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.

Parting Ways on Pizza Night

We argued,
made love
and then
argued again,
before you said
that maybe
I should go
and play
with the traffic
for a while
and walked away,
as you called
the pizzeria
and when
the delivery man
finally arrived –
you opened
the box
to reveal a
ham and
pineapple pizza
and like ham
and pineapple pizza,
I knew then
that only a fool
would truly
think that we’d
work well
together.

Gin & Tonic on a Sunday Afternoon

Bitter on the lips,
spirits of juniper berries
bless and honey tongues
with bite and fire.
Sugared words
that have long abandoned us
take wing in ambrosial flight
from our dark corners—
winter suns—
thawing the frost
that hardens our hearts
and tender fingertips.
Chestnut hair falls before your eyes
as you read, biting your lip—
the smell of you,
tearing like a machete
through bands of cigarette smoke
that haunt the air between us.
You go to the kitchen to make us another drink.
Suckin’ gin from ice cubes,
I sit,
worshiping you, silently,
in reverie
for letting me miss you,
again.
But that’s the story of you and I—
hard to swallow
save these fleeting moments—
like bubbles
at the back of the throat
that make us smile.
Looking out the window,
clouds drifting across pale azure,
I wonder where the hell I’ve been all this time,
as crickets join the fun—
even if just for a while.

Sometimes Sodomy is the Only Way to Save Your Ass

I can’t think with these fucking dogs
circling the shack day and night, their
slapping drool, grunts and growls, and
that melodic sniffing ever present in this
surreal variant world I’ve created. With
malice and agoraphobia as my chariot I
ran and I ran, away from everything and
everyone I ever knew, it was a shit
decision then and it’s a shit decision
now, but sometimes sodomy is the only
way to save your ass.

valley of the numb

 

Chill pinpricks pierce skin where drops drip,
Pitter-patter patterns upon palm scatter-plot static wrought
On my psyche… night too stagnant to clock crisp
Meant to jumpstart; start-pistol-whipped, racing thoughts since

Some point switched to seeking strolling meditation—
Somehow stuck, can’t help but distractedly walk brisk—
More like shamble quick—breath too inhibited for relief,
Streetlights too tight for my elusive tastes on dark drifts

Who do I kid? This land’s too familiar for escape
No dark alleys to take, nothing refreshing to sate,
What distance does one drive to end up scraping with strage?
A dingy dive? A quiet lake? Abadonded estate?

One-hundered percent desert and thirty percent metropolis
Swathes of industrial, residential, and lots of dust;
There’s gotta be a place to feel alive outside a mosh pit
Our biggest threats are bike theft, heat stroke, and dumbshit drivers

Guess I’ll find a midnight machaca burrito,
And hope this time it gets me steps closer to snuffing ego,
And hope when I’m back home I remember not to spark up tonight
And finally clean up my room and rearrange my life;
Update my budget, workout again, clip the cat’s nails,
Study, write, prepare to claw my path from this nine-to-five jail,
Skip the online temporal-emotional black holes,
Cut clutter and noise from my world, re-orient towards my goals, and

fuck it, i’m tired,
hope’s exhausting
i’d rather be wired,
hung w/mary, jack, and Her
and have handerson train the squire

binge upon a feast of the throes echo’ing my dreads and dreams and
reify that soothesaid mantra: “potential” means “not defeated”

death taking a number

it’s a headache
that’s actually
a tumor

that pain in
your side is
death taking
a number

sometimes
the dream
about that
ass in your
face is better
than the taste

of course, you
always want
the chance to
prove something
wrong