Francis Bacon and Adolf Hitler Enter Heaven Together

On the newsstand
a familiar face
attached to a body
that looks like John Kennedy’s

HITLER DIES OF HEART ATTACK
screams the headline.
On the same day
Francis Bacon keeled over
on another continent.

Bacon’s easel
set up by St. Peter
days before in preparation
waits for his first figure.

Hitler jogs, out of breath
up the lit path
catches up with Bacon’s back

and the two of them
amble through the gates together.

Bacon, in gratitude,
begins to sketch
(starts of course
with the forelock
and mustache)

Hitler, failed, beams
scans the horizon
for suitable architecture
wonders if Bacon
will let Hitler
paint his portrait

The Difficulty of the Thing

What you are is what you are.
And me? That’s yet another thing.
I will change several times
before the week has run,
and shall not know which me is me,
or what I’ll be tomorrow.

Don’t think of me as a ride
that can carry you to your destination.
The roads I follow are rough and turning,
threading through forest and mountains
and deep under ground.

I will be here but I will not be here.
I will always be traveling
even as I sit alone,
staring at what you can not see,
trying hard to see it myself,
understand it, and make it presentable
to a blind and deaf world.

lie & say you’re sorry

she once said to me, “I hate charles bukowski.”
i said, “why?”
she said, “because he uses women, then throws them away.”
i said, “but isn’t that what you do, with men?”
and she threw me out of her car.
later on, the next day, i apologized.
as always.

Even the moon is hiding tonight

Even the moon is hiding tonight
Thieves are unscrewing, detaching everything
The walls are coming down,
Secrets are dancing in the street
In the few streetlights still blooming pallid flowers of light
There is thunder in the sky
There is sobbing and crying somewhere, everywhere
All directions the human is suffering
Why did we lose our souls
No one believes in immortal things
Everything is cheap and made of tin
Not even a good echo for a dropped coin
And a man’s word is as hollow as a cave
We are all enslaved to our seven vices and hundred devices
Bombing the city with ingenuity
How tricked we are looking for our own images in mirrors
We have become vampires and screech like Covid infected bats
Our eyes are cold with either fear or indifference
Our minds want to blow up the world
Hallelujah nuclear suicide
There will be an empire ruled by death
Not a thing will move
Cockroaches will glow until they slow and
Turn on their backs, useless legs twitching
Itching in agony as the darkness brightens, lightens
With radioactive rain

to be a poet seventy years ago

upon arriving in Hollywood
Dylan Thomas stated
his two main objectives
were touching the titties
of a blonde starlet
and meeting Charlie Chaplin.

by the end of the evening,
Shelley Winters obliged him
the first objective
at which point
Dylan Thomas excused himself
saying he was off
to find Charlie Chaplin.

it says alot about the
poets of yesteryear
as opposed to the
dabblers of today.

I can list a chapbook’s
worth of blonde starlets.
I can’t think of one poet
worthy of their titties.

MOBIUS STRIPPER

Annette up on the screen performs the mobius strip. Casts over each gladiator a net. Casts blouse and skirt off. Flips into the audience black stilettos. We migrators-from-reality duck. 

She slips from her slip. Hangs off the candelabra bra. Snaps with the twang of an Appalachian diphthong thong. Sheds, python renewing the moon of her skin, nylons.

The mole on her tit waxes mad. Even the pasties come unglued. 

She dances – arm over nipples, palm guarding bush – pair of dice for snake eyes loaded – flashes of paradise. Blows the bridge of a kiss, wriggling off stage. Leaves behind a heap of cloth, whose heat fails to penetrate the film.

Still – through restless imagination – the audience rises.

box cars on the bar top

when the dice flop out of the cup
across a bar top that’s older than sin 
and you look down on five beautiful sixes
you catch a rare win
for a jackass interloper 
in a world full of sharks

you’re just a small time punk
from a nowhere town
born with a useless gift for words
wins and triumphs don’t figure in your life 

and all those box cars on the bar top
don’t mean your lot has changed for the better
the hundred bucks you won will disappear
when you get mugged in the alley
on the way back to your motel room

that notebook of defiant poems in your pocket 
won’t save your bumpkin ass

but it’s still fun to revel in a win 
and a joy to fuck with the local destiny
by leaving the c-note
tacked under the bar with a wad of gum

if you survive the robbery 
you can sneak it out tomorrow
just before the Trailways bus pulls out of town

He Has Risen, but Who Cares

She craved a man
But didn’t want a mere fuck-buddy 
Oh God
She cried out
Spilling her Malbec

Then Jesus came flying
Into the room
Hovering 
Over the hardwood
As if it were water
But he was bored and done with that trick

My child,
he cooed 
Let my bluish-green light
Into your pussy 

It was the last straw

She knew she’d have to
Go back to the dating sites
She had heard about those 
Ectoplasmic freaks 

To celebrate this book’s release, HST is hosting its first-ever online poetry event, and you’re invited!

Part 1: Friday April 14th, 6:00-6:45pm (US Eastern Time)

https://us05web.zoom.us/j/82338942374?pwd=KzY1d0hRbzF1bEZ5aitmVllaRWNHZz09

Passcode: r483Vy

Part 2: Friday April 14th, 7:00-7:45pm (US Eastern Time)

https://us05web.zoom.us/j/81595418754?pwd=RXd0UGw2UUtqV0Q4S0lNd0tvUkpvQT09

Passcode: n5Txa8

“Seating” will be limited to 100 per session. Please get in touch if interested in reading some poems of your own, and we’ll see if we can slot you in. Otherwise, hope to see you there!

Cheers,

AG

Addicted

i chase my addiction
in the dark cool embrace
of midnight,
hidden deep within shadows,
behind doors locked with
libidinous keys.

there is no need for commerce,
no exchange of crumpled bills,
no crushing of rocks,
no back-alley shenanigans,
no needles nor spoons,
or lines of sweet transgression,
no fear of vagrancy
or the stamping flat foot of the LAPD.

there in darkness, bathed in flickering light,
i watch others in transcendence,
in desperation, in the clutch of chemical ecstasy;
writhing and mewing with false pleasure,
deep in a dance of denial, thrusting and fucking,
tearing at flesh.

faster, faster,
yes! yes! just like that!

just
like
that

and a blink of a sorrowful eye
i am one with them, i am a
part of them, captured and chained
and tied for gossamer thread,
a participant from afar,
static and solitary,

i am a part of scene, my degradation palatable,
my shame and misery complete,
blood rising and rushing, an addict in the arboretum,
my skin crackles with fire.

i am burning.
burning, burning.
i am
burning.

eyes dilate,
heart beats fast to a strange kind of music
and
soon

i collapse,

only to feel the hunger rise
once more
from the base of my cock
into
the pit of my soul.