Archive for October 2008
Disconnection Notice #44
by John Rocco
Maybe there’s life
in failure
I think
with the envelope in my hand
pushing the bar door open
and seeing them there
packed
drinking
dead
self-inflicted
in a million dumb sad ways.
There’s beefy-faced Hem
boxing a 300-pound tuna
and hard-gut Mishima
fingering the steak knives.
There’s bridge humping Hart
falling past Spalding
jumping off the ferry.
There’s Hunter stealing the elk horns
and Virginia going swimming.
There’s Sylvia cooking.
There’s the Infinite Jest guy
not joking.
There are more lucky unlucky ones
worn down by a crushing
sequence of catastrophes
or nothing
like them all.
I order a gorgeous
martini
giant green hollow olives floating
and rip open the envelope.
It’s another disconnection notice
from Con Edison
my favorite writer
who always is there for me
telling me things like
they regret it but they are
turning the power off again
soon
unless I pay them
which seems unfair
until I leave the bar
without paying.
Add comment October 31, 2008
Igor!
by John Rocco
I’m sorry my soul bro, Bartleby
now shoveling it in
stuffed with
Heaven’s thick stew
with kings and councilors and Poe’s girl
but Igor makes me want to believe in
humanity. I know it sounds like bullshit
but really, I swear. His story
makes me want to live, to actually
accept the fact that human beings have
SOULS. And shit on their shoes.
Did you read the paper today
oh dear dead boy
in neverneveraliveland?
It was pretty clear in its story:
He’s the greatest bicycle thief in history.
That Italian movie had only one bike stolen.
He, Igor Kenk, stole 2,865 bikes.
Igor holds the world’s record for most bicycle thefts.
And he is the most hated man in Toronto.
Igor stole so many bikes
that when the police came to his
used bike shop
the fire department wouldn’t
let them in
because it was too dangerous with all the bikes.
They actually don’t know what he would have
done with all the bikes:
melt them down for scrap?
But the cops are thinking money
but I know Igor was thinking art
because along with the 2,865 stolen bikes
the cops also found cocaine,
crack cocaine,
15 pounds of pot,
and a stolen bronze
sculpture of a centaur fighting a giant snake.
He was obviously working on something.
Igor!
You are my hero!
Steal their bikes!
They should be happy to be in a work of art
like a painting, or drunkenness, or her,
and the stolen sculpture says it all.
You are the centaur
half tortured man, half muscle horse
fighting the giant killer snake
and it’s Apollo
God in a thick horny reptile
using prophecy and hot pussy
to strangle your
business.
Oh Igor!
I am with you in prison!
I am with you in Toronto!
I am with you in stealing bikes!
I am with you in the breaking of their chains and riding them away!
I am with you in fighting the slimy
giant ugly killer snake telling us
everything is impossible
and everything can’t be ours.
Add comment October 31, 2008
The 60’s Have Been Over for a While
by Dan Provost
It’s not going to be peace and love this time, because those traits come at a hefty price.
You must be willing to emotionally express yourself…to the millions, to the non-believers…to yourself;
Yourself mostly.
So peace and love are great ideals…idolized in song and words…
But it’s not going to be the solution…
If you don’t believe me; look out the window—anytime, any day…
See neighbors hating neighbors…city walkers never acknowledging each other.
Everybody is so fragmented today, so Peace and Love…no…not any more.
It’s the battle for number one now,
two and three are gone.
Buried in another time
Headstones overwrought with long grass and never visited.
Add comment October 30, 2008
grovel pig
the small press attention whore
sends constant emails
hi, how are you
equates to
acknowledge me, I exist
three a day
to a grocer’s list
of thirty wannabe writers
each message
each existential crisis
each spat with her lover overseas
or her subsidiary lovers
closer to home
every suggestive photograph
every depressive note
appended with the notation
this is just for you
just for you
just for you
and you
and you
you too
but not you over there
I heard about you
and that other
small press skank
she’s the queen of the underground
thirty beams of light
erases shadow
thirty mirrors reflect
the literary image
she desperately cleaves to
a secret divided thirty ways
isn’t much of a secret at all
but of course
that’s the idea, isn’t it?
Add comment October 27, 2008
Honorary Uncle
by David Bates
when he grows up
he wants to be a UFO pilot
he tugs my sleeve
and his father reminds him
to be careful
not to spill people’s beer
go inside
his father says
this is grown up time
can I play your
Playstation dad?
No. Leave my shit alone.
I imagine my friend
on his beerstink couch
with a video-game pad
plugged into the base of his boy’s skull
thumbing him around the room
like a remote controlled
vacuum cleaner
the kid looks at me
and I shrug
earlier
he’d asked me
if I was born with
tattoos
and his father said
don’t be stupid
before I could tell him
yes
as a matter of fact
I was
***
Bio:
David Bates currently resides in Austin, TX. He is the co-founder and editor of My Favorite Bullet (www.myfavoritebullet.com) and Interior Noise Press. His work has appeared in FriGG Magazine, Underground Voices, Whiskey Island, Thunder Sandwich, and Zygote In My Coffee. He hosts the Ruta Maya Poetry Open Mic every Tuesday (www.rmpoetryaustin.com) and will buy a beer for any traveling poet who cares to read.
1 comment October 27, 2008
