Chad Parenteau

Morning Talk

I dreamed of
a conversation

boring like
this one where

you failed
to convince

that I’m not
repeating mistakes.

Nothing learned.
No one changes.

Thank me
for listening.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His latest collection is The Collapsed Bookshelf. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, The Rye Whiskey Review, Nixes Mate Review and anthologies such as French Connections and Reimagine America. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine.

Chad Parenteau

Cambridge Doesn't
Need Another Poet

Camo facemask
clashes with brick
red sidewalk.

Must have been
picked off
from afar.

Summer solace
in burger joint
once regulared

by my former
worst enemy
in letters.

Revolutionaries
spin before
first doctrine,

helicopter
parent
positions,

roundhouse
even right
thinkers.

Spheres spin
off, unable to
influence selves.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Ibbetson Street, Off The Coast, Nixes Mate Review and Wilderness House Literary Review. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine. His second collection, The Collapsed Bookshelf, was nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award.

Chad Parenteau

Working Misanthrope Versus Pandemic

They stole my singularity.

Back to being among, not of.

I played. I lost. I want to leave.

No ball back. Home already here.

#meetoos #neveryous both

rejoice, tap on my glass bubble.

No more I-love-you-don't-touch-mes.

Hell is other people calling you back.

Chad Parenteau is the author of Patron Emeritus, released in 2013 by FootHills Publishing. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tell-Tale Inklings, Queen Mob's Tea House, What Rough Beast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Ibbetson Street, Molecule and Résonance. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine. He has hosted the long-running Stone Soup Poetry series in Boston since 2004. His second full-length collection, The Collapsed Bookshelf, is forthcoming. 

Chad Parenteau

Work-Through-Lunch Poem

O'Hara never had bad dreams

of days like this.

Sustenance substituted

for vending machine run,

not enough time to hold

a haiku with your candy bar.

Another day, another dead lady

trending on Twitter,

sad emojis beating

your best words-per-minute.

Crying kidneys bring you

to the bathroom break

as you sound out the only poem

your colleagues may ever hear.

Chad Parenteau is the author of Patron Emeritus, released in 2013 by FootHills Publishing. His work has appeared in Tell-Tale Inklings, What Rough Beast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Ibbetson Street and Wilderness House Literary Review. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine. His second full-length collection, The Collapsed Bookshelf, is forthcoming.