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This appears in May 2008 v184 issue (saddle-stitched) of cc&d magazine. Click the issue number or the cover to see that issue online.						This writing also appears in the published 100 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book “This was the Time” cc&d v184 May 2008, reprinted in 2019! (the 2019 reprinting of the May 2008, v184 issue, that also contains 3 bonus 2008 live poetry chapbooks!) Order this as a 6"x9" paperback book:

this writing is in the collection book Charred Remnants (PDF file) download: only $9.95 (b&w pgs): paperback book $18.95 (b&w pgs):hardcover book $32.95 (color pgs): paperback book $74.93 (color pgs): hardcover book $87.95

This writing appears in the published 100 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book “This was the Time” cc&d v184 May 2008, reprinted in 2019! (the 2019 reprinting of the May 2008, v184 issue, also containing 3 bonus 2008 live poetry chapbooks!) Order this as a 6"x9" paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book Among the Debris the cc&d July-Dec. 2019 issues & chapbooks collection book		get the 494 page July-Dec. 2019 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Burning Bridges the 2019 poetry, flash fiction and artwork collection anthology		get the 214 page poetry, flash fiction, & art collection anthology as a 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

City

Kenneth DiMaggio

Say Hi to your Mom
whose housing project
in Hartford
is more dangerous than
your ambush ready car bomb
in Baghdad

And this Hello for the Holidays
transmission is brought to you by
the suburban white TV
that would usually show
your boy Carlos or Efrain
as the victim
but mostly perpetrator
on the eleven p.m. news

which always leads
with a fuzzy convenience store
surveillance tape of a ski mask faced
teenager pistol whipping
a broken English speaking immigrant
serving as the latest stand in
for the American Dream

At least
we know how obesity
became Obese-city

--the only neon still blazing
is to advertise the tin-foil wrapped
micro-fried cholesterol

while our souls
get similar unhealthy zaps
from a satellite above
that warms up the same talk show trauma
and epileptic religious revival
which filters back down
as invisible fallout that only shows
up in “Rest in Peace” tattoos
for all the friends and relatives
lost to suicide overdose gun shot
or drive by say

Bye

to your daughter or son
who stand a better chance
against some old Peugeot taxi
rigged to explode

And whoor what will start the fire

that will burn you out
of your rent-controlled but riot-ruined
brick that will smoke choke clog
a crib caged niece but fail to kill
the cockroaches and other vermin
that will give the free breakfast program
pre-school kids asthma and skin disease

--you just never know
where the poison will come from

It’s just another poem to tattoo

on a junk food fueled narrative

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