The Poetry Marathon

Swinging at the retirement village

Writing Jenean all the way out of the will

Saying ‘I never cared for them’ about so many

Riding the motorized carts

Getting the cane with the wolf face on it

snarling and with pearly eyes

Showing old tattoo with the titties on it to grandson

gotten while in the Navy, nearly died from infection

one-upping the Iraq youngins with war stories

Two words: USS Indianapolis

the only reason you don’t believe they were there

Is that you’re just absolutely godless and liberal

driving extra slowly in the fast lane

church hat collection filling a whole closet

farting whenever and wherever

‘forgetting’ about the bills

and the 18th great grandchild

borne by Janice, who couldn’t wait

who is definitely her mother’s child

not theirs.

The guts have the same color as pink taffy

and they look like it when it’s pulled between rollers

at those places where you can watch them make it

my grandpa pulls them out with his hands

there’s a chain wrapped around the thing’s chest

to hold it up and aid in gravity

pulling loose pieces of it down to Earth

bulbous, egg-shaped protrusions

hang from strands between the legs

and I ask my grandpa what those are

ignorant at this point in my life

all our animals were spayed and neutered

he tells me they are the balls

before snatching them free

with a quick finger.

Local bar with one man band

we are upstairs drinking

attempting conversation

over butchered Jimmy Buffett

he has his mike setup on a rail

positioned right by his mouth

and walks around downstairs serenading drunks

while grandma dollars go into his tight leathers

he decides to come upstairs

singing to people who awkwardly squeeze by

trying to get down the stairs

he comes over to M and I

passion and happiness on his face

smiling as M sits up

then frowning with a defeated nod

as M burps into the mike

and it echoes throughout the bar

to total silence.

Brandon’s manic phases are the best

sometimes he goes out in the middle of the night

and busts out car windshields with bricks

kicks mailboxes down to the street

eats food out of the package in the store

takes anything he can get his hands on

and veers into the opposite lane for a few seconds

shooting fingers at the other drivers

before jerking the wheel.

His girlfriend said he was out of control

so he emptied a whole gas can in her car

and showed me the video of it burning

at the apartment Christmas party

‘I was a good boy this year dude. The best.’

the cops got a statement off of someone else

I wouldn’t give it up.

The table, besides me, is bald and bearded

I’m getting there but hanging on

we are brought turkey and sides

Kraft sprinkled mac and cheese

stuffing with giblet gravy

green beans with pork fat

cranberry sauce right out of the can

they bring it out to us tired

they bring it out while their kids run and scream

they bring it to almost whispered thank-yous

they bring it despite not orgasming in years

they bring it after breaking down in the kitchen

while the others keep going

they bring it to the ones we know are abusers

they bring it to the ones they’d like to take for a spin

they bring it to me multiple times because I eat good for my size

they bring it to husbands who complain about their attitudes

when their backs are turned

and they think they can’t hear

I see some of them gripping the cutting knives hard

and looking at us

even me

like they’d love to bring that to us.

He wears vintage Ferrari fold-out sunglasses

to hide his up all night on coke eyes

and tells me that if I want to be successful

I gotta be like a shark

like a bull shark he says

undulating around like he is underwater

biting at unseen fish in the air

only cowards pull out of the market when it dips

like his wife when she filed for divorce

sure, there was a dip

a throwing things at her head dip

a not even hiding the affair dip

800,000 in the hole dip

but the market fluctuates

and it’s coming back

he’s gonna be on top again

the next woman, according to him

will be noticeably more attractive.

He came back from the war

carrying discarded shells in his pocket

‘3 for those I killed,’ he says

He also brings an iPhone full of pictures

and videos

him and his buddies having a good time

firing shots into the mountainside

kicking up dust, drinking beers

a10s from far off farting death on buildings

big explosions to hoots and hollers

camel spiders trying to kill each other

stop signs with noodle text

interpreter with a back home sports team hat on

thumbs up with the flag

and then a little girl crying

as someone behind the camera taunts her in farsi

he appears in the foreground with his rifle

shouldered

he looks at the camera with a

‘watch this’ face.

A promising tennis career

Scholarship to the Ivy League

young women in a line fawning

Arson investigation

Student beaten unconscious

Teacher’s tires slashed

Smiling photos on the wall

father pleased always

giving us the play by play at dinner

No one believes her when she comes forward

the dead hanging dog is excused

a precedent is set

Continual allowances

constant excuses

Coming news stories might make us think twice.

But probably not.

She was an adderall addled techno gnostic

having graduated from wicca and the baby witches

who still hung around the apartment talking about incense

and the men they were screwing and how awful they were.

The occult is not fun or cool

and mostly bores people or perplexes them

her new late night rituals and readings

had me putting crucifixes on my bedroom door.

It took one bad salvia trip

and she was screaming at me over the phone

about how we were on a prison planet

that not even death could free us from the Demiurge.

It was a unique despair

the idea of the eternal matrix

of endless repetition

and knowing it.

Made worse by the pills

providing intensity and laser focus

staring at spots in the air

like she could very well see the grid.

I drug her outside one Saturday morning

after dumping the pills and tomes in the trash

I pulled up some dewy grass and closed it into her hand

‘This is real,’ I said  ‘And so are you.’

Crawdads.

Nawlins.

Crawdads in Nawlins.

‘No one even says that here,” she says

having been here many times

dancing along the French Quarter

eating red beans and rice

coming in and going out on the Ponchartrain

‘You sound like another tourist,’ she wails

while we are in Nawlins

and I’m squeezing through the crowds

her hand in mine

‘A target, people will hurt us’

they might

they might hurt us in Nawlins

but I am inclined to believe

as the waitress puts down a high pile of crawfish

that I rip apart with poor technique

to her side-eye from the corner

while my girlfriend eats a po’ boy

backed up from the table

because the juice is going everywhere

that they won’t hurt us

they won’t hurt us in Nawlins.