David Mills
David Mills is a Piltdown Review Featured Poet for June 2019. He is the author of two books of poetry—The Dream Detective and The Sudden Country, a book-prize finalist. His most recent manuscript is also a finalist for the Crab Orchard Review Prize. He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Breadloaf, and the Queens Council on the Arts. He has an MFA from Warren Wilson College. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Crab Orchard Review, Fence, Colorado Review, and Vermont Literary Review. He has also recorded his poetry on RCA Records and for ESPN, and had poems displayed at the Venice Biennale. Learn more at davidmills.squarespace.com.
Swiss Kriss for President
An unpaid pitchman, I even sent Kriss to Eisenhower. “Do it the Satchmo way and you’ll feel 10 years old.”
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Swiss Kriss Diet
I’m a high-strutting yo-yo diet, the gut and down every year or so. But people fixate on my weight, like I got cancer. No, I got Swiss Kriss.
St. James Infirmary
Two Freds, one the composer the other the tromboner. Got to have both or this hit would need a church organ donor.
The First Few A’s in St. James Infirmary
That song’s first “A” didn’t show up, must’ve been sick. That “A” didn’t show up, could’ve been sick. Or maybe missed the call ’bout the gig between my lips.
What a Wonderful World
The melody sounded like twinkle twinkle’s great uncle oompah loompah: “I see trees of green . . .” Label wasn’t seeing the same green cause they only offered me 5 c-notes.
Talking to the Bones: Talking
“That Kalk Hook farm was uppermost?” “I promise: a sky beyond the sky will burn in this earth.”
Lloyd’s Neck/Slink
Scrupulous, astute: to the City he was sent (by) and sometimes went (with) Master Henry to shoehorn deals.
A Lopsided G-d
Another text, he wrote; tossed it off his tongue addressing “Negroes of the State of New York.”
