angry poems

i let it rip -- todd moore,
once media-named "poet of
pornography" wrote me that
twenty years ago -- let it rip
from seed of irritation
into white-light nuclear bomb mushroom
the hate
the anger
meanwhile swallowing
cans of beer like cans of air
all waking hours,
especially at work
in early 80's
everybody drank & smoked
youth in factory culture
a year of hashish jerry
had access -- tall long-haired
skinny dude'd suddenly show
up at the dock door, jerry
knew him somehow, score our
order & it was then 60 a quarter,
black & potent,
whole warehouse was perfumed with it
we'd all meet there on breaks between
high stacks of milk-crates
10, 12 guys, most all the shift
it was steady second
other times we'd roar
up to kennedy's tavern
drinking as much as we cld
in half an hour lunchbreak
i ran those presses
completely drunk
one time with a bad tooth
ache just set the fifth
of seagram's on the
control panel,
bled & drank,
maybe more than
one time
this was a daily
life-style on mandatory
7-day overtime
schedule
the place
was a greasy
sweat-shop
with drunks & drug
addicts galore
i was young
i fit in
hard to believe
nobody was
killed
doing
mold-changes,
we're all
phucked up
with a twenty-ton
mold dangling
from a ten-ton
crane
we're underneath
trying to
clamp it onto the
platens
i can't believe
nobody was killed
must have been
before osha
well, gilson died,
but from leukemia
he was a very
angry guy
unsheathed his
hunting-knife
as we stood outside
in the parkinglot
smoking a joint,
he stabbed hard into
each
tire
of the
company truck
i never heard
anything
about
it
but maybe he
knew he was
near death
when that happened
death, see, shiit,
comes down to
death
we all died
jerry's
7 year old
daughter, treasure
of his life,
was hit by
a car
in front
of their house
fractured
skull
jerry held
her there
in the middle
of the
street
as she perished
he was
off for a
few months
but came back to work
that's when
the supply
of hash
stopped
but we always
had pot
& beer
& whiskey
speed
valium
trips
cocaine
i was
publishing
NORTHERN
PLEASURE,
zerox, when
the small
press world
sprouted so
fantastically
in early 80's
nimmo published
CURLS THRU THE
LANGUAGE off of
planet detroit press
chapbooks were
produced
simultaneously
that's when jazzbo
read his 4-hour
long novel over
the telephone
one
long ago
drunken night
i was loaded
from work
already
he was loaded too
all the
angry
poems
where did they go

website - 1
website - 2
TOP

Meat Cutter

I worked once with a meat
cutter -- high volume restaurant
we stood under thundering broiler fans and a band
saw ran most of the day as he cut frozen
lobsters and king crab legs
the only two people in the building most days
I worked right under the fans when I looked
over I could see Dave's lips moving
under the blanket of band saw noise -- was
he talking to me -- never knew
when he cut meat I would scrub
the broilers or stock the cook's line
sometimes chopping hundreds of heads of lettuce
on valentine's day one
of the cooks discovered Dave had cut
three hundred sirloin steaks into heart shapes
rows and layers of muscles never meant to be hearts
our boss went looking for the cutter
to fire him like steak on a broiler grill
searched through the entire restaurant
found him in the parking lot
shoes and socks missing
crawling around on all fours baying
like an injured coyote
we tried to talk to him but he snarled
and barked at us to keep our distance
so the boss stomped back inside
fifteen minutes later an ambulance arrived
the paramedics moved slowly
arms wide and ready
a few minutes after that they wrestled
him down and one guy pulled a hypodermic
injecting him to a head-bobbing sedation
hell it would've been safer to use a dart gun
they strapped him in a straitjacket
and none of us ever saw him again
the boss said later Dave had a breakdown
-- third cutter to go crazy on the job --
you know in the same breath he asked me
if I'd like to fill in and maybe take it over

website
TOP

Angel of Death

I saw the angel of death
bending in the sad alleyways
with the lost winos sitting like stones
beside overturned cans
and my heart sang
for sorrow.

I heard the alleys singing songs
with words I could not understand
but which my heart held close
and moved on down
and saw yet again
tattered angels on corners
baring their lives with signs
proclaiming no christ
would ever come for them
and I heard the gates of hell swing open
for all of us.
I entered
and saw yet again
naked cherubim smoking crack
and selling pristine asses
for rocks to smoke in glass
and I heard the whiners
lifting up mock voices
to their heavens no one else could reach
blaming all but themselves
as the angel of death
laughed softly.

This I saw
not once
but many times
in the drinking gangs of san francisco
where saintly winos with stained pants
wheedled change
from those barely better off than themselves
and the cars with chrome glided by
with nary a whimper.

And I lay myself down to sleep
in albuquerque
and honolulu
and in the deserts of vegas
and the rainforest of the tropics
and still it was all within me
holding out hope
for a buck seventy-seven
with screw-top wine
and cheap ladies
who did it all
without guilt,
it finally being,
too expensive.

website
TOP

CONGRATULATIONS!
(Marc Ellis copyright 2000)

Congratulations!

The tombstones at Odd Fellow's Rest,
Have shriveled up like raisins;

Blast-furnace breezes have silenced
The bawdy bards of New Orleans;
At last...the taverns are quiet;

      Grey dust has fallen on your lovely brow,
      And white ash cakes your soft, wet thigh;

      And every song that has ever played on the radio,
      Is still playing, somewhere out in space...

Congratulations!
Welcome to your new home.

website
TOP

midnight

soul dividing midnight
cuts my want of sleep
daylight's hum quenched
in cricket laughter.
the night's black muffles
footsteps and screams
and soft spoken songs
of curdled lonliness.
each breath heard
and counted.
call for sleep and
suck my drink
and smoke and smoke
and smoke more cigarettes.
train whistle
semi engine swell
and fade into
cicada bug ohm
that falls from
the trees to surround us.

TOP

I hold a prophecy in my hand
the future to behold
undone
invisible
till this moment
with me
if you look closely you can see the people
they look like ants from here
not alot changes in 15 minutes

website
TOP

1st luv/TWO BOYS
we traded secrets & jokes,
laughed afternoon into evening.
you held my hand,
let me touch the pounding
of your big sweet heart.
we laid close together in dirt.
nothing mattered
but your mouth on mine,
my hands on your hot back.
we let midnight drip from stars
over that field
of sleeping black-eyed susans

website
TOP

who are you

wishing to bed
two women at once?
lover, philanthropist,
soul searcher, torch
bearer of kindred hearts?
as needy as the two of they?
or as unified as they seek to become.
for all at once, as daylight fades to dark
they meld. one, a woman of weakness,
helplessness, despair. a place of fragmented self
masked in smile, retreat from demands of living.
the other, a woman of strength, practical, childish wonder
eager and sure. a place of knowing, passionate giving.
where as time mingles with coolness of air, warmth
of patterned breath, natural as the sensual act
where lingering touch of bareness
becomes intimacy unrecognized
and moans serenade carnal desire
slumbering into nirvana
the three awake
as two

photo
website
TOP

Live With It

I'll upset you
disappoint you
frighten you

the scars that are
visible
unnerve people

if only they could
see the inner scars

If I killed myself
now
would I make
the papers
would anyone care

I
already know the
answer to that
it's irrelevant
besides

I want
the
            guilt
            hatred
            hostility
            shame
            violence
            perfectionism
            biases
            humanity
to flee
jump off
the Terminal Island
bridge

How many times
have I laid next
to you
in bed
with my arms
around you
wanting to
blow my brains out

my grave
marks my
preference
my erasure
my wholeness

[From my book, "Shadows Before the Maiming"]

website
TOP

THE ALTAR OF THE SUN

And then I sprayed the bowl with some cock-shaped shits.

We skip a revolution rushing through revolving door.

I was straining over lucid s(t)ill, brimmed with a glimpse
Of where the rain had eaten all the snow up, and spores
Stuffed the air with vocables of vegetal generation, cloth
Replicas of where you kneel at the altar of the sun, full.
How could you have known, somnulent, licking at lazy stalks,

That all the good punchlines were just beginning to cool?
I laid owls against that tranquil bout with reason

That always gets stuck in the revolving doors. Lean
Into pools with your arms legibly floating, seasons
That scandal in spirals loosening each torment of scene.
Then we'll flutter through the drowsing wordy sluice

As if the woods caught fire and rained limp juice.

website
TOP

THE ICE MAIDEN'S 27TH LETTER TO THE UNIBOMBER

Peru's Ampato Ice Maiden, believed to be about 500 years old, found near the summit of 20,700 Mount Ampato, was probably offered as a sacrifice by Inca priests

I saw you last night on tv, I
couldn't help it: some tourist
with a portable tv under his
jacket. I saw your bandage,
a little patch near your eye
from, some say, you trying
to walk shackled. I imagine
500 years swathed in a body
cast of linen, like a child
wrapped in sheets and pinned
down for a doctor's shots or
worse. I know you were held
down, spread eagle, propped
and poked. You must, like me,
have felt your family abandoned
you, then, betrayed you. I can
see why you haven't written
them, but why not write me?
I've waited so long. My letters
would be as unspoiled as the
mountains we both love, no
language of computers or
phones, no electronic words but
the sound of branches, of water
falling against moss and the moon
on the black silk of the pond's
ripples. I dream you winding
my long black hair into a bracelet
to comfort you. No small talk is in
my bones, nothing that cares about
money. I need so little. I've never
wanted more than another's
vowels lapping against the leather
corsage of my breast and belly

website
TOP

dogma

the dogs run
up the sides of mountains
tongues hanging low
some with noses full
of porcupine quills
some with clinging pups
some matted and mangy
and scarred and broken
some dragging their
fallen brothers and sisters
daughters and sons
some with pieces missing
tattered ears bobbed tails
some large and rangy
some tiny, weak and slow
some strain to pull trees
bicycle racks and park benches
some lope freely smiling like fools
tongues hanging dangerously
between sharp teeth
the dogs run
up mountainsides
and those who reach the top
float off into the sky
panting out clouds
howling down the wind
barking up the moon

website
TOP

Blue-

Glistening orbs
gaze back
through the little window
there on my front door.
I am pleased by your arival...
"Come in, Come in"
and you enter like a snowstorm
your pores all aglow
like you'd swallowed the sun.

website
TOP

Why the Redneck and I Broke Up

maybe it was the cheap white wine
or the way I trumped his aces
it might have been the Budlight
it could have been 'cause
he called my best friend nigger
any way ya look at it
we bored each other silly
except maybe in bed
but that's another poem
he didn't get

website
TOP

my nose running,
my head full of
little poems,
2:31 a.m.,
not tired, alive
& well & going,
stare outside into
the storm, what
storm, the one that
hasn't gotten here
yet, sneeze, sneeze
again, listen to the
imaginary dog bark
at me, suck on a
lemon & take him for
a walk, pass a black
hole, we survive, only
minor cuts & bruises

TOP

Hurry up and Wait

To hurry up
and wait
is a game
we all must play
at one time
or another.

Just ask
a pregnant mom
waiting....
in her ninth month,

A mortar board headed
Highschooler….
waiting....
to cross the stage.

A bride to be
as she takes her father's hand...
waiting.....
for her walk down the isle.

Or,
a convicted felon in a holding cell
waiting....
for sentencing on strike three.......

I sat outside the court room
like all the others,
waiting. . . . .

The looks on their faces
wanting a murder trial
to be done
so the business
of "their" day
could be done.

Families and friends
with pleading faces
waiting.....
to help their convicted love ones.

I took them all in
as I sat on the wooden benches
waiting......


Impatient fathers,
concerned wives,
unknowing children,
teary eyed moms,
all looking for a heart
in the legal system.
waiting......

Some are lucky,
but some are destined
to end their lives as they know it.

Raul
wasn't lucky.
His lawyer swears in 7 witnesses
including his wife of 7 years.

It was all she could do
to compose herself
when the Judge
gave him 20 years.....

Her husband wasn't thinkin'
about their three daughters
and how they will grow up
waiting......

to know their father......

The next soul
was paraded
through the door
in his white jump suit

"PRISONER"
stenciled on the sleeves
and legs.

He had been
in the county lock up
for 15 months.
waiting......
on a convicted felony drug charge

3 years in Teague
didn't teach him enough.

It wasn't long
til he violated parole.

Meth will do that to ya'.
Hang you out to fly and let the breeze lick ya' dry.

His dad,
a 70 year old retired Navy man,
was there on his behalf
waiting......

He had been drivin'
down to the jail
every weekend
to see his son
behind a dirty glass,
and talk to him on a phone,
only after sittin' in a room
waiting........

5 hours
to get that 20 minutes a week.

5 hours every Saturday
just to see his son
20 minutes.

waiting.....

Give 12 days of your life
to spend less than a day
with your son......
waiting.......

All this time
to try and get him help
instead of wasting him
for 15 to life
on the Huntsville Farm....
waiting....

They called the young man,
after his father.

He took the stand
as the bailiff stood a close watch.

He admitted his problems
He admitted his shame
He admitted his guilt
He admitted he needed help.
There were no dry eyes
as he pleaded his life
to the Judge. . .


And as he stood,
anticipating
the decision on his life,
waiting......

He two-stepped
in to the world limbo.

The Judge announced
a recess 'til Monday
to review the file and render a decision.....

waiting.......

No sleep for you this weekend my brother.......

In jail you will forever live your life....

waiting..........


website
TOP

black and white

that's a photograph of me when I was four
with my flyaway hair fastened down into braids
the way my mother always fixed it and I'm wearing
this dress down past my knees which could be any
color but you can't decide because the picture's
one of those black and white ones and I don't
remember that dress only the part about chasing
chickens on my uncle's ranch outside phoenix when
this rooster seemed to fall from the sky upon me
its beak bruising the tender flesh on my head
until somebody I can't remember who saved me
then during dinner mom whispering I'd better not
eat the meat she thought it might be horseflesh
and I loved horses then the way I love cats now
all the way back to indiana on a greyhound bus
I puked maybe you remember maybe you were
on that bus my skin so white it looked like a
piece of paper you could write your name on



hear elaine read "concession"@the spoken ho!d
website
TOP