One Man’s Plan to Contain Urban Sprawl

“Nothing you can do”
a friend told him
but that was never true

a large roadside sign
showed the finished product
as conceived
by brilliant architectural minds

five stories of earth toned
stucco abomination
blocking his mountain view
from the house he’d lived in for years

no
he wouldn’t have it

it began with small sabotage
slashing tires of trucks and loaders
filling pipes with rocks
setting fires

security increased
cameras and fences
nighttime guards
walking the beat

a new plan was devised
the fuel obtained
(don’t ask from where)
blueprints discovered online

and he was smart
he actually figured it out
but for a slight miscalculation

he’d intended to build
a small one

but when it went off
he had only a millisecond
to admire the glowing shaft
with its mushroom head
rising like a morning hard on
above the city

before he vaporized
into a dark shadow
on the rocks behind

as the city burned
leaving a pristine black crater
and a fabulous mountain view

+Sundae/Anti-Love+

STOP
in the name of love
or
in the name of straightjackets
His anti-love almost killed me,
well, it did kill me
He just wasn’t smart enough to hide my body
somewhere, besides the Dark
DARKNESS IS MY ADOPTIVE MOTHER
DARKNESS IS MY FATHER
for every Sundae, I confess with cherries and sprinkles
I make it all pretty (ugly)
He licked around it and just fucking let it melt
Mistook my wild-eyed observing for Fear
Mistook my sprinkles for a shattered soul
‘Now she knows better’, he writes
Well, at least he can speak truth
ONCE IN A WHILE in a poem
WHERE WOULD WE BE WITHOUT POETRY?
Will it be enough to save him from himself?
That demon sure is persistent

Swing Low

They wanna know why I done it.
You wanna know why I done it.
Ever since I been in here
they been pesterin’ me ’bout
Why, Why, Why
Well hell.
If I knowed why’d I done it,
then I wouldn’t be sittin’ right here
in this damn cell.

Look.
All I know is:
when I saw that man,
an’ that woman,
an’ them six childjurn of theirs,
all dressed up in they’s Sunday best,
ever one of em looking fed an’
happy as a pig in shit…

It just set somethin’ off in me.

An’ that little bitty ol’ house,
that wasn’t fit for even
a damn ol’ chicken pen,
sittin’ out there all alone,
‘mongst all them damned fields.

I swear.
It’s as if that house was built
just so this’d happen:
So their God,
in his infinite fucking wisdom,
could set that family on the
path to Heaven,
“in his kindness”.

You know,
I set up in that attic an’
it was like I had all
the time in the world,
just me an’ my ax,
not thinkin’ a damn thang…

Just knowin’.

I wonder you reckon?
if they is up there?
being tended to by them angels?
That’s what daddy’d say:
“The Lord works in mysterious ways”.

A damned fools answer
if they ever was one.

A Warning From the Meek

Sharpen your tomahawks;
lace up your boots and
crank up your war machines.
A hurricane of spleen and bone
is coming,
with the tortured souls of fury
at the head.

You’ve built faulty systems
to repair your faulty systems;
nothing you’ve conceived
ever manifested into anything
before it turned to dust and blood.

Your numbers are wrong,
the calculations have handicapped
other systems and they’re really
quite fucking angry about it.

Haven’t you ever wondered why
in all the prayers in all the world
there aren’t any that don’t
ask for something?

Yearning for the New Poison/
Ballad of the Hip Death Goddess

see the hunger in his eyes
see the emptiness in his soul
the slow junk crawl of need
that will never be filled,
it all comes down to this
the hot pulse in the back of the throat
the rectal throb deep inside,
then the withdrawal
that leaves the trembling chill
and the devouring emptiness
that closes in again,
look inside your mirror
see the hunger in your eyes
see the emptiness in your soul

My Enemy is Resting

I can hear breathing like calm ocean waves
Claws and teeth in atrophy somewhere close

One day I’ll build that treehouse
A place where our thoughts won’t betray us

My enemy is waking

I hear labored breathing and claws
digging through dirt and stone

You died before you became famous
Your absence born a silent revolution
like those that they make documentaries about

I’ll have to start moving now
I am the hunted and my history will be painted
black like coal

My enemy is here

The Phenomenology of Fucking

What I don’t understand about
literature is when a writer uses
the expression ‘We made love
all night long’ what do they
mean by love? Were his/her
imagined representations
banging away hammer
& tongs for eight/ten hours
or were there interludes-
quietly kissing,
cuddling & administering
the occasional hand job?

This is a legitimate question
especially for those seeking to establish a more credible
& profound understanding
of fucking in literature-
the squeaky bed
the bent fuck
the spent gold on the ground.

This takes us forward to Marquis
de Sade. While in prison in
1785 he created the character
of Duc de Blangis. In his youth
the Duc had been known to
ejaculate as often as 18 times a
day and once successfully
wagered that he could take it
up the ass by 55 different men
in succession.

Was this magnificent novel the direct result of penile servitude or
the sado-masochistic by-product of Sade’s obscene imagination?

*

The editor of Quagmire is dumbfounded, ‘I can’t publish this shit-
you don’t seem to instruct, delight or moralise- you merely
write profanities- what is your point anyway?’

I pitch him the old arguments:

A work of Art is autonomous, a self-contained entity.
The artist needs to create freely and not be a slave to subject matter.
Art’s function is to challenge the hypocrisy & lies of conventional ways of thinking.
Art needs only to be judged in terms of its aesthetic value… & so on.

He asks cynically, critically, ‘Now what might some of this criteria be based on-
the number of bonks you describe & the length & circumference of private parts?’

‘I think you’re starting to get up my fucking ass now’, I phallocentrically add.

 

tub boy

in the park bathroom
on the toilet

took some laxatives earlier
haven’t shat in svn days

tried hella times
but it’s just not coming out

it’s 9:40
park closes in 20 minutes

push push puush

just a couple small turds come out

push push ahh

i debate goin to the ER
my stomach is in so much pain

then i hear someone enter the bathroom

i hear them walk up to my stall

…

a head appears (!?)

a hand

an arm

reaching under the stall

grabbing my leg

pulling me out

what the hell! i scream and kick

he screams “give me your fucking wallet!”

no way, alls i got is 10 dollars

“hell no bitch”

i get to my feet and try to fight him

but it’s kinda hard when your pants are around your ankles

this is bad

“i’m going to beat the shit out of you!” he yells

he punches me in the face

i fall on my ass

he kicks me in the stomach

he bends over reaching for my wallet

i’m holding him off for now but not for long he’s too strong…

then i feel it

ooo shit, it’s coming

ooOO

then i get an idea

(shout outs to tub girl)

“you fucked with the wrong guy!” i yell,

rolling my legs behind my head

i aim

then pushpushPUUUSH

and a fountain of shit shoots into his face

bulls eye

he runs for the exit, projectile vomiting

he slips on puke n shit and falls

i pull up my pants, get to my feet

he gets up and tries to run out again but slips and falls again

he’s completely covered in shit n vomit

miraculously none got on me

i rip the paper towel dispenser off the wall and bash him over the head unconscious

“BITCH!”

then i steal his backpack, cigs, flask, cell phone, car keys, wallet with 60 bucks in it, squirt on him some more, wipe my butt, wash my hands, and get the hell out of there in his 2005 ford escape. beep beep!

i take a few more shits inside it, smear it all over, then leave it on the side of the highway out of gas, bash out a window, slash one tire. i think that’s enough. we’re even now.

feeling good. feeling light as a feather. 200 miles closer to my destination and enough to buy a train ticket the rest of the way.

YEEEHAW

 

Johnny Scarlotti on Twitter

1000 ghosts

1000 ghosts haunting
every corner
every gas station

1000 ghosts behind
every locked door

each one of them is me
I know
but it’s nice to be reminded
for distraction’s sake

past lives
walk the streets
strutting
self-destruction
selling
sabotage
with their hands
buried deep
in the pockets of puffy jackets

my eyes wander

my eyes don’t water
they have been wide for days
fearful of the instant
lost to a blink

and the present
from which there is no harbor
found me
shuffling
past the pharmacy
where Dani works
where I pretended
to buy rigs
for someone else
acting
like I needed
to read from my phone
instead of recite from memory

29 gauge
half inch
one CC

six months
past
wondering
if the scars will fade
and
if the ghosts
will ever live again

Better Out Than In

My grandmother stood above
as I vomited in my mother’s bathroom.

“I told you so!” she crowed
while the hot rum and apple cider
exited my body.

Nervous in her presence,
I soothed my guts with alcohol.
Her admonitions only made me drunker.

Thanksgiving was a tense affair,
filled with canned yams and rage.

Since I despised
the marshmallows’ artificial goo
and the prickly tang of aluminum,

I brought fresh sweet potatoes
all the way from Chicago,

only to upchuck them
a few hours later
into a Wisconsin toilet.

I hated it when
my grandmother was right,
because she derived
so much pleasure from it.

She could hold her liquor inside
for as long as necessary,
until her body absorbed the bile
and saved it for later.

It’s a good thing
I was never
that much of a drinker.