An End-of-the-World Cult of My Own
Jose Padua
One day I will have my own end-of-the-world cult.
We will believe that the end of the world
is coming tomorrow,
and that we had better be prepared.
If the end doesn’t come tomorrow,
we will admit our mistake, and post...
Praise Song for Today
Jose Padua
Praise Song for Today
I am writing in praise of sloth, in praise
of doing nothing and by nothing I don’t
mean watching television or sleeping,
I mean doing nothing: no moving about
the house with your arms hanging l...
Our Heavy Metal Life
Jose Padua
Sometimes I like to imagine that my family
and I are a heavy metal band,
playing gigs in the southern states,
riding in a big tour bus that has skulls
painted on the side,
and a big decal of the grim reaper
wielding hi...
Dong of the Dead
Jose Padua
The name of this poem is Dong of the Dead.
It is my attempt to cash in quickly
on the literary zombie craze by
writing the first literary zombie
porn novel in verse. I am writing it
while sitting in the back of a pickup
...
A Life of Uncontrollable Urges (or Tourette’s and the Writing Life)
Jose Padua
On a recent Sunday afternoon, as I pushed a cart in the aisle between the checkout counters and the racks of men’s shirts at Walmart, the song that went though my head was Brian Eno’s “Here Come the Warm Jets.” Eve...
Lean on Me
Jose Padua
Back then sausage, eggs, hash browns, and toast cost
under three dollars for br...
For The Saints And Angels, Miles Davis, And You
Jose Padua
Miles Davis was a skinny motherfucker, a bitter and often mean man.
I have always been a little on the stocky side and while o...
Crack
Jose Padua
I can’t tell whether the flowers are falling or
floating in this painting just as I can’t tell wh...
Virginia
Jose Padua
Let happiness lie like a dog on your lap,
Virginia, state of green, state of mountain
roads, and tackler of new centuries, but
don’t get upset if we leave you. Virginia,
let your vagina set you free or get out ...
P-Funk Reshapes the Landscape of the Redneck Town I Live In and Other Acts of Reformation and Reconstruction
Jose Padua
Behind the wheel listening to P-Funk in my new neighborhood
the blank stare of the shirtless Larry the Cable Guy lookalike sharpens
to crystal clarity as his lazy slouch straightens up into a confident
strut and the words ...
On These Days Driving
Jose Padua
Perfection is all those horrible old love affairs
they tell their latest lover about in bed as they smoke
ci...
Why Drunken Poets Need to Procreate
Jose Padua
If it were somehow obligatory that I sum up my existence with a single sentence—or perhaps with just a phrase and a simple image—I’d be at a loss. I would, in fact, feel quite helpless, as if I were trapped in some h...
Self-Portrait as Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth from Blue Velvet
Jose Padua
After turning on the television one sleepless early
summer night, I realized that many of the sounds
I make, as a re...
MacArthur Park
Jose Padua
When I was a kid I thought
that the greatest record ever made
was the 1968 mod orchestral rendering of
of Jimmy Webb’s lost love opus, MacArthur Park.
For me, MacArthur Park was a flash of wisdom, an epiphany a...
A Portrait of America in Trash
Jose Padua
I give to you a portrait of America in trash.
I give it to you with love and respect, America:
mountains of beer cans crumpled, plastic figures
with fallen action, black velvet portraits of Elvis
with...
