Here is some supplemental info pertaining to Jack Mangan’s Deadpan Podcast Episode 20: XX. . . . .
Greasy Spoon Current standings!
Jason C: 4
Alvie: 1
Andrea: 1
Ed from Texas: 1
Jeremy from Seattle: 1
JohnBoze: 1
And also. . . since I delivered some pretentious poetry readings in XX, there followed some comments on the verses. Here, as requested, are the texts of the poems:
Encounter
She lays me down with a smile.
The gentle crush of her breasts against my ear,
I’m intimately aware of the rhythm of her breathing,
The rise and fall and shape of her bosom upon my temple.
I look up into her face, mere inches above mine.
A lone tear escapes my eye from the excruciating pain.
My discharged blood clings to the spike in her hand,
Like the red spatters upon a butcher’s cleaver.
Incessant sucking sound;
God, I hate dental cleanings.
~~~~
Cigarette
Atop the steel pole
In exhalation;
The smoking gun aimed at the sky.
Inhale –
The grit coats your
Throat and lungs.
Incinerated, fragmented exhaust
Of the labors of broken souls
Spews forth from below,
Ingested.
Accelerate the dormant cancer –
Neo-modernist reaper of souls.
Scatters of rain
Filter through the billowing, smoky sieve,
Press your hair against your skin
And make your eyes sting.
Unholiest of tastes upon your tongue –
The rank flavor of industrial god.
Perched you sit,
On the rim of his altar,
Rusted and grand.
You can make out shapes of angels
In the clouds of smoke.
~~~~
Archipelago
Archipelago of stars,
Tautly-stretched black skin’s white pores.
Punctilios – how grand they are,
Waves of clouds wash wreckage ashore.
Gaia’s breath – the forge’s bellows,
The sun that shapes the afternoon,
Warms the skin – a fiery yellow.
Blue sky shares the crescent moon.
Shield of heaven’s flesh and distance,
Sheltered – hushed spirits of the night.
Beyond roaring tide – their unseen presence,
The stillness of the black and white.
Tranquil isles – quiet rapture,
Virgin of the static pod.
Meteors fire amongst the fixtures,
Adorn the dark face of the god.
Behold! My modest Terran version,
Laying back in a field of grass.
Silent void – complete immersion,
Skin of sand – skies of glass…
A condition someday surely reached,
Of silent ecstasy unmarred.
Let time’s tide wash me upon that beach;
Archipelago of stars.
~~~~
Light Pollution
Street pavement connects with the soles of my shoes
In series of two;
Not a single star in the sky,
White noise static across the screen;
A Gaussian canopy.
Houses on the left and right –
Through the windows I see the flickers
But not the television sets.
I walk all night until dawn’s light,
Surfing the grid of streets,
From the rows of homes to
The strip malls.
I remember my grandfather telling me that
Years ago these were all farmlands and woods.
I miss him.
Past the last row of billboards and back home,
I lie down on the concrete
In the middle of the street
Safe
With the light of the sun through the clouds in my eyes.
~~~~
Street Corner
Welcome to the place where you now find yourself,
Cursing and questioning the fate you’ve been dealt.
You rail and scream against this Typhoid sentence,
Humbled before the city’s mindless omnipotence.
On the first corner, an A-frame reads, “Pave the earth�,
On the second corner, a woman screams through childbirth.
Third corner, skyscrapers rise from tectonic shifts,
And then there’s you, with orange suit and cuffed wrists.
The city’s your judge and court is in session,
You’re sentenced to hard time at this intersection.
You’re a documentary of a soul standing alone,
In this burning place, scored by the beltway’s drone.
Hopeless solitude found before the camera eye,
Cinematic stillness broken by the city bird’s cry.
You watch films of the war on the first corner’s screen,
Across from that, Kurosawa shoots a scene,
On the third corner, a samurai commits suicide,
And then there’s you: conveying loss of pride,
The director yells Cut and they take down the set,
Shooting is finished where these streets intersect.
Sunlight seeks passage through the shroud of smog & clouds,
But the sun’s not welcome here; there’s no life allowed.
Can’t touch the filth, the stains, the grime, the scum,
Because in the sun we’d see what we’ve become.
On one corner fight diseased rats and pigeons,
Across a man is preaching his religions.
The third corner whore reminds you that you knew her,
And then there’s you lying face down in the sewer.
Lips spread wide, your tongue pressed against the grate,
With open mouths you both silently await.
Drinking deeply the city’s discarded potion,
As it passes through the intersection towards the ocean.
You pull the sludge and nicotine into your lungs,
The noxious vapor burns on your atrophied tongue.
You fraternize among- but you’re just graffiti,
Painted and forgotten on the walls of the city.
Nefertiti grows obsolete on the first corner,
Across is Zeus, flanked by wiseguys and informers.
On the third corner stands the resident godhead,
And then there’s you, envying the undead.
They come to tell their tales and seek Zeus’ protection,
You’ve never felt so alone at this intersection.
Over this place’s stink you struggle just to think,
The curb is your bar, you order another drink.
You find that you can’t keep from facing towards the sky,
With footprints on your chest and saliva in your eye.
On the first corner stumbles W.C. Fields,
On the second corner a pusher blatantly deals,
On the third corner I sit and observe,
And then there’s you, quietly waiting to be served.
I buy you a shot and send it in your direction,
We’re all regulars at this intersection.
Your life is a sex motel; doors say do not disturb,
There’s no privacy; you catch the smell of herb,
Sitting on the curb, this new smell accents the stench.
You sink further down like a soldier in a trench.
On the first corner wait the dreaded undead,
They envy Frankenstein’s monster and the life it led.
We all look in awe, on the third corner lurks death,
And then there’s you, all alone and out of breath.
This is a sex motel, but you can’t get an erection,
Check out anytime, but you can’t leave the intersection.
The ancient mariner’s ship sails through the streets,
But the ill-fated vessel sinks into the concrete.
Cruising the metaphor, enigmatic ferryman,
Avert your eyes, he recruits passengers where he can.
Siddhartha sits first corner listening for the Om,
Alone; across the way Jim Morrison reads a poem,
On the third, a wise man feeds his stray pets,
And then there’s you, not remembering to forget.
Full of regret, you look back to when life was better,
Before this intersection, the day that you met her.
Covered with mucus you stand there among them,
Skin and hair greasy and matted with phlegm.
A paradigm, you don’t even have a pair of dimes,
Couldn’t pry one off of the pavement from the filth and grime.
One corner’s Captain Ahab, and in the street’s a hearse,
Across from that the Sphynx is dealing out its curse.
Third corner on the curb a test tube of Ebola.
And then there’s you, drinking your can of flat cola.
The E. Coli dies on burgers cooked to perfection,
The smell permeates throughout the intersection.
William Gibson’s dead channel sky looms above,
Your lost love is all you allow yourself to think of.
Like Edgar Allan Poe dreamt of lost Lenore,
Quoth the suspended traffic light, “Nevermore.�
Yonder perches a raven with blackest feathers,
Across a beautiful happy couple together.
On the third corner stands the image of despair,
And then there’s you trying desperately not to care.
You give heart to feelings too dark to mention,
And you ponder despair at hell’s intersection.
Impatient inpatient standing at this crossroads,
Internet junkie- a virus in your download.
The world passes you by: enemies strangers and friends,
_The end_; you silently know- someday this will end.
You depend on fate’s pendulum to set you free,
When you’ll wash away the scum, when the streets will be empty.
On all three corners, locked doors with exit signs,
And then there’s you, silently biding your time.
Someday you’ll log off and speak in another dimension,
But for time present you’ll live death at the intersection.