Dennis J. Bernstein

COVER STORY

My wise-guy barber got his throat slit.

He used to snip locks in Hell’s Kitchen.

Took over Nicky Lico’s Star-Cuts

for Less, after Nicky started pissing red

and Doc Eddy gave him a death sentence.

That’s when Nicky sold the pole, hook,

line, and scissors to Booksy Rizzo.

But Brooksy dipped in too deep

with Short-Stuff, a shyster bookie

from Queens, and ended up reclining

headless, in one of his prized patent-leather

stools, with his skull in his lap, wrapped

in that day’s edition of the Daily News.

Dennis J Bernstein is just finishing a collection of poems entitled "Stretch Marks" with an introduction by William Packard, written for the collection over 25 years ago. Bernstein's recent poems have appeared in The Texas Observer, The Progressive, ZZYZYVA, and The New York Quarterly. Bernstein's poem, "Getting Tough," appeared in The New York Quarterly best-of anthology, issue 26, edited by William Packard. Bernstein had the privilege of working with New York Quarterly founder William Packard to record most of Packard's plays, including the mini-masterpiece, "Ty Cobb."

Bernstein's artist books with noted book artist and author Warren Lehrer, "French Fries" and "Grrrhhhh: A Study of Social Patterns," are a part of the special books collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Louvre in Paris... Full Profile