One Sentence Poems

Todd Mercer Modest Aspirations My friend the guitarist brought over an album called “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank,” so we taught ourselves hooks and solos like those until the wee hours, planning the quick rise of a band we’d form and later split from over creative visions and a strange shortage of […]

Todd Mercer Our Local Banksy There’s the Billboard Fixer again, up there without permission, making the existing sign funnier through strategic additions of paint, saving our collective souls from the vampire that is commerce, each mission technically a misdemeanor. Todd Mercer of Grand Rapids and “Up North” areas harbors serious concerns, but prefers to suffer […]

Todd Mercer Ephemeral & Transitory We have until they go out into the world, after which we wonder if we really had them at all, the way the clock and the calendar flap in the wind on the last standing wall of heartbreak. Todd Mercer was born ready, then was not at all ready, next […]

Todd Mercer The Ming Ten Directive Reach for the stars, but be the reasonable person capable of gleaning happiness from a plate of decent sushi too. Todd Mercer is a regular guy who was nominated for Fiction and Poetry Pushcarts last year, but still answers his own e-mails anyway.  

Todd Mercer The Optimist “Keep on believing in UFOs, you magnificent bastard,” said the Best Man at my fifth wedding when I tried to explain to him how I make my decisions. Todd Mercer, who was nominated for Best of the Net in 2018, is going to keep on believing in UFOs.  

Todd Mercer Skewering “Stab me once, shame on you…” says my shrink-friend, voting for divorce over patching up, while we grill a ton of meat for his umpteen teenage offspring, “…fewer punctures = better.” Todd Mercer coined the popular culture term “high-tracked” (becoming side-tracked from one’s stream of thought due to being high) and wrote […]