This isnt a poem, it is an open invitation to any member of this community to attend a poetry reading that myself, Travis McCullers, and Jaysen Good are hosting. It will be held in our homely hometown of Live Oak, Florida at a certain Spirit of the Suwannee cafe on Sunday, March 4th. You all are more than welcome to attend and any contributions you wish to make to the performance will be considered. The cafe is a full service restaurant and bar, so please feel free to get obscenely drunk on the premises. Directions and contact information will ne provided to serious inquirers via private message. Please feel free to ask any other general questions that may occur to you in your comments below.

thanks for reading,
David Badgerow

while you were singing in the churchyard
i was sleeping in the ***** barn
beside a withered picture of an astronaut
and a long beard filled with street secrets

while you were burning up in sainthood
i was screaming into a melancholy leaf
wearing sweat on my miserable *****
and a liar's grin on my face

while you were murdering your wife
i was milking this dream for all the light
and i thanked god on bended knee
saying you're a turtle dove in an icebox

while you martyred yourself into the ocean
i carried you with me on my road to freedom
like an aligator stomped hard by a mockingbird
or a mermaid shot full of antibirth tablets

all my stop signs
     are draped with pearl necklaces
and my headlights
     caress wounded kittens
i am the dunce
     carusading thru the blues
the moon is emblazoned
     with indignation over
crowds of unemployed people

(nodody notices the white elephant)
     stealing
the hacksaw, the cookies, and all the money
     i saved for a haircut
all in all, a ***** is
     hitchhiking toward a pontiac
in the desperate desert sun
     counting
his thumbs with a switchblade


"anything temporary can be used for money reasons"

a penny is a penny
and i am a monk hawking birth control pills
without any shame or pride
disguised in flamboyant tinfoil.
i am an extra sensitive *** on my daily street corner
turning into a crumb of hunger
staring down a long alleyway and eating the flowers
that grew up in concrete.
there are shadows of jugglers on the wall
jumping into the sun, and i am a burning lampshade.
henry miller is in a wheelchair now
and i am a walrus with a backache
being forced among the proverb writers,
but i'm no prophet because i've seen the bubbling fire
and the swords on the doorway.
i am a lover with a guilty conscience
and i have too much on my mind.
i stole the bread from the riot squad and
i blow out these words from a keyhole,
pounding my fist on a book
while the mystics get drunk with skinny ******.
i don't go to birthday parties or funerals
instead i'd like to do something worthwhile
but i am your typical flunky, writing eccentric jokes about rich pimps
while my father lies dead on the hill.

In the heart of your ears through splendid cities pierced with light,
the river murmurs of mad seas in lonesome rooms
of the veins in the arms of notorious daughters, oh blue waters!
i sing and the woods sing!
she stands polka dotted in a great bronze chariot
the shivering willows like an ***** of iron down the long black river
we entwine our thin arms and great conquering black eyes
the sky is hell-red where the stars are sleeping.
in the sacred woods, under the light of the horizon
the poet speaks of eternal voice *****-pipes;
I cared nothing for all the horrible spinning eyes of the ferris wheel,
clamouring birds seen as archipelagos and the eyes of panthers

nodody gives a **** about real birds like the voluptuous coyote eagle

i've learned how to smell the circus
i've watched a black mongrel turn into a weasel
tonight the moon's nickname is
crooked betty
and the stars are
bleeding adam's apples
shining like a volcano

i wield a hacksaw and terrible excuses
my mouth is wet with jingle jangle
and situational confusion

everything is temporary.