and tickles the tongue.
It’s wires on which
our stories are hung.

Old fashioned gossip:
mosquito-nosed birds
who spread over fences
infectious words.

It’s jealous half-lies
and full-blown wishes
through headlines and phonelines
and satellite dishes.

Gossip is glue,
sublime and grotesque—
who’s doing who
on the secretary’s desk.

It’s nibbled with tea
or gobbled with beer.
It’s bourbon-breathed
and vodka clear.

Gossip’s the chain
that yanks us back when
we stray—or if too far
won’t let us back in.

Of course, when we’re pressed
we always agree
that gossip is best
when it’s not about me.

On gossip’s high wire
we rise or we totter.
It’s the stones of all culture,
our bread and our water.

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Richard Newman’s newest poetry chapbook,  24 Tall Boys: Dark Verse for Light Times (Snark Publishing/Firecracker Press), will appear in November.  He is also the author of the poetry collection Borrowed Towns (Word Press, 2005).  He lives in St. Louis where he teaches at Washington University and St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, edits River Styx magazine, and directs the River Styx at Duff’s Reading Series.