Subjects for Toulouse-Lautrec By Daril Bentley

Subjects for Toulouse-Lautrec

Absolutely bald bikers are obtaining lap dances.
Virtually bare dancers are tipping their chances
toward sweet stiffs who sweat third and fourth shifts
     and get back home too tired for dancers’ gifts.

Between pole prances the girls query one another
on late date and how to be the best sort of mother.
This is not exactly Shakespeare at the Globe.
     Jackie challenges the eyes that watch her disrobe.

“Bri-Bri” imbibes the highlife he never had—
spilling his big chilled one and slurring “My bad”
as dancers change places with dancers
     and besotted barflies buzz away sans the answers.

Yale Series of Younger Poets and New Mexico Book Award finalist professional editor Daril Bentley is a Writer’s Digest International Book Award Honorable Mention recipient and is a Black Mountain Press “The 64 Best Poets Series” author. He is also editor of the reference work “The Bentley Guide to Poets & Poetry in English” and founder of a Southern Tier (NY) reading series and poetry outreach program. He has most recently been published in Better Than Starbucks, CircleShow, and The Lyric.