A Poem That Ends With A Comma

Disclaimer: This post contains foul language.

These kids who born late and early in the morning to labor hour three short contraction long,

To mothers screaming chant and incantation wails of cut umbilical cord and shuddered anesthetic,

To fathers encouraging stood and jubilant leaned whisper push, push, push, here they are!,

Who screamed exit out and calmed when doctors scapel-ed there and stuck them in the bins,

Who were raised fine and right and remember the vivid good of childhood beginning,

Who yelled down apartment wood steps into the heated down streets of dispute,

Who jumped third story roofs to pot-smoked balconies crying and shirt off at empty room windows,

Who spooned with lovers on twin sized mattress and let strangers gape across the courtyard,

Who drove drunk on windy roads into cuffs to police stations asleep on Orphanage and Dixie,

Who strapped bags to bony backs and road pedal into ambulance trunks for sips of the I.V.,

Who sat stoned and giggling at televisions for cheeky platitude and cheap show of what’s real,

Who cried at death and wore black to teary funerals with paternal pass and scatterbrained minds in the pews,

Who cut their hair and grew beards stroked with cigarettes in the hairs to talk on,

Who pierced face with needles hollow watered eyes for trend,

Who bussed to Florida testing out the new and returned sad and dead-eyed for liquor and labor,

taking acid hits in unfamiliar houses and down streets ran for the monstrosity of downtown night and cried pointing to the sidewalks, The answer’s always there!,

Who formed opinions about oil and war with disowned car in the gulf after debate,

Who walked twenty miles home on the girls anniversary in the expanseless dead of road shoulders,

Who fucked outside truck trailers in South Dakota stations for discounted shower steam,

Who bought knives and fought back in the dark alleys threatened on the
complex steps.

Who marveled at Philadelphia square and walked cold into Fall of south side ghetto,

Who ate brownies and danced old warehouses raw with Molly arms strung and stumbled in sold out venues.

Who yelled at passerby safely speeding in the 35 and gave fingers air
with butt mooned,

Who had 3-ways with infatuated love and best friend on pitch-black cupboard with cocks close and faded,

Who woke sober and mistaken in the morning regret like so many times often and to come,

Who greeted summer indulgent pursued women and men in coffee shops and hedonistic grocery stores,

Who dug fire pits and burned, popped, and shot bottle rockets to trees for smoke,

Who at ten watched their father cry television static at the fallen towers on fourth grade sketches,

Who stole alcohol and trust from parents loved spoiled in the garage refrigerator left open,

Who retreated to the West Coast for flimsy jobs in the dry heat of summer and altitude change,

Who botched love lighthearted on a spear of a brunette’s dress with chance and eagerness,

Who contemplated God in foggy bedrooms after good lay,

Who despaired under Academics and dropped four semesters lifted after and parent fit,

Who hammered on typewriters on old paper-print in uneven margins for hell,

Who wore glasses straight lensed and fingerprinted in the light from thrift store on German,

Who stole cheap beer from dumpster factory and urgently ran country hills down,

Who to Mexico flew in pick-up trucks to stranded hitchhiker Indians in the desert passes,

Who sniffed cocaine in full port-o-potties and spasmed with speed and numb race,

Who crashed motorcycles in weary mountain ravines and burned fingerprints on exhaust skin,

Who watched die friends freedom with father and mother and quit job and money for spirit beat, beat, beat,

Who destitute dived into dumpster food scrounging for poverty in drop out squat,

Who read poetry to ringing confidant ears at venues corroded taste and gave the craft away,

Who fought over women fucking in civic backseats with blonde hair and false love,

Who raced naked touched to the future up the silent road in streetlights illuminated,

Who bled on cement crumbled blocks at construction sites lit with rafter floodlights,

Who pummeled and wrestled with father in shotgun home and vowed out the things from his childhood room lingered,

Who loved friends in late cars driving alcoholic high through police-checkpoints.

Who mouth ashen and chapped eyes stared at the low-sky storm of Nebraska,

Who stern and throwing bowling balls at car windshields in driveways and laughed at the cobweb windshield,

Who fucked women in their homes and our home and party homes and stole flat screens for orgasm,

Who woke up alone in strange beds with the shower clouding with bed sheet and body,

Who lied for instant sex and did not answer phone when called a promised date after,

Who broke cellphones on drops of concrete and stumbled lost shirt near backyard fence,

Who smashed car windows on the 4th elbow parked parallel and beat down to the concrete,

Who broke backs falling off R.V. roofs and blacked out to the E.R. with back brace nailed to the wall,

Who punched strangers in the teeth and started seizures for rumor end running demented guilt,

Who went behind backs to make out in lawn chairs outside the city block view,

Who crashed cars hazed, scaring flipped heads and glass voiced as flashed their short life like snap,

Who drenched and mouth dried mooched food from the fortunate and generously,

Who found God in beach balls on sterile beach coves and wrote essays mismatched for audience,

Who slipped off shorts in hotel water and swam free in chlorine blue with pals and long eyed girl,

Who abandoned birthday parties for late night amours and sticks of cigarette,

Who stole money from meters with jackhammer heads and strong swing to shoulder,

Who grew weed on nice porches in cities without check and steady two months kept hidden on the roof,

Who shot pump action bb guns at car windows on the highway and hid behind the apron,

Who threw rocks at train conductors sleeping at the whistle and hiked away at break,

Who in the creek at six killed frogs with sticks and dismembered on the rocks,

Who harassed mothers strolling in the park with flicks and gesture and whisper turns,

Who sled down snow steep to crash into trees fractured with ribs and went again,

Who cried alone in bedroom after a friend-full night and could not make out why on the desk,

Who lunged at police and sprinted paranoia later into the impenetrable valley wood,

Who rushed out screen doors hearing the upstairs moan of familiar voice in pleasure,

Who drunk foggy-faced showered with girl in a dirty tiled hole and came on the shower curtain ruffle,

Who blacked out and remembered only the bottoms up, shot, hey! and consequence disappear,

Who descended paths into vomit circled firepits and smiled in smoked green leaf,

Who hollered and whooped exuberant shirtless and run-legged down blind mud to the train bridge looming,

Who fell clean and aware from the cable swing in the creek absent light and concerned feet rush,

Who made out finally with best friend in tent and felt her trembling chest vulnerable,

Who ran from police casually asking for disband and expunge and sound killer,

Who kicked at beer bottles finished window and desperate fist punched walls when gone,

Who took handjobs driving down the slow distracted lane in midnight and wailing radio,

Who beat and tired spin kicked at pathetic hardcore shows and received blow and cuts to the temple,

Who slipped on ice and seat belt off slammed the streetlight into head-hit windshield,

Who downtown watched baseball team lose and outcry the red and drive home in traffic valley,

Who went to the levee with angel to watch her paint the city canvas and asked for her hands only,

Who were called chink and nigger walking the sidewalk from tinted window and from tire shout and from schoolyard fence,

Who stereotyped and college frat house demeaned and on desktop graffiti read,

Who doo-wopped with plugged ears and scratched at sweaty skin in bathroom stalls scrawled,

Who crossed heart loved and stitched small-back loyalty on their shirt only to slip from the day,

Who straightlaced and scolded robotripping car rides with hand freezing in the winter air from
Oklahoma.

Who stole from the register $200 and quit next day inconspicuously and never received pension,

Who wanted that girl with the braces and crook teeth blow and talked to Carl about the holiness of whores,

Who were thrown from shows for underage drink and wandered warm and off-balance down the high streets of Clifton,

Who flattered and grinned fat-faced girls on bus backs at the late-day drop to eve,

Who abstained from virgins or Madonna and as Lothario quit her for she meant more, Yes, she means more,

Who in night terrors met eyes out the bed, sweating rose nude in drenched sheets,

Who prayed on the bed with arms held gasping for God in the ceiling glow stars,

Who from Columbus to Cincinnati drove hundred and energy shots raced from the sun,

Who touched tip with cunt and open mouthed kiss on the pink walls of the bedroom,

Who drilled peepholes into parent bathroom walls without knowing the better.

These kids!

Who from future raped already tumbled forward and down the drop,

You kids! You dragged old age kids!

Who grappled with bad decision life-lessons on tip of tongues, feeling back like the memories
were full,

These kids, you kids!

Who were raised fine and right and remember the vivid good of childhood beginning,

You destructive kids, you tragic kids!

Who yelled and wailed,

We are weary!

We are not ready for your rest!

Who yelled and wailed,

We are weary!

But we are not the ones faint of heart!,

You kids, these kids,



Nate Myers is a really great guy, you know.

3 comments:

eliza.e.campbell said...

This is the new "Howl",
obviously,
I like it,

Austin said...

my favorite part:
Who in night terrors met eyes out the bed, sweating rose nude in drenched sheets,

Who prayed on the bed with arms held gasping for God in the ceiling glow stars,

Who from Columbus to Cincinnati drove hundred and energy shots raced from the sun,


I'm a big fan of Nathan Myers - the man and the writing.

Gideon Burton said...

leaves of crass? Has its moments. And anti-moments.

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