1.
fuck you fuck you fuck
you scribbled the self-
proclaimed, officially
acclaimed, pharmaceutically
addle-brained bourgeois
poet in morning electric’s light.
okay, i added the burgher bit
because i’m talking city mouse
stalking across town & country
mouse, screaming at the wind
screen all that streaming text
one crazy-making dream.
2.
even now, i feel obla-dee-
blah-da-bligated to practice
tight restraints, indulge that
masochist with punishment,
discipline & sin n shit, n piss n
wesson oil, er, balsamic s-s-s-lime.
o joy!
photograph by Ruby Ray
3.
bumpity-bump groan the 4 wheels
under my ass dipped in empty pot-
holes, cracks, slipping, swerved pull-
in’ the steer in, pushin’ petals to their
mettle to a void, to cheat complete
catastrophe a victory for now. ow!
wow ow ow!
some words we have slurred into
utterly different sounds until utter
sounds like udder and motor rhymes
almost with murder, crash, bank!
the blood of a poet is only blood
transfused or tainted just like any other
professional amateur’s sanguine
solutions, problems no better than ours,
words we all use like we cock them up,
toys to divert idled minds’ details,
demons playing with twists rent
out of derisive howls keen to cut this
way, this perceptive palm over the eye,
a (ob)scene just, you’re made to stand for rank, silent
truth.
detroit
january 2015
–Norman Douglas
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Photographs Poetry