Bushwhacking *
EvilToasterElf
Posts: 1,119
*this poem has nothing to do with the current President...with that said...
Bushwhacking
When I summon help,
the roads fill with drunken ambulance drivers,
sipping Jack Daniels between chest compressions.
Though I broke my arm—
my wrist—
my pen—
my head swims
in rivers of narcotics,
that flow like sewage through my bloodstream.
I drink tequila for navigation
and urinate for ballast.
When the stars burn overhead like a boiling polaroid
I let guitars drop anchors with their choruses,
and there I buoy my thoughts.
To think my way back to myself.
From the cockpit of my rusting sedan
I see dashboard needles wade through blood,
to push me faster through empty miles.
Confident as a full boat of jacks and kings
against the fourth ten on the river,
I am all in.
Until my desire to keep going forces the lines
and stop signs to disappear,
and highways laminate under the glow of street lights.
My face distorts in the tinted windows
of a stretched limo
which stops at the next intersection
and opens its doors.
Clowns pour out to direct traffic
with tambourines and trumpets.
The traffic is not amused.
Brake lights glare,
horns scream and search the air like snake tongues,
as I slither onto a sidewalk stained with gum and
cigarette butts.
I follow the discarded trails of modern art.
The wind blows cold ant-hills onto my arms.
To warm myself from those icebergs of flesh,
I weave invisible tapestries with my mumbles
into the air as I walk.
I make all the right left turns
and discard the yolk of cities while traveling to the white
suburbs.
In a moment I make a life for myself, and in three more
it is gone.
Bushwhacking
When I summon help,
the roads fill with drunken ambulance drivers,
sipping Jack Daniels between chest compressions.
Though I broke my arm—
my wrist—
my pen—
my head swims
in rivers of narcotics,
that flow like sewage through my bloodstream.
I drink tequila for navigation
and urinate for ballast.
When the stars burn overhead like a boiling polaroid
I let guitars drop anchors with their choruses,
and there I buoy my thoughts.
To think my way back to myself.
From the cockpit of my rusting sedan
I see dashboard needles wade through blood,
to push me faster through empty miles.
Confident as a full boat of jacks and kings
against the fourth ten on the river,
I am all in.
Until my desire to keep going forces the lines
and stop signs to disappear,
and highways laminate under the glow of street lights.
My face distorts in the tinted windows
of a stretched limo
which stops at the next intersection
and opens its doors.
Clowns pour out to direct traffic
with tambourines and trumpets.
The traffic is not amused.
Brake lights glare,
horns scream and search the air like snake tongues,
as I slither onto a sidewalk stained with gum and
cigarette butts.
I follow the discarded trails of modern art.
The wind blows cold ant-hills onto my arms.
To warm myself from those icebergs of flesh,
I weave invisible tapestries with my mumbles
into the air as I walk.
I make all the right left turns
and discard the yolk of cities while traveling to the white
suburbs.
In a moment I make a life for myself, and in three more
it is gone.
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An asthmatic faucet spits gouts of tarnished water
into a rusted sink,
below a cracked mirror.
My urine remains in the toilet that I refuse to touch.
When I exit the bathroom someone takes my place
and the line of blank stares inches closer to it.
Five more wait behind a twenty something slumped
against a sticky wall
We clang together our shot glasses filled with Southern Comfort
under the auspices of Jimmy Hendrix lyrics.
We shout to each other because we want to laugh,
and because indoor voices are for churches and classrooms.
We paid two dollars to rent this bar,
and fill this vacant lot of memory.
We all exit our local bars at last call and walk home
or fetch a cab
We scream nicknames down the dark alleys
Which seem to follow us into the future.
We shout through the tin can phone of our genetic code
as we drink shots at the weddings of our children,
and the open bars of our high school reunions
leaving pools of urine in the white porcelain
of funeral homes.
What is an American life, if not a collection
of revelry, of drinks and conversations
whose exact words float away like cigarette smoke
and the warped bodies of aging loves?