New Poetry by Doug Holder

A Veteran's Back, Carson Beach, South Boston

There was nothing smooth about it.
Grizzled in a sea of sleek.
Brown sun spots--
burst across
his wizened map.
A teamster tattoo
his union label
blunt
on his right shoulder--
no New Age serpent
snaking around
a green fantasy
planet.

A depression
in his skin
where he took a shiv
in some red light, 
honky-tonk
near Andrew Station.  

The muscles still asserting themselves
below the slack skin
rolling under his flesh
his back unashamed
of its sin.


- Doug Holder 2019

Doug's work has appeared in Constellations, Sahara, sPoKe, Toronto Quarterly, Sub-Terrain and many others. Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press in Somerville, Massachusetts. The " Doug Holder Papers Collection" is being processed at the University at Buffalo, in Buffalo, NY.