Poetry Prose Art Reviews With Poetry & Paintings by Stan Rice

2 Poems by J. Berk

texas (to g.p.) we wished to watch the wind swept waters of the gulf of mexico- the country of our dreams, of dilettantes & thieves, of blue water and open boats where we'd always say we'd go to hide from the yanks or our women or our lives & when we finally got there finally not fleeing but just visiting it was dirty and smelled bad the beach floor hairy with marks of shame condoms booze bottles panties dead bird carcasses filth the plastic and business of modern life the same as back home and we didn't cry but we didn't stay. american landscape a poor poor fat girl eyes in thrift store glasses teeth neglected by dentistry (money needed instead to pay the cable bill) wears a stretched holy shirt with the words "life's a beach" french fries float in fetid puddles next to dirty pieces of ham cigarette butts are carried off by industrious ants to filthy underground homes with screaming babies everywhere screaming babies a woman with a face like an old baseball glove tied too tight in the back smokes pack after angry pack sitting scowling waiting for a bus that will never arrive to take her to a home that never was rubbery bloody bandages peel off of phantom limbs and waft lazily down cardiac alleys landing happily among the starving children who gather them and feed them to their dying pet cats in a final gesture of good will cocks caught in oscillating fangs are chewed mangled and spit out as the grecian talking heads glower and glow bathed in the sick yellow light always talking always taking always wearing make-up always playing make believe a sad soft and confused warrior wears toothpaste-green sweatpants eats lunch in a train station slowly picks his teeth with long fingernails wishes he was going somewhere somewhere anywhere anywhere but here workmen with tumorous bellies hanging over soiled jeans install flashing billboards and advertise their own demise with t-shirts bearing the logos of the companies that have bought them and sold them like turkey parts unfit for human consumption used to feed pigs shark-infested concrete rivers bubble with steel and broken glass past sign posts crying divided highways and we know they sure do mean it silently attending the 24 hour movie theaters we call home. Back to Top

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