happy-ass husk

that brunette delivered a blow job for the ages 
she sucked all the frustration out of my life
no more weigh stations  
no more speed traps
and no more unpaid miles of dead heading

she sucked all the bullshit out of my universe
all the logbook violations
all the detours 
all the water in the diesel
and all the pond scum in the truck stop coffee

holy crap!
I thought I’d been drained before
but when she spit my dick out of her mouth
and crawled back into the passenger seat of the Peterbilt
I felt like it was the day of the rapture
and I was a happy-ass husk of a corpse left behind
while all the Kojacks with their Kodaks

took a long shitty detour through paradise

How We Did Things Back in the Day

You send out the thing that wants to be a book. You wait.
You wait a long time. You wait a very long time. 
The thing comes back: “No thanks.” 
Might as well say, “You suck.” 
Rinse. Repeat. 
And again and again and again. 
Years pass in endless repetition. 
“Does not fit our current needs.” 
“Not our aesthetic.” 
“We don’t publish crap like this.” 
“We know where you live and are coming to kill you.”
“We have ceased publication because of this awful shit.”
“Go straight to hell, motherfucker.” 
You send out the thing that wants to be a book. 
You wait. 
The thing that wants to be a book 
begins to rot. 
It festers. 
It wants you dead. 
It knows your weak spots, 
your pressure points, 
your night terrors and flop sweats. 
The thing that wants to be a book 
will see you suffer, by God, by Hell, by damn. 
It is your mistress and your fate. 
If you had the balls you would burn it, 
but you won’t. 
Coward. 
You will send it again. 
Just once more, and once more and once more. 
And you will never forget, ever, 
to include sufficient return postage 
with your SASE.

Don’t Call Me Daddy 

One little word he doesn’t want you to say —  
spread wide inside a tulle canopy bed in 
the dark.
Easily you obey, every other way,
but bite through a lip to avoid the remark. 
Braids in his hands pulled as he goes deep 
to fill you with cum and perpetual doubt 
that he’ll reappear if you’re indiscreet  
with those two syllables he must fuck without.
Checks his reflection in your heart-shaped shades. 
Buys you a rainbow of cable knit kneesocks.
Takes you to ice cream and skee ball arcades.
Requests a shaved pussy.  Proffers lollipops.
Reads your daddy issues published in books
but they are not his — no matter now this looks. 

Like a Feather

After making friends with Maya on Facebook I figured she would not mind a visit. I found out where she lived and jumped on a southbound Greyhound. The worst part was avoiding peeing on myself in the skinny bathroom while hitting potholes. When the dog arrived, I stopped at Popeye’s and got us a bucket of crispy chicken and the fixings. I rang her doorbell and a man that resembled a black Adolf Hitler answered, he would not let me enter until I gave him a thigh and neck bone from the fowl. When I saw the queen of poetry I smiled and gave her some fried okra with a packet of hot sauce. She looked me over from head to toe, her eyes seemed magnetic. Finally, she spoke. “I’ll bet you’re pure hell on the ladies.” I said, “I do alright.” She removed her drawers and said, “Let’s see what you can do you silver-tongued devil.” I plunged in all the way to my ears; she started moaning and groaning and carrying on. I got a bit frightened; I thought I was going to fucking kill her. She started whistling and pulling my hair out by the roots. I figured she had enough. “Goddamn. You sure got a lot of pluck for a naked neck rooster scalawag.” I put my crotch in her face and asked, “Do you fetch bone?” “I’m too old to be your bitch, now give me the rest of that chicken and get the hell out of here.” I hit the bricks back to the bus station. There was a beautiful blonde that looked like Grace Kelly in the back row, and we played doctor under a blanket all the way to Chicago.

Diction

Dick! 
Dick! 
Dick! 
How’s that 
for diction? 
Dick, fuck, 
cunt, shit, 
balls! 
Some words 
have no 
substitutes, 
like teachers, 
but we use them 
anyway. 
Students cringe 
at the word 
poetry – 
they hate 
the sound. 
Maybe if we 
spice it up 
with baby 
at the end. 
Poetry, baby! 
Because it is 
a party – 
good poetry 
anyway. 
It deserves 
to be 
celebrated. 
There’s something 
magical 
about words 
that hit right.
Not all words 
do. 
Poetry should 
rage, 
like a hard dick. 
Diction, baby!
Use it! 

and the older you get

all these remedies, potions 
and pills trying to let you 
escape the pain

all the while, i’m more 
interested in embracing 
it

i had a doctor tell me 
once pain is how you 
know you’re alive

so is love

and the older you get

the more you realize 
just how much both 
go hand in hand

the lucky ones will 
have some flowery 
retort to this

the rest of us have 
no choice but to 
live in reality

John D Robinson is a UK-based poet. Hundreds of his poems have appeared online and in print. He has published 15 chapbooks and four full collections of his poetry. He has published a novel of fiction and 2 collections of short stories. He is a multiple Pushcart nominee.

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The Viaduct Girls

in high waisted acid 
washed jeans & Def Leppard 
half shirts  

the viaduct girls 
give furious  
fleeting hand jobs 

as the D&H railroad 
shoots its load 
across the Susquehanna

later they teach us to skip rocks
ducks & drakes, they call it 
to further mystify 

in a few years 
they’re at Vassar or Bryn Mawr
or some other college we can’t pronounce

we stay or leave 
or leave & come back 
it’s all the same

drinking beer every night
at the Copper Fox
on Water St

nowadays nobody skips rocks 
& the train stopped unloading 
years ago 

Neon Gods

Sacred footsteps 
of pilgrims and 
street PrOphETS 
atop
piss-stained lottery tickets and 
dirty hypodermics—
like rose petals, strewn
under maidens’ tender feet—
pave the way
to playing card Meccas
beyond doors
to salvation/damnation,
below fiery eyes that cut
the night (and souls) in two
with gazes and blinks 
(but never sleep). 

Quite the price 
to pay
to cross these fickle streams
that run
sacrificial red 
with self-severings 
of thigh bone and fat,
savory-sweet 
and spiced with lotus wine—
offerings 
in want of burning
on conjured stages and 
electric alters
for Vanity’s spectacle.

How divine 
the honied stench
of auto vivisections (splayed out
for all to see),
making followers and 
the blue birds that tweet
forget 
appetites and tastes for
eyes (for eyes) and teeth (for teeth)— 
for the sake of ounces (of fame) 
for pounds (of flesh)—
like cold Lethe 
and her gentle lapping,
smooth, of jagged rocks
upon Hell’s bitter shores.

Let us pray 
(for emergence
from this opiate haze
and a quick flip of the switch).

Amen.

***

Originally published at Cephalopress

Sade

Sade’s twenty two
and made of fire
with eyelashes 
long enough 
to blow wind on your face
if she blinks close to you

Born in the Bermudas 
but talks like a Jamaican 

I tell her
“You’re my black bitch”
and she slaps me
across the face

When I repeat
my playful insult
she slaps me harder

Am I a masochist?
No, I am not
I am a sadist

I lay Sade on my bed
each night
and she’s fire 
in a cold cold soul

I flip her over 
like chicken breasts
in the burning pan

I suck on her asshole
as if it’s the formula 
that was missing
from when I was a baby

Sade is lust
and mutual bullying,
there’s harmony
in our mutual abuse

Sometimes I don’t know
what she screams at me
her accent is so exotic
but I suckle 
on her chocolate nipples 
on those caramel-coloured breasts 

She says I can’t love 
a black girl,
I’m as white as her bed sheets

I tell her I’m a different kind of white
An Albanian white 

She says she’s Muslim

I tell her I grew up Muslim 
Bektashi Muslim,
I tell her

Allah will strike us both dead
if he happens to see
what I’m about to do to her
this fiery night

She lets me

She lets me 
make a sinner 
of us both 

Under a sky 
empty of anything 
religious 
or moral

As we make 
our lustful noise
in a darkness left
from thousands years
of silence from any God,
be it Allah
or Christ
or any other fairytale
people spew on this world
because they were too afraid 
to die
or had the luck of
ever meeting a Sade

Sade is a God killer
even if she believes in God

And she sleeps
in my arms
tonight