Real Change
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
  • About Us
  • Vendor Program
  • Support
▼
Open menu
▲
Close menu
  • News
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Arts
  • Vendor Profiles
  • Archive
Facebook Twitter Instagram RSS

Larry Crist

Contributing Writer and Poet

Articles by Larry Crist

  • Real Change

    Poetry Corner

    by Larry Crist | January 30th, 2013

    My Neighbor Sometimes i see him on my way out He’s a 9 to 5, 5-day-a-week guy and i’m . . . (well, that’s another poem) He’s black, same age as me lived in this house beside mine all his life Doesn’t care about gardening which is what i am most often doing when i see him The roses in his yard were planted by his mother; he pays somebody to cut them back, they flower and flourish

    • Read more about Poetry Corner
    • Comments
  • Real Change

    Poem: Goats

    by Larry Crist | April 11th, 2012

    Come spring i'd have new playmates The nannies lapped at the afterbirth spread rich like liver upon the rain-soaked grass The newborns took their first steps fell, got licked, rose, stood, stepped, fell again learning everything a goat needed to know within that first week Following mom and her protruding sack staked by chain and eating everything inside its radius The kids, one, two, sometimes three stayed close as mom endured eating constantly to keep up her strength That goat's milk was high-octane stuff and when i was forced to give up goats for people goat's milk for common cow's the g

    • Read more about Poem: Goats
    • Comments
  • Real Change

    Poetry Sep 28, 2011

    by Larry Crist | September 28th, 2011

    Poem: Goats by Larry Crist, Page 9

    • Read more about Poetry Sep 28, 2011
    • Comments
  • Real Change

    Poem: School Lunches

    by Larry Crist | August 17th, 2011

    In school i studied other kids' lunches

    i was a bad speller, didn't care about arithmetic or good citizenship

    but having moved from one school to the next

    what others had for lunch was of endless fascination

    Velvet bread, meat, cheese, mayo, mustard, a crisp leaf of lettuce ...

    Some like me had p&j

    only their mothers had managed not to place a large heavy apple or orange

    on top, mooshing down the middle

    with never enough peanut butter

    and too much jelly, saturating the still-dry bread

    • Read more about Poem: School Lunches
    • Comments
  • Real Change

    Hoarding toward the Future

    by Larry Crist | September 15th, 2010

    There i was
    hobbling like a concubine
    using the handrail
    a cane
    estimating time, speed, effort

    • Read more about Hoarding toward the Future
    • Comments
  • Real Change

    Poem: Rabbit Ears

    by Larry Crist | June 2nd, 2010

    Woodland Park Zoo on one side a slim spit of bushes on the other the road to work runs in between In the morning, i am late, driving fast Later, traffic is bad; i'm beat, happy happy to be sitting, sitting and not busting my ass

    Returning, i see a black rabbit by a bush his little nose and dull, dark eyes taking in the road

    Don't do it, stupid rabbit, i hear myself think.

    • Read more about Poem: Rabbit Ears
    • Comments
  • Real Change

    Poem: My Debut

    by Larry Crist | April 28th, 2010

    My Debut

    It was some kind of Halloween play i was playing a goblin and my big scene was with the witch who was a few years older and had done this kind of thing before Black, white, good, bad, i can't recall which kind of witch only that she was a competent actress

    i had never seen so many people gathered in one place My face was green, tights and turtleneck, green wearing a green skullcap My lines failed me The competent witch began feeding me them She said her lines, then lip-synced me mine with many a pause she got me through my big scene like a ventriloquist

    • Read more about Poem: My Debut
    • Comments
  • Real Change

    Vietnam '68

    by Larry Crist | December 2nd, 2009

    It was the year of the assassin
    the year of the monkey
    Tet Offensive, Easter Offensive, Dak To, Hamburger Hill...
    white phosphorous, hot lead
    chopper blades, beating, beating
    beating ourselves
    a ripple in the rice paddy
    a petroleum rainbow

    The French
    went oui oui oui
    all the way home
    back to delicate dining
    fine wine, fat cigarettes
    and Jerry Lewis
    with his then-still-thin head

    Beneath the earth
    men in black pajamas
    rule
    their sandals flapping into the underbush

    • Read more about Vietnam '68
    • Comments
  • Real Change

    Timing

    by Larry Crist | June 24th, 2009

    Even before i knew the word
    i pitied adults
    my father and mother supporting me
    jobs they didn't like
    working for people they didn't like
    working toward some elusive time
    when they wouldn't have to work at all
    just bide their time till death

    • Read more about Timing
    • Comments
  • Real Change

    Picking through the dead man's shirts

    by Larry Crist | June 3rd, 2009

    ting-tinging on metal hangers
    a hodgepodge of color
    like his eyes had failed
    synthetic cotton polyester rayon blends
    requiring no ironing, each with is own tag

    He would never rip off a tag
    there could be information stored there
    washing and drying instructions
    even if it only said DO NOT REMOVE
    that would be enough

    There's Polynesia and Hawaii
    Christmas on Easter Island
    Easter on Christmas Island
    shirts that would make any Cambodian pimp stand tall

    • Read more about Picking through the dead man's shirts
    • Comments

Pages

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • next »

1 of 4

Emerald City Resource Guide
Community Calendar
Donate
Staff Directory
Newsletter Signup
Real Change in the Media
Write the Editor
Contact Us
Current and Past issues

Most Popular Articles

  • Change Agent: Deborah Blake
  • Vendor of the Week: Richard C.
  • The never-ending prison cycle
  • Street Voices: What’s on your holiday wish list?
  • Maybe This Time

Real Change News is a publication of Real Change.

Real Change thanks OMBU for their excellent work on this site!

Log In