8th Annual Juried Reading
First Place Poet
Keith Driver

Keith Driver was born in Massachusetts and received his MFA from the University of Iowa. At present, he works as a staff writer for an executive outplacement firm.

Keith Driver is an original wit, subtle though sometimes sharp, capable of creating a vivid world of characters one might like to meet, but not be. --James Tate

Shamus

A chip of paint falls from the doorknob into my eye.
Welcome to Los Alamos, Alamo City, briefcase
hung from a maple tree. I am Shamus. Pink neon
sputters through my blinds. I am svelte.
Don't touch me I am having sex. I say, welcome
to Los Alamos: movie stars sleeping in craters.
The landlord scrapes my name from the frosted glass.
I fall out the window and a hot dog vendor catches me
in his weedy arms. He shouts a warning in my ear:
my girlfriend might betray me with the sinister millionaire.
Sombody's fingerprints smear across my eyelids.
Had I known it all along? I fashion a telephone
from string and a discarded soupcan and call my client.
My client isn't happy. His memories are part
of someone else's dream, but whose? An envelope
full of cash creeps from under a manhole cover.
I peel a leaflet from my chest. Then it hits me: Moline.
My girlfriend, Moline Illinois, is now among the missing.
In a rush, I purchase a newspaper and prop myself up
against a lampost searching for her name. Of course.
Nickles fall from the sky. Automobiles are consumed in flame.
Moline. What have I done? Someone sticks a gun
in my back. Thank God. My back is killing me.

-- Keith Driver

(C) 2002 The Poetry Center of Chicago
All Rights Revert Back to the Author Upon Publication.
No Portion of this poem may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author.