Chad Parenteau
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Chad Parenteau has been: a young spaz, a mediocre high school student, a landlord's lackey, a mediocre martial arts student, a chess club member, a dishwasher, a better-than average college student, a college newspaper reporter and editor, a factory gopher, a "real" reporter, an overwhelmed and outclassed graduate creative writing student, a Starbucks employee, a waiter, an alternative press reporter, a potential husband and stepfather, a lost cause, a file clerk, a research assistant, a retinal photographer, a trainer, a teacher, an organizer, a herald of doom, a beacon of hope, and a mystery carelessly wrapped by holiday help in an enigma with "WTF" written on the bow. If the word "poet" comes out in his obituary after all that, he'll be happy.
Chad has lived and worked in the Boston area for over a decade. By day, he labors in the various local VA Healthcare Systems. By night, he hosts and/or promotes the long-running Stone Soup Poetry series in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In addition to all that, he continues to send his work out to various publications. His work can be found most recently in The Scrambler, Amethyst Arsenic, Ibbetson Street, Shampoo, and anthologies such as French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets and the upcoming Triumph of Poverty from Off The Park Press.
He most recent chapbook out: Discarded: Poems for My Apartments from Cervena Barva Press.
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City Prom
Yearbook beautiful bound
for Copley Square T stop.
Rental regal side by side
with work suits pressed
by compacting car.
Girls master dangers
of high heels
on Green Line road
to gold-plated ball room.
Princesses prep stilettos
for self defense,
huddle with boyfriends
who man-minnow against
each other into
larger targets.
Corsaged and wristwatched
arms hang from crosses
of railings, avoiding need
to nail hands for balance.
Immersed in roles
by Boylston Street bell,
class song they never voted on
recitable like a resume.
Gainlessly employed
pray for a pigeonstorm
to throw rich soil
on perfection
unrootable beyond tonight.
Coming to
Memphis mothers right
reflex-reach handed wipe sweat
raise kids likewise
for obsolete levers
justify thongs
claiming they complete
perfect white pants
mothers' hand-downs
finally creaseless.
Oh, Fathers,
where are your thoughts
rubbed by revision
thirty years before
hands above old waist
lines knowing now
a little earth shaking
would have wrought
no new reflections.
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