Poetry

John J. Trause

I Was Born in Newark

and I lived in Newark
when I was a baby,
but I’m not from Newark,
because I was in an incubator
at the hospital in Newark
when I was a little baby.
I lived in Newark
for the first six months of my life
I lived in Newark
in an incubator at the hospital in Newark.
They almost lost me.
 
My parents were from Newark
by way of New York and Newark,
but I’m from Nutley,
but I moved at three with my parents to Belleville,
but I was born in Newark
and I lived in Newark
in an incubator at the hospital in Newark.
 
I went to school in Newark
and lived in Newark
in an incubator at the hospital in Newark
when I was a little baby,
for the first six months of my life,
I lived in Newark.
 
I taught in Newark and worked in Newark
and I lived in Newark
in an incubator at the hospital in Newark.
They almost lost me.
 
I lived in Newark
and know Newark
and made my name in Newark.
 
I was born in Newark
   
Of Daniel Quinn
By Daniel Quinn
For Daniel Quinn
 
Dedicated February 12, 2009
Lincoln’s 100th Anniversary
 
(Previously published in Exercises in High Treason (New York : great weather for MEDIA, 2016)

4 For Immediate Release

 
For Immediate Release
Monday, January 23, 2012
Museum-Go-Round
 
Lady Elaine Fairchilde of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Comes Out of the Closet
 
Neighborhood of Make-Believe.  Lady Elaine Fairchilde, proprietor and tenant of the Museum-Go-Round for decades, admits to being a lesbian after many years of silence on the issue.  Now age 89 Lady Fairchilde, known for her appearances on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood on the Public Broadcasting System from 1968 to 2001, decided to speak publicly on this issue, saying, “I want to prevent more gay teenagers from commenting on sewer side. Having been a bully my entire life, I feel I need to speak out.”  Lady Fairchilde resides with her beloved and durable Boomerang-Toomerang-Zoomerang, and like her dear friend the late Fred Rogers (“the only man whose hand I ever let inside me”) she remains a life-long vegetarian.
 
 
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Roman Catholic Diocese of Trenton
 
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Receives Stern Warning from Catholic Bishop
 
Trenton, N. J.  David O’Connell, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Trenton and former president of The Catholic University of America, issues a strong warning to Governor Chris Christie, a fellow Catholic, on confirmed rumors about the Governor’s behavior at Mass, which he attends frequently at an unnamed church within the diocese.  Bishop O’Connell is responding to complaints by priests, parishioners, and other concerned members of the faithful that during Communion Governor Christie often goes up for seconds or even thirds in gross violation of Canon Law.
 
 
For Immediate Release
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Psychic Friends Network
 
Singer Cousins Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston Reconciled Posthumously
 
Englewood, N. J.  Popular singer and television star Dionne Warwick announces that in the wake of the untimely death of her younger cousin Whitney Houston earlier this month she has become closer to Houston in death than she had been in life.  Citing estrangement in recent years from the troubled younger singer, Warwick claims that she is in constant contact with her now in the Psychic Friends Network, for which television program Warwick was the host through much of the 1990s.  “We are in a good place,” they both agree.
 
 
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Whitehead Institute
 
Aviators Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart One and the Same
 
Cambridge, Mass.  In a startling revelation that came about purely by accident, researchers reviewing genetic sequences for the Human Genome Project at Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have determined that famed aviators Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh were actually the same person.  Charles Lindbergh, whose life courted international fame, misfortune, and controversy, was known to be a practical joker, so his assumption of a female alter ego is not unreasonable, social scientists and historians have demonstrated.  Explaining striking physical similarities and why the two aviators were never known to have met or been shown together in photographs, this current revelation also adds to the list of other hitherto uncovered mysteries in Lindbergh’s life such as the posthumous discovery that he had three other families, including children, in Germany besides the one he had with his American wife, the author Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  When it became inconvenient to maintain the alter ego of “Amelia Earhart” any longer, Lindbergh conveniently created the rumors of her disappearance in the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
 
(Previously published in Exercises in High Treason (New York : great weather for MEDIA, 2016.)