|
It’s cold
outside before sunup and like neighborhood kids looking for a cat I am looking for a poem its Veterans day and there are free haircuts and breakfasts and I’m looking for a poem it’s Saturday and the ghosts are still screaming and I’m looking for a poem it’s November in a town by the lake and I’m looking for a poem I’m 52 with ruined hips a sore back and I’m looking for a poem it’s everything and nothing it’s magic and loss it’s soap soup and salvation its a thing you never talk about like a mistress or PTSD it hides in plain sight it winds my clock trips my trigger it’s the first thing I reach for and the last thing I think of it’s as thin as smoke but hot as fire it’s why I get up at 5 am and drive the empty streets because today like every day I am looking for a poem. —Matt Borczon
0 Comments
don't just
bleed on the keyboard pick up the whole machine & drown it in a tub of yr blood then spread yr fingers over that red typewriter making every page stained margin to margin as it rolls thru —Rob Plath www.robplath.com between threadbare
nerve endings & the skull’s wide grin the soul emits gobs of spit —Rob Plath www.robplath.com Ever try to make a living off of
writing poetry? Today for lunch I had lettuce on white with salt pepper and water. It was better than yesterday. —Jay Dougherty Another
late night spent banging on the keys searching for something to say. No longer the bars, brawls, broads, or drugs. Just me, here, trying to remember all of it. —Scott Wozniak scott.wozniak@yahoo.com living with my curtains drawn
and my windows shut to keep the neighbors out of my life. They shout at me whenever I go out but I do not respond because they're motherfuckers trying to get me down. But I won't let them, won't allow it; I'll live like a clam behind drawn curtains and windows shut until they come up to me one by one and ask "are you Wayne Burke who writes poetry" and I'll say "yes. Yes, my man but to you it's 'Wayne F.'" —Wayne F Burke wfburke2@yahoo.com I’m not too good at networking at kissing the asses of administrators or of established poets & having to swallow their subsidized verse or self-seeking banter I’m not too keen to read my work out in public to pimply faced nobs or drunken yobs in uni pubs or clubs I’m not too fussed about workshopping my stuff in small groups to poets who advocate this school or that who agonize over each word each syllable who squeeze out every last pimple of significance from their work * I like the idea that editors vociferously hate my shit—that it’s too weird that it’s off the planet that it’s too populist, too full of profanity I like the idea that my work will be considered by the Literature Board as being ‘devoid of any literary merit’, that it is not being read by academics or anthologised by multinational book publishers I like the idea I’m not being paid for this poem because if you bought it & you didn’t like it I wouldn’t have to tell you to GO FUCK YOURSELF!
—George Anderson http://georgedanderson.blogspot.ca/ I had been drinking whiskey for
8 hours in my apartment and it was now about 9pm and I decided to go to a bar I’d only just moved to Newtown this would be my first night out I found the crappiest looking bar I could and went inside (nice looking bars always hassle you when your drunk: crappy bars appreciate any business they can get) I ordered 2 whiskeys and was feeling pretty good I had been listening to music and watching old m.m.a fights most of the day “What you celebrating pal?” said the bartender “I have an m.m.a fight in 2 weeks.” “Why are you drinking!” “It doesn’t matter. I will walk straight through him,” I said and shadow boxed for a few seconds “Good luck mate,” he said and I took a seat at the table by the door I could hear the bartender talking about me and laughing with another customer I finished my drinks and went to the bar the bartender had a grin on his face “Another drink champ?” “You want to be part of my training camp?” he didn’t respond I left the bar and got a cab to the brothel several girls introduced themselves I told the skinny young blonde with the small boobs and red lingerie I was a poet “You look more like a fighter,” she said “No I am really a poet.” “Sure. What do you write about: beating people up and sleeping with hookers.” “That all depends on the hooker,” I said and followed her tiny beautiful ass upstairs. —Brenton Dean Booth brentonbooth.weebly.com no wife
no kids; it sometimes seems as if life is not worth the living, like I missed the boat somewhere but then whenever I start to write I think this art is what I have to love: as fickle as it is as un-glamorous in the morning as moody in the night as meaningless as it sometimes seems-- in all its flaws and wrinkles it still comes through for me, still there whenever I reach for it, from the dark or from the most desolate shore. —Wayne F Burke wfburke2@yahoo.com I tried to sell out by writing erotica
but nobody was buying; now I have no artistic integrity to go with my poverty. Sex sells . . . That’s what they say, anyway. I’m so broke and sick of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sick of crossing my fingers and holding my breath when the cashier slides my debit card, sick of praying to a god I don’t believe in every time I key the ignition-- --my most recent quarterly royalty statement reads zero units sold; if things don’t improve soon I’ll have to quit this silly writer game, post a provocative ad on backpage and show my cardboard characters how we take it up the ass in the real world. —Ben Newell www.bnewell.com |
THE
|
RSS Feed
