« Jason Hardung » RADIO LOVE SONGS A high heel lays in dead brush dusted by fast cars alone in the median. Was she walking out of some body's life? Pounding pavement until words that bite couldn't catch up? Was it a wild night of thick liquor and lights tossed out windows like burning cigarettes exhaled as exhaust from tail pipes? Maybe a man haunted by lies didn't want pieces of her sitting shotgun? That's where the dog sits dripping hot smiles on hot days while the radio plays love songs that make sense now. DEATH ISN'T BUTTERFLIES AND BALLOONS Children learn to whisper eulogies for dead pets in marmalade sun and bury bones under popsicle stick crosses somewhere between the rose bush and sun flower patch out back. Death isn't butterflies and balloons or kid's shows but ballads deep in the gut of Johnny Cash. It's ok as long as we have air conditioning and all you can eat buffets. Hanging clouds of toxic waste won't take us if we pretend they aren't there. Jason Hardung's work has appeared in THRASHER and DRIFT magazines. His poetry has appeared, or is going to appear in LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.NET, BLACK BOOK PRESS and WSN POETRY ANTHOLOGY 2007. He is also an editor of a literary magazine in Colorado called FRONT RANGE REVIEW.