Category: Poetry

Brice Maiurro

Why I Write Poetry

because
when it comes
it comes like a mack truck
and i don’t have the strength
to plant my heels
firmly in the dirt
and slow it down
and i don’t want it to pass on by
so my only choice
is to stick out my thumb
jump in
and ride along
with this shady strung out
truck driver
until one of us
is ready to kill the other

because
when it comes
it comes like a great woman
and i’m usually and inconveniently drunk
so i ask her to dance
in a loud room
where maybe she won’t notice my slurring
and i wear my cologne thick
so maybe she won’t smell
the booze on my breath
and the dance never lasts long
and usually
i end up taking a cab home
and usually
she goes her own separate way
but sometimes
she comes with me
and we spend the night together
tossed in madness and revelation

because
when it comes
it comes like shock therapy
and in the pain
the swelling of the temples
the shaking of the muscles
the boiling of blood cells
sometimes
there is a moment of strong breath
where some ghost escapes
and someone else sees it
and them and me
will always have that
even if i’m not all there

because
when it comes
it comes like a letter bomb
and i could just throw it away
never open it
and the truth is
if i did that
i would be fine
but time and again
i play russian roulette
i do what’s worst for me
i open the letter
i inhale the toxins
i remind myself
that i am not god
and i am reasonably sure
that god would not be who they are
if any of us
were ever considerate enough
to give them a choice
in the matter

John D Robinson

The View

Hunched down in my front porch,
smoking a joint, looking out at
the tree-tops of the public park
and beyond into blue skies,
birds are heard near and distant,
cats lounge and sleep on the
warm pavements, I can hear
traffic moving far off and the
moment feels perfect, it looks
perfect, the world before me
is perfect but I know from my
radio and t.v. reports that
people are killing and hurting
one another in the most hideous
of ways in our streets across
the globe; wars and conflicts
claiming countless lives
rampage endlessly across the
world and so it has done so
for thousands of years and
it’s not going to change,
world peace will never exist,
it’s not wanted, too few
people would lose too
much; those few that
govern the many:
but the view I have from my
front porch is a perfect
view of the world and
for that moment,
it was just perfect.

John Gartland

Count Kevlar Open Source

Digital metaphysics.
Take a deep breath, reboot,
drop into unadulterated Dharma,
pause the sensory overlay stream
and run it backwards.
You are immediately released
from all the tyranny of karma.
No shit.
You have broken the power of narrative,
climbed right out from under it.

You’ve put a hold on fate,
and float
on the perfect parabolic curve;
enjoy your elevated state;
you can change the operating system now,
if you can only hold your nerve.

 

Jake Cosmos Aller

The Mean Streets of Bombay

One wild night in Bombay, India,
I walked into an evil bar 20 drinks too sober
on the wicked-wrong end of
a Friday night booze run.

On the bad side of the Moon where Martian men
drank, ogling the Venus girls and leering
at Earth women in skin-tight pants
that made their eyeballs hurt.

I gave into the spirit and decided to join them,
getting drunk on Martian whiskey and
smoking that good old-fashioned
Mars dust as well.

Next thing I knew,
I was on my way to Jupiter,
on a lark with a gal who
said she was from Saturn.

Didn’t learn she was from Pluto
until I woke the next day,
naked and in jail somewhere
near Alpha Centauri.

A million miles away,
a thousand years in the future,
with no money, no honey,
and no fucking way home.

Still 20 drinks too sober,
I just pissed away my time
with fine Pluto whisky
and cold-ass alien wine.

Then one day I found myself outside that bar again,
enveloped in the miasmic mists
by the old Martian whorehouse,
down near the Gate of India.

Walked up to my Pluto babe
and said, man,
that was some bad shit;
let’s do it again sometime.

Knew the day
would come again,
I’d be drinking with
those Martian men.

Something bad
my way would come,
another night
of wicked fun.

On the wrong side of the Moon,
on just the right night,
in the mean streets
of Bombay.

Angelica Arsan

Bad Seed Crying

This love is a symptom
Of my disease

A damaged mind’s
Declaration of intent

Self-loathing mated with self-destructiveness
Our love’s the fruit of their best fuck

I’m bearing
The schizophrenic child of our insanity

I hear it cry
As it flows through your cock

I swallow the bad seed

It screams down my throat

I think it’s trying to warn me

 

John Grey

One Day in August

I’m seated at an outdoor cafe
sipping coffee, reading a novel,
when a thing in tattered clothes stumbles by
pursued by an angry mob
wielding tire irons and baseball bats.

It’s a hot, stifling day.
The beach is closed from contamination.
The blood-bars don’t open until three.
This is bound to happen.

 

Keith Rawson

Last Memory of Dad

He said,
“Just make it easy on yourself.”

I said,
“I can’t”

He said,
“Look, you’re not getting any more money out of me
while I’m still alive.
So use the pillow and squeeze,
then the inheritance is yours.”

I said,
blink, blink
Eyes open, eyes closed,
and squeezed.

Paul Green

No Way Out Of Here

No woman here —
just those walls
and miles of them.
The sun has even run and
maybe it is all for the best.
I want booze.
I want booze to forget
every woman that I didn’t fuck
or couldn’t.
Life is funny and sad.
Somehow, even
after dying inside,
you still have to beat
the alarm clock
in the morning —
and you will.

Jon Bennett

Rooster

The man evicted
from The Crosby Hotel
sits on the curb
surrounded by drug addicts
but with the patience
of a Buddhist neophyte
waiting for the gates to open

However, every morning at 5am
he explodes,
“I know it was you, Jennifer!”
he screams,
“Mail fraud, Jennifer!
Where are the checks, Jennifer!”

No one knows
who Jennifer is
but we’re all rooting for her
not him
with his crates of books
and crazy eyes
waking us
from our dreams.