Poem: "Franklin Pierce & Me"

 I would give anything to spend an evening

with President Franklin Pierce

A room in the White House

stained with tobacco

Talking at midnight

The hour great men die

But not President Pierce and me

We were not great men

We died at 4:30 in the morning

or 3 in the afternoon

Great men have great last words, like

"Tis well," or, "I'm a broken machine."

Our last words were

"I'm in something wet."

An hour with President Franklin Pierce

We could talk about the things we could not do

the things we would not do

the things we did that were not enough

We could compare stories

like soldiers compared scars at Buena Vista

He let Kansas and Nebraska go to hell

without thinking of the bonny blue Union

I let Babylon and Sodom go to hell

without telling them about heaven

I would give anything for one dusky hour

to talk to President Pierce

I would give anything

for my hand to clasp his in prayer

Those suddenly sober prayers

where it stuns your heart to know God is listening

and breaks your heart to know He knows

I would give anything

for President Pierce's hand in mine

The Potomac cannot wash them

these clenched and haunted hands of ours

But my hand in his, and his in mine

would do wonders for hands which wrought failures

originally published in Smells To High Heaven: Poems and Prose (2019)

Poem: "Juana's Palace"

I snuck into Juana’s palace

to give her a new pair of slippers for her birthday

Juana isn’t allowed out of her palace –

she’s been deemed mad,

a deranged melancholic who clings to corpses and coffins

and mourns for them too long,

unnaturally

Surely the touch of madness

Still I gave Juana a new pair of slippers

in the chance the rugs of her palace rot away

before her son – 

the king –  

visits her next

Lest she be forced to feel the coarse dust

covering cold, unswept gems under her feet

and feel what her son feels

when he treads on his mother’s dreams

Juana’s servants are not to speak to her – 

an order of the king – 

But they spoke to me, of course,

as I slinked away from her palace:

“Have you given His Majesty a pair of slippers also?”

“By God, it ain’t his birthday!”

Juana’s palace holds a legal queen,

legal only –  

She signs no treaties, she knights no soldiers 

though the war is rightfully hers

Juana’s palace is full of nuns,

full of nurses,

full of silence all are obliged to keep

Juana’s palace is no palace at all, you could say

But the madness of my queen is much too royal,

my queen’s melancholy is much too regal

for country cottages

or luxury voyages

where she’d be tossed to common beaches

not fit for her ship to wreck

My queen’s madness is given by Divine Right

and no asylum should keep it secret

(Originally appeared in The Viridian Door, 2022)

"MTV News: A Letter To Jonathan Melvoin"

I'm honored that Longleaf Review has included my prose piece "MTV News: A Letter To Jonathan Melvoin" in their new Wayback issue. It's a true story, and it all happened in the 90s...if you don't understand, I guess you just had to be there. You can read it here.

Poem: "Ghost Tape Number 10"

If I ever mutter something magnificent

Something sarcastic and succinct enough to scar

and forever vanquish my vanity

It'll be born of mad mumblings in a bar

of precious snippets of a sinner’s sanity

It'll come far removed from fields in fall

Millions of miles removed from Mars

and the cliches in the comets and their tails

It'll come from something strange,

from lobotomy scars

and haunted county jails

It'll come, whatever beast it may be,

an omen of hell or heaven,

from Waco in '93

from Rwanda, from 9/11

It'll come, as all great things begin,

from something sick and rotten

Something I heard

on Ghost Tape Number 10

Something furious and forgotten

A faceless Jane Doe,

estimated height: five-feet-two,

discovered in summer '69

It'll come from Death Row

It'll come from Swine Flu

It'll come from me

but it won’t be mine.

from the book Balladmonger: More Bad Poems & Prose

Poem: "A Dream of Lightning, Poorly Dreamed"

In a sterile room colored white

with a dash of pink to calm the nerves

The Conductor of light explained again

what purpose he serves, my pupils

wide as dimes, sweat on the palms of

my hands. The Conductor advised me

to send my mind to other times or,

if need be, to other lands.

He turned a switch that made me ache

His narrowed eyes watching, hoping I didn't

mistake his advice to retreat to unknown skies

as a license for madness so impure,

the very thing his machine was built to cure.

General Nathaniel Lyon, stark raving mad

Hero of the Union and the Bonny Blue flag

was a comrade in my dusty room, born of

books rotted to rags. The wearied ugly men

they described rose from the tomb, contrary

to what was prescribed, smelling of mildewed

air, soothing my heart from despair with a

beautiful gloom.

I accompanied him to Missouri, 1861,

where we drilled the German volunteers

in cannon and gun, the fanatic General's

disdain for the mutineers driving his every

order, his instructions strict for every man,

his every lunatic harebrained plan.

A brambled red beard matched his uniform, 

rumpled, dirty, overworn. Lyon was not

revered, as a dog reveres a storm

and delights in peace when it's done -

he was called insane, “an old son of a gun, 

punished properly at last,” said the officers 

when he was slain, a figure obscured by night and past. 

Not one would mourn his life when he was dead - 

“the army is my wife,” he always said.

General Lyon, soldier, native son and trooper

was just mad enough to retake the state

from the South, and I in my stupor for science's sake

would rouse the troops with the might in my mouth.

Lightning corrupted the sky like

Leviathan in the sea; we feared not,

hearts and caps in hands, the men under

my command in Battery C.

We responded to the lightning in kind

as the Missouri sky turned a hideous hue –

“We are fighting under a man out of his mind!

General Lyon, we who are about to die,

salute you!”

We drove them back, the traitors, the Rebs

with powder and fuse. Washington sent

wires, “attack!” and we fired every steel

and metal shape a cannon can use. 

We thought of our sweethearts at home 

So proud, waiting - my Zuzana, my belle -

as the lightning angrily shone, 

illuminating wrinkles in the clouds 

like a brain lit by fires of hell.

Governor Jackson trembled, but he was

relieved at the sight of McCulloch, Price and Pearce;

a rabble they resembled, as eager as we to fight,

their mad mutiny so wretched, the lightning

above so fierce.

boom

I could not help but gaze at the sky as the

bolts cracked boom the blue; things certain things 

turned to haze as General Lyon fell, bleeding 

brains and Union blue.

I tried to rally my Battery, but no words came;

it was as though the battle had faded, 

as though the lightning struck my brain, 

the Conductor somewhere satiated.

Bolts of Zeus, raining spite, struck boom crack my men,

took them away, turned them to puffs of smoke; 

a spear of white struck General Lyon where he lay,

not a drop of blood left to stain the earth where

his final rally he spoke.

zuzana send help

boom The men were called to retreat - the order was not mine

My legs were like worms bang crack, my boots like concrete

as wore and were taken time faded. pow  

the lightning struck again Zuzana 

to die un repentant benumbs me

I saw my men flee, those not eviscerated 

boom

Not a soldier left in Battery C

Strike again! I dared. 

No. No, I didn't. I couldn't have dared.

boom crack pow

Not such an electric sky, not a fool such as I.

Never surrender. Fight for the bonny blue and for Zuzana.

But who's Zuzana? Nobody. Never surrender

boom rumble

Nobody

quiet

My toes curled in my boots but my

boots were in a corner

I remember putting them there because 

that's where the nurse said.

One mustn't die with his boots off

though I am not dead

I am not dead

Tho' I may as well be

Like my friend the General

The dream is lost for Battery C

pow

Zeus has taken my cannons from me

from the book Amen, Bad Luck To You

Poem: "A Lily Among Thorns"

Written in 2013 for a woman with whom I was in love. Though I long ago fell (or grew) out of love with her, when I rediscovered this piece of strained melodramatics I realized there are bits of this and that, that I rather like. Except, I hope never to feel "unworthy" to talk to someone - anyone - ever again.

 

“A Lily Among Thorns”

In a dream,

as all poems begin it seems,

I saw chains on every brilliant thought,

every one-liner and wonderful remark

I saw men and women who had made me laugh,

made me stop to think 

like Augustus Caesar in the dark –

Their memory all bound to some ugly thing,

some kind of hackneyed pain

The kind that surrounds a joke

told by someone lost but not forgotten,

the kind found in sappy poems full of hope

I saw Heath Ledger being carried to eternity

I saw Lenin and Lennon scoffing

I saw John Belushi fading away

down in West L.A.

I tried to awake, I wanted to go home

but somebody grabbed my arm –

Belushi himself in a bumble-bee robe

I spoke to Belushi’s ghost,

“Belushi, you’ve shown me only malice,

greed, apathy!

Depressing haunts swirling around what

should cheer me most

Belushi I beg you, show me some tenderness,

some depth of feeling,

preferably in green or blue eyes

with no venom in its smile

and no vengeance in its wit,

a beautiful mind with no bitterness or guile”

He raised his brow and pointed to you,

like Gettysburg eclipsing Waterloo,

like a sudden burst of laughter from those

who mourn,

like a lily among the thorns

You’re a duchess with hands covered in paint

You’re a bringer of good tidings 

from days of yore,

a contrast to my raving complaint

You’re the one in the bookstore,

un-abridging the abridged Gaston Leroux

And I’m leafing through Louis L'Amour,

unworthy to say Wordsworth to you

from the book Amen, Bad Luck To You

Poem: "Amen, Bad Luck To You"

The day after I was Saved

after the congratulations and

we're proud of yous and you're so braves

and my mother's relief and elation

and delicate voices to playfully chide me

I felt the sensation 

of something writing inside me

It wasn't the finger of God

writing His laws on my heart

It wasn't some warm and happy feeling

tracing across my being

or a psalm full of fresh air and art

I'm not sure what piece of me

it was writing on,

this thing not a threat, not a treaty

Something not quite as bloody and meaty as a rib

But some just as tangible part

just as touchable

Not quite the soul

Not quite the heart

or some other piece just as glib

It was something dark, for sure,

something separate from God

Not competing for room

or to regain its domain

or proclaim my failure and doom

or map out my guts to forever trod

Whatever it was, all the same

it was only there to write

Amen, bad luck to you.

and leave me as quickly as it came,

at no exceptional time of night

It left its fingerprints 

in its scratchy, scribbled cursive

Though I'm sure it has no power itself

It has no unholy possession or hold

No aim so subversive,

nothing nearly so bold

or bursting with spite and pride

But the message is there

somewhere inside

Amen, bad luck to you.

I can't be persuaded otherwise

that the message wasn't deliberately timed

It came just after Jesus advented

just after the drying of weeping eyes

just after everyone at that potpourri scented

Baptist church told me warm and lovely things

Just after I was Saved

I wasn't gripped by a demon

or met with beginnings of birth pangs

I didn't froth at the mouth and fall in the fire

or so much as double over in pain

When it etched its words inside 

my miscellany and mire 

Amen, bad luck to you.

That was all, and it was gone

unheard from since that day

Like whoever scrawled Sodoma Gomora

on the walls of Pompeii

to tell them they were going to hell

Or whoever painted Viva Cuba

and the last lovey dovey note

of a revolutionary song

on the walls of a prison cell

They were there, inside, they wrote,

and were gone – 

Amen, bad luck to you.

from the book Amen, Bad Luck To You

Untitled Poem, Re: Gabby Petito / Brian Laundrie

Buffalo wins the game

Ratings slow and steady

Til the man with no name

says get three coffins ready

Google gathers for a game

of Guess Whose DNA

taking me back

to memories of Caylee and JonBenét

and bigwigs counting stacks

(though with respect, counting them in black)

Unfinished Poem: "Joanna-Not-Afraid"

The search turned up no one alive

as searches often go

They found the victim

Joanna-Not-Afraid

sixteen years old of the North Cheyenne tribe

(or maybe the Crow)

She lived on some reservation

the kind you hear about

in little stories about curious little things

but nothing new –

the government

the Highway of Tears

(though that was a bit further west) 

etc etc.

They buried Joanna-Not-Afraid

in the earth, so she could return to it

as you’re supposed to do

But she did not stay there

She wandered the ethernet ether

the electronic space of chatter

and theory and rage

In the dimension of cables

and talk, talk, talk, talk

Joanna-Not-Afraid encountered a Captain

who had committed felo-de-se

(That was still a crime when he was alive

but not now when he’s dead)

“Where are you going

with that kind of expression on your face?”

asked Joanna-Not-Afraid

“Never mind,” said the Captain

“They put me in the void with you

and you’ll hear all about it soon enough

They won’t bury me in St. Mary’s church

because it’s against the rules”

“I’ve had quite enough of voids,”

thought Joanna-Not-Afraid

“This place and its pixels

is sufficient with tears and trivia”

She took the Captain by the hand

He was shaken by such a tender thing

A shock to his decaying system

“We’re going away from here,”

said Joanna-Not-Afraid

“This fat belly of broadband

is sufficient with tears and trivia

I know somewhere we’ll rise again”

“No! This isn’t right!” protested the Captain

But he followed Joanna-Not-Afraid

He felt helpless and embarrassed

On the way to the place Joanna-Not-Afraid had in mind

she and the Captain encountered a woman

She was drenched in blood

and petting her belly, swollen with a baby inside

“What’s your name?” asked Joanna-Not-Afraid

“I’m Sharon Tate,” the woman replied

as if surprised someone had to ask,

“and this is my baby”

Joanna-Not-Afraid took her hand

even more gently than she had taken the Captain’s

“Come with us. I know somewhere we’ll rise again”

“No! Please don’t!” Mrs. Tate protested

“Murder made me famous!

It’s my lot in life and my lot in death

They told me so when I got here!”

But Mrs. Tate was compelled to accompany them and 

far too exhausted to argue

On the way to the place Joanna-Not-Afraid had in mind

they found a man in a shirt and tie

belying his dazed and weathered face

his thousand yard gaze not matching his polished shoes

“What’s your name?” asked Joanna-Not-Afraid

She had to ask twice to stir the man from his stupor

“I don’t have a name,” the man said groggily

“If I do, I’ve forgotten it. Or someone swiped it.

They only call me the Somerton Man”

“Come with us,” said Joanna-Not-Afraid

“I know somewhere they’ll give you a name”

“Well, what’s your name?” asked the man

as he struggled to stand up straight

“My name is Joanna-Not-Afraid”

“Well, that’s an odd name,” said the nameless man

in something of a Lancashire accent

“Besides, having no name suits me fine

because I’m only dead. Nothing more than that.

Somerton Man is sufficient for me”

Joanna-Not-Afraid paid no heed

and the Somerton Man stumbled along behind her

On the way, she took the hands of all of them

Every form that once thought, heard, saw,

tasted, wept, laughed, and all those things

Every human shape blurred by poor resolution

that once had eyes like moonbeams

or some other such pretty thing

She took all of their hands

Irish bombers, Arab bombers,

American bombers,

a million John and Jane Does,

Jimmy Hoffa, Jeffrey Dahmer,

the Lindbergh Baby,

all of Jack the Ripper’s prey

(both canon and otherwise),

and a soldier called Juan Soldado

whose body has its own chapel in Tijuana

“No one will pray to me in a pauper’s grave,”

protested Juan Soldado

“I beg you to leave me in my chapel

Anywhere else I’ll be Juan Morales again

and if you’re telling the truth

if we rise again

there’ll be no more mystery over me!”

Joanna-Not-Afraid knew the soldier was right

No one would pray to him

if he were to escape the dot on Google maps

But she said to him as she’d said to the others

“This place is sufficient with tears and trivia.

“And besides,” she said, “we’re not going to graves.

We’ve all had enough of graves”

“Where are we going?”

the scores of shadows asked

All of them were tired from walking after so long being still

from being disturbed from their troubled sleep

“We’re going to find a heart to live in,”

said Joanna-Not-Afraid

“A pure heart, one that’s genuine.

A heart that won’t treat us like ghosts”

“But we are ghosts,” slurred the Somerton Man

“It’s our destiny,” said a Jane Doe

“The world knows us as ghosts,”

said the Black Dahlia

“we’ll never be anything more. We’d might as well accept it”

Joanna-Not-Afraid replied, not scathed in the least

by the objections of these haunts and haints

“Only if we stay here can they make us ghosts

If we find a heart, a pure heart

an aching heart

will we rise again.

Haven’t you ever seen someone with an aching heart?”

“Oi! I was someone with an aching heart!”

said the Somerton Man

“Then you know full well that if your heart ached

you must have loved someone,”

said Joanna-Not-Afraid

The Somerton Man hung his head

“I suppose I did”

An Iraqi bystander once blown to pieces 

wiped a tear from his eye

Poem: "White Stetsons"

My man is around the corner 

He’ll be here soon

Nothing between us but disorder 

and the glow of the moon

in its most dangerous phase

I’ll put him down with a single shot

As long as he hears my catchphrase 

My words his last thought

as all is over and all goes dim

My true grit the last thing he’ll see

A muzzle flash for him

A blaze of glory for me

I can see those white Stetsons now

White Stetsons on the heads of men

Real men, lawmen, 

leathery with bushy brows

Men with consciences that wore them thin

Men with drawls who take the Lord’s name in vain – 

but only when justice is raped

only uttered for the USA

Cursing, yes, though not the same

As profanity crudely escaped 

I can see those white Stetsons 

filling the halls

and one on each of my arms

escorting me to a room with four gray walls

and interrogators with dusty charms

I’ll tell them I did it for love of country 

and in a manner of speaking, my queen

I’ll tell them the truth and nothing but

These men, these real men, 

lawmen, nothing they haven’t seen, 

intuition under their belts and under their guts 

they’ll know my aim was true

They’ll be kind though they’re crude

and built like sailors

“I’d have done the same if I were you”

is all I need to cleanse my wretched life 

of all its wretched failures

When they send me to Washington, DC – 

surely they’ll send me there – 

I’ll miss those white Stetsons on salty men

They don’t wear Stetsons in Washington 

Just lots of oil in slicked back hair

and maybe a fedora now and then 

They don’t have salt in Washington, DC

(though they’re certainly not bloodless)

But I forgive the pencil pushers

and the Chief Justice

They weren’t born with true grit like me

Poem: "Damsels in Distress"

 In days of long ago

Villains would steal women – 

damsels in distress, we called them – 

and tie them to the railroad tracks

A man with a chiseled chin

and a blonde pompadour,

and sometimes a cape,

would come to her rescue 

Untying her bonds just in time

Before the Cannonball Express 

roared down the tracks 

to tear her to shreds

Those damsels in distress 

must have been the greatest of 

lilies among thorns

for those Michelangelo men to risk

their painstakingly crafted chins

They must have been something special, 

those damsels,

Like sirens singing the sweet ballads of Venus

for the thirsty hammer toting heroes of Mars

I’ve never loosed a woman from the railroad tracks 

I dropped out of the Boy Scouts 

before I could learn about knots

(Some say they learned far too much about tying ropes)

I was never good with pocket knives – 

my hands become weak and shaky 

under pressure 

(Some say the Boy Scouts studied knives far too intensely)

I suspect it doesn’t matter anyhow,

My saving powers

Those damsels in distress wouldn’t want me

to untie them anyway

I’m the henchman of the villain who put them there

The bad guy’s apprentice who found the 

Cannonball schedule 

and studied the thesaurus 

so the boss could sneer his strangely worded taunts

I don’t know them, those damsels 

I never knew how to know them

I could never rescue them from their bonds 

I’m a poor man’s Joker 

An imitation Green Goblin 

I suspect no self-respecting damsel in distress 

needs a stand-in Superman 

with a guilty conscience 

to fumble with knots and babble Robin Hood’s proverbs

I suspect they’d rather hear the coming of the train 

I suspect they’d rather untie themselves 

Poem/Prose: "A Sight To Behold"

Yesterday was Christmas, and the king was in one of his moods. He lashed out and struck the archbishop on the head. The archbishop smiled to himself as he escaped through the corridor. He took it in stride, because it happens every day.

The king then took to the balcony to declare, for the fifth time this month, that he vowed to cut off the heads of all the court jesters; he claimed the jingling of the bells on their shoes were codes sent to the ambassador of Spain. He raved from his balcony for hours on end, as kings do when they go mad in old age.

Something happened in the Low Countries yesterday. A handful of peasants are weeping for Rachel and her children, for they are no more. 

What happened must be truly unspeakable - the king's decree is all anyone is talking about today, though they've heard it so many times before. 

They take Rachel and her children in stride, because it happens every day. But the king is fat, a jester himself in diamonds, as kings become when they go mad in old age. It's a sight to behold.

Poem: "Rebel Scum"

I searched the bars for my friend Billy Yank -

Maggie had been missing for days, and he might

know where to find her if he could only think.

I averted my gaze from the dancers and when 

I saw my blue bellied friend, I went to beg him

for answers. But to my horror, before Billy could

even belch, I saw beside him Jefferson Davis 

himself. 

"Billy Yank, you're in Union blue, in the sight 

of unbelievers! Chumming with a traitor in full 

public view, buying bourbon for the grayest of

Gray deceivers!" 

I dragged Billy to the stall, Jeff Davis not 

seeming to notice me at all; Billy threw up 

on my shoes and I reminded him again of

his sin, and that he wore the Union blue.  

"Captain, calm your fuse" Billy replied, "Old Jeff 

and I are both patrons here. We're just talking 

Predestination; who am I to refuse such sincere 

conversation?"

"He's Rebel scum," I insisted,

"his ears are deaf and dumb to reason -

he's Mississippi's son, unrepentant of his

treason."

"We're both Rebels too, you and me,"

Billy slurred; "we were born in Alabama

amongst that damnable Rebel herd. Our fathers

owned the men we died to set free. The 

only difference is," Billy wiped his bleeding 

mouth, and fell to the floor, "when Cain broke

loose in the South, we were gambling in

Baltimore."

I was indignant; I had no time for rebuke, 

especially by a man I'd once defended, 

now covered in fluid and puke.

"Either you know where Maggie's gone,

or you don't," I said real flat. "I've got to find

her fast." Billy Yank shook his head before 

he breathed his last, and that was that.

At HQ I shook off what Billy said. 

I'm no Rebel, I was born no such

thing; I would much rather be dead and 

swallowed by muck and mud, would

much rather hang, than admit there's 

treason in my blood.

I'll prove it any day  

I'll submit to 23 & Me

and provide my DNA, I told myself;

Then everyone would see I'm more

pure a patriot than Abraham Lincoln himself.

Poem: "True Crime"

"He was a slob. Did you ever see him eat? Starving children could fill their bellies with the food that ended up on his beard and his clothes. Dogs would gather to watch him eat. I've never understood gluttony. But I hate it. I hated that about you. He enjoyed disgusting people - being disgusting, the thrill of offending people and making them uncomfortable. He was despicable. He will not be missed."

-The Razor's Edge (1985)

Truth be told, you were despicable, Uncle Jack

Yet you cannot be replaced

You'll never come home, you'll never come back

The earth will soon forget

the shadows in your face.

I'll not pretend you were cavalier

I'll not pretend you were great

Your life was riddled with chances blown,

you left disgust in your wake

But your life was not your own,

it was not yours to take.

I wish I'd been there with you

in the empty Hotel Barringer

I could have listened to your sordid blues

and convinced you to drop your derringer

You were Jack the Terrible

You were no doubt insane

But you cannot be replaced

Your life was precious all the same.

When your friends drifted away,

ran away,

friends, the only thing a broken man has,

You said life was like prison, like Alcatraz

San Quentin, the Green Mile -

you hated to wake each day

To be born, you said, was to break into jail

To be born, you said, was to sail to Guantanamo Bay

But I insist you should have stayed

We were both decked in orange, locked behind bars

True crime is all the rage these days

You and me, alone and loathsome,

we could have been documentary stars. 

Poem: "To a Friend in Hell"

When you got there, did a one-eyed ferryman give you a tour?
Did he call it the River Styx? Do you breathe air?
I guess that's what keeps it warm. Do they stick you with needles
and make you do tricks?
Me, they just gently cuffed me,
gave me Thorazine and drove me away
in an unmarked car, for my own
protection they said. I pretended
it was a limousine, and the hospital lights
and pity confections were Hollywood
in my head.

But you, when you got there, did you see
anybody we know? Can you see anybody's
face at all? Are you alone in a cell and
pecked at by crows? Do you get
passes on Sunday to purgatory? Do they
make you watch one-woman shows off
Broadway? Is Andrew Jackson there?
Is my uncle Mike?
Do you get treated fair? Did anybody at
the gates feel sorry when they told you
what the routine was like?
Me, I just lost an ear to a wrestler named
Beulah Storm, because I said women are
ladies; you don't say that anymore, or
they make you confess to NPR how sorry
you are and beg them not to take you to
Hades.

Have you met Hitler yet? Do they string you
up for a demon dogs' dinner? I feel stupid
asking, but did you forget? Do you ever
think of me? We were both sinners, remember?
I think about you all the time, and how I
wish you were free. Everybody asks me
how you are, and I lie and say you're on
Cloud Nine. I tell them you were rewarded
for protesting the war with Edwin Starr
and you're playing a harp and feeling fine.

Before they take you to netherworld N.A.
I just want you to know I tried. The doctors
in Hollywood in my head remind me how
I told you not to go away. I'll always wish
we were together like before, on gurneys
side by side, though they say you're not
worth it anymore. Maybe I'll recognize you,
you'll say something strange and slightly off
and I'll be able to tell. Maybe you'll hear
my nasty hacking cough and remember me,
if you ever leave hell.

Poem: While Thinking of Ashley Mattingly & A Mass Shooting in Nova Scotia

You've taught your children how to walk
And how to help little old ladies who can't
You've taught your children about
the Underground Railroad
and the charge at Iwo Jima
Have you taught them
not to rage when they're called crazy
for believing such crazy bravery?

Have you taught them what crazy looks like?
Have you taught them what to say to crazy people?
and how to listen to their stories?
To keep eye contact? How often to nod?
Have you taught them how to talk to the cops
when they go crazy, too?

Have you taught them about Dred Scott?
About Waco and Oklahoma City?
About Casey Anthony and Adolf Hitler?
Have you taught them how to howl
at the tops of their lungs?
Have you taught them ah who cares?
"hAvE yOu TaUgHt YoUr ChIlDrEn?"
Nobody cares

Poem: Breakfast With Saucy Jack

I got a standing breakfast date with Saucy Jack 

every morning at the same time, around dawn, 

as hell's bells cease to chime and I hear the 

bells of Old Bailey (that's an England thing 

for you Yanks). Jack never tries to pay me, 

and he never says thanks. The deal is, he 

tells me about life, things gritty and ugly 

and hard, things that made King George crack - 

and I don't tell Scotland Yard his name ain't really Jack.

I know what he's been doing all night, 

but I've never said I knew. But this morning, 

the severed kidney in his pocket killed my 

appetite (I wager it would yours too), so 

I ask my friend Jack, face to face, if only 

out of spite because my breakfast went to waste:
"Jack, how can you do what you do every night?"

"It's easy, boss," he says, "you pick the ones 

nobody wants - you can usually tell 'cos they 

got no teeth - pick a simpleminded one, a 

drunk one wobbly on her feet, and wear a 

dark coat so no one sees you run."

"I don't mean that, Jack. I mean, don't it bother 

you to kill?"
"Nah, mate; if they ain't human, it ain't murder. 

If I don't slice 'em, the Tories will."

"But don't you think it's a sin? Don't you think they matter?"
"It's a sin to starve in the East End, all the while Her Majesty gets fatter."

I don't bother to argue or tell him two wrongs 

don't make a right. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"Mate, you know I never sleep a wink."

He's late for a meeting in Parliament and has to find a sink. 

Jack asks me to mail a letter and promise not to tell. 

It's a letter to the police, saying they'll never catch him, 

they're far too late, and it says it's sent 

"From Hell."

Jack puts on his coat and heads for Westminster. 

I tell him I'll mail his note, afraid he won't be my friend 

if I don't. I'm tempted to tell the Prime Minister, but it 

would do no good - he's the one who signed the bill 

Preacher Booth called a license to kill.

Tonight, below my room on Mitre Square, I hear 

a scream. I think of Saucy Jack - if she ain't human, 

what does it matter? I pretend it's all a dream, I pretend 

I'm not a coward, all the while a toothless nobody is 

sliced and overpowered. A little while passes, it's quiet 

on the Square; she ain't human, I think, 

why should anybody care?

Like clockwork, I hear a call for help and a 

peeler carriage clink and clatter.
Like a postcard from hell, my heart receives a message - 

"she ain't human; what's it matter?"

Poem: "Shangra Lah" (In the Wake of Sri Lanka & Christchurch)

Sri Lanka sounds so exotic
Christchurch is too sacred to say
The only bloodshed I know is in
Cochise County and this ratty paperback about Khe Sanh
So I'll give an exotic name to the space under my bed
When I hide there, from your bombs and bullets,
I'll feel cultured in the dark
I'll feel far away, part of a UN assembly to solve it all
I'll call it Shangra Lah; that's what I'll call
the dark under my bed
I'm the US Ambassador to Shangra Lah
It sounds so exotic, someplace they find rare pearls
I must have heard it in a song
or another worn out war book with outdated maps
I'll be in Shangra Lah when you need me
If you want my thoughts on Peru or the President
you'll have to wait - I'm on diplomatic business,
deep in the dark of Shangra Lah.

-Bud Sturguess,
April 24, 2019

Poem: "Peckerwood Hill"

You don't know much yet -
you don't know laws or judges, priests or rites
You don't even know the words to "Hey Jude"
But today, today is your birthday
Conceived by cousins and poorly sculpted
by the cosmos

The doctors -
Oppenheimer, Kevorkian, and a nurse from Buchenwald,
they've all taken the oath -
welcome you to the world
and do what love will never have a chance to do -
they stop your heart

They won't send you, what they can't use of you,
expendable outlaw,
to Peckerwood Hill -
that crowded concrete orchard in Texas
full of executed killers and three-strike scoundrels
who wasted away in the infirmary
Their brothers ceased to speak their names
the day the verdict came down,
the day the warrant was signed
So to Peckerwood Hill they went
unclaimed, unloved, unnamed,
to await the Resurrection and a brand new trial

But you, birthday boy,
Peckerwood Hill is not for you
That's for human beings,
forgotten, discarded as they were
You're less, so you'll be put somewhere less
Dissected, photographed
Maybe a jar of formaldehyde is the best they'll do for you

Today is your birthday and I cannot promise you a thing
No fairy tales, no fables, no lullabies
Not even a crowded garden of rocks called Peckerwood Hill -
that's only for us killers and thieves

-by Bud Sturguess

Poem: "Novelty"

The cops ditch their cusses
in trash cans behind the house
so they don't mess up their case
Somebody reads the news and
cringes every way you can
Others read it and puke air and jokes
Novelty
Like a hula girl on a dashboard
a window decal of a cartoon t-rex
eating a stick figure family
It's a novelty story -
"Dog Drives Car"
"Elvis Dead at 42"
"Stain Shaped Like Virgin Mary"
It's a novelty story
Forget about it Goodnight

Inspiration:

http://mountpleasant.dailyvoice.com/news/case-of-incest-leads-to-four-deaths-one-in-hudson-valley/735660/

http://www.heraldcourier.com/news/national/connecticut-killer-in-incest-case-alerted-daughter-s-adoptive-family/article_47411199-4535-5f43-9473-abc5db16e926.html