Poem by Rick Christiansen

Sorry Officer

Identity asserted with a flash of plastic
It is an old picture
Still need to enter

Behind the glass
Reigns commerce
Commerce is king

Vassals enter blurry eyed
Pretty windy today
Precariously balancing

And fumbling java jolt
With binder and
Badge

Kindling that ember of
Still caring and asserting it
With steady gaze and sure step

Parade of urban
Soldiers trudge
Passed the checkpoint

Conformity
Only disrupted
By casual Friday

Or more hope
Than Hump Day
Straining

Toward the last hour while
The first is…
Only beginning

Sorry officer…
I forgot my badge at home
Mary brought oranges!

Rick Christiansen is a guy with a unique perspective that comes from a lifetime with his legs in corporate America and his head in the clouds. He was last published in the 1970’s in a variety of college publications that he is now too old to remember. Recent early retirement has driven him back to the pen.

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer,photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows bothin the USA and Europe and he has had 9 one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 230 on line and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Pollock-Krasner grants, the Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grant and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc.