all i have now
is ten toes in the sand
and the sun on my
chest, face and shoulders
i'm completely contaminated by
this bottle in my left hand,
the first drink i've had in days.

last night i spent
two hours knuckle-deep
in your fishnets, our tongues
were playing twister while
your daughter slept upstairs.

she was dreaming
of a car on fire
and a house exploding with
magnificent light,
downstairs you were wetter
than the deepest ocean
and i had the warmth of
your whisper in my ear.

her hair was a cloud of cigarette smoke
and flowed down like beer
but smelled more like a whiskey distillery

she looked down on me
with her knees on my chest, she
popped her gum and
arched her back,
drilled a hole in my heart

but my heart still pounds and pumps
just like thunder or gasoline
when i remember that night,
and those next four days
we spent storming into
each other's secret hiding places
and driving reckless into the night.

we shared a nickel's worth
of bourbon
and a crumpled cigarette

when her parents found us
we were both
wrapped 'round each other
and in the stiff dawn light i wished
i was still wearing those
silly-looking shades.

i haven't fogotten
that night
we waded
naked
knee deep into
that brown
river

the summer
had my back
and kissed
my shoulders but
the rest of mine
was yours

the moon was
high
and full of himself
and i could see
in your eyes
you were too

the morning sun
was hot and i awoke suffocating
inside an oven
of a tent
on a beach
naked

everything i owned
was in a bag in the backseat
of your car
with your *******
quickly driving
away

i found your
little brother's optimus prime towel
beneath me
and decided to
wander into the
world

and i found
my cellphone and car keys
and an unsmoked cigarette
on the sidewalk
but you stole my
dignity

my dreams are boiled
and scorched up
like a fever blister on the lip
of an anarchist
on the seventh consecutive day of
ozzfest

i'm hot and i am bothered
like the knickers of
the old french ***** who lives
upstairs
in every grimy novel
ever published

the lips on my face
are puckered and raw
like the *******
of every ****** in prison
because
we've been kissing
for weeks now,
lying naked and careless
like the bright setting sun
splashing the floor of your room
with sweat
and ***
and primal laughter

now i'm standing on your doorstep
wet from the rain
wanting
one
more
sunburned mosquito bite.

i am like a water droplet
fearfully gripped
to the lip of a paper cup,
the same as you are
like a delicate kiss poised
on mine.

except i am not made of
purity and clarity,
instead i am
a convoluted storm
of desperate confusion and
utter disbelief
and depression,
and you are just
a delicate kiss poisoned
by mine.

i am a toddler
sitting alone in the morning
being drenched by the dew
and crying

i am cutting my teeth
on a stick i found
in the ***** woods
of this southern town
and picking scabs off
of my sister's knees

i only exist to make a mess
to **** everything up
and then shrug it off

i am a blue balloon tied
around the wrist of a baby
crying

i spent seven days in a foxhole
eating sand and burying the secrets
of former lovers.
i gave myself the silent treatment
for the first four days
then i sang for the other three.
i dreamed of cowboys and westbound trains
and i had an old sack full of bottles
so i wasnt alone.
i was a fine toothed comb
or a skill saw
and i felt useful for once in my life.
i crushed a box of lightbulbs on
the fourth night
and i found the prettiest place to sleep.
i hung photos on the wall of the prison
to keep me happy
and missing you.
now i live in the basement of the world
and i wish for nothing more
than a swiss army knife and
one word from you.

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.

i am crawling in or falling through a tunnel.
*******, the tunnel needs nodody
kennedy is gone, living in static
white static swirling upward
or burned in the carbon-mist
piccadilly green in the lights by the hills
apathy roars the heart asleep
in the tunnel, the circus summer green,
the icecream heart.
the desert.
crawl, nodody lights a cigarette asleep.

my life is beautiful, not realistic.
yesterday, i arrived on neptune
wearing big boots and dignity
the horizon was a nightmare of question marks
and gloomy witches;
i escaped from the religious enema and
pegged a choir boy on my way out.
i am no longer a pygmy goat on a foolish leash,
i take my paranoia seriously.
my journals guide me to a ruptured corpse,
never censored.
i have the ability to be given away on a whim,
but i am becoming a famous soldier, an intoxicating
ghost of dogma.
my dreams are beautiful, not realistic.
hallelujah, the hobos are wearing bathrobes,
the ****** pillheads are anointed with ****** and sewer cleaners.
i see a goblin grave advertised by
luscious lips and fishlike shoulders.
the texture of my dream is kaleidoscope and silver,
haunted by a fat sherriff who cuts the throat of the jukebox queen.
i have a personal god, and on her i bestow this passionate kiss,
i have a favorite enemy, with no goals and without ambition.
im sorry, i don't know any happy songs,
only the movement of her young sensitive thighs and
a nymph with an hourly rate.
i am a buffoon with a blugeoned harmonica and
weapons of sugar.
my life is beautiful, not realistic.

i'll tell you
fingertip secrets
whispered
softly
inside

your blouse.

you taste like candy
and i am starving and swallowing your tricks
i dreamt of a greasy hotel and
a box to sleep in.
i am not a cannibal,
i am not a sky diver
& and i am not a pilgrim,
but i hunger for your body
and i'm falling for your holy curves.
i will hang from your window and dance in the sunlight
even though i am not a pink velvet curtain.
i am a garbage-collector poet,
fresh from the allabaster market
who has found the words once lost
in a dark fox hole
near the bend of a lazily flowing river.
all i need is a dime and a glass vase,
a short story and a wet cigarette.
i've come back to town--i climbed right out of that stop sign
standing on a shotgun bullet-holed volkswagon
with a 7 day hangover
holding burning grace in my hands and you say
"lead me to the garbage"
carrying with you a bag of soggy french fries
and i stop to show you a dying tulip,
and we watch as it floats into a cloud.
we'll hide all our money in a glowing furnace
and as i try to write this with a water logged pen
you show me pictures of shirley temple with her head in a noose.
my name is not moses, and i do not want to be remembered.

Mike Arms--1 day ago
write a few lines, I'll match em. Can you do it ?

david badgerow--14 hours ago
banjo strings frayed by broken fingernails
fistful of downers to sleep this night away
i open my eyelids out of dream, singing ladies'
eyes downcast thru fear & tobacco smoke
wake up, roll joint, get this day started.

Mike Arms--10 hours ago
being pure ether ain't no ****** picnic
this september looks right at ***** smearing
its pale arms reaching clearly into murderers
lungs groping mute celibate
if you beheld her whole form means silence

david badgerow--10 hours ago
lying back on the car seat, her eyelids heavy
she breathes diamonds and pure electricity
in an endless velvet desert, radio warbles over a hill
"oh, if i were young again, legs spread leaning against a table."
hard labor, aluminum tubes between
continental divide
echo chamber vibrations plunging
their tiny lamps in and out of her eyeball

Mike Arms--8 hours ago
Hard Luck Man
crossing floods
inanimate intelligence

is assassinated
they cross themselves
a world deaf

*** revolution
worst gamble
you remain

to be honest, I'm exactly what i wanted to be
i came here looking for the truth
and to find someone else out there
who holds something i want
more than anything else in the world,
someone else who breathes diamonds and electricity.
i have an audience now,
and its time i came to grip that
you all are more important to me
than any girl i've ever touched,
i'm ready to admit that.

every man for himself--am i a man or a self?
wearing long suspenders and
smoking my tonsils raw
a handful of questionable virtue
and inexpensive self confidence

i am no longer your folk hero,
but rather a jolly youth that hates degenerates
i'll fall out of my chair to keep
my ear to the ground
i must listen for change

yes, and between the mattress, shrieking
and the myterious column of faces
appears the fog in twilight, swallowing
***** tonk doors and vagabonds whole

i am a strange left handed moon man,
i'm high
i have that paralyzing lonesome feeling
i have nothing new to add, that feeling
i am an ambassador without *****,
almost pornographic

if i wake up,
i will kiss the lips of a thousand
raindrops

if i wake up,
i will feed ten thousand
starving children

if i wake up,
i will crush a thousand
dreams

if i wake up,
i will ring ten thousand
liberty bells

if i wake up,
i will light a thousand
green lightbulbs

if i wake up,
i will drink ten thousand
mingling rivers

i have a headache. i have sore arms.
from drinking at 3 in the afternoon.
from holding you up on a pedastal for hours.
i dreamt about a salty girl
riding in a parade & confetti
made of dollars.
the golden rainbow is no bigger than my fist
and is blinding the dangling lovers.
next march the taste of flowers will
return to **** the garbage men,
they will be struck down by
flying swords of grass.
you will see the way the calvalry
becomes twisted up in drugs,
like a tornado singing a misty song.
it will let the dancer drift into orbit,
and i will watch as a pirate dies
of laryngitis.

volcano the rat popped out of the sewer and ran down the road gnawing on a crooked table leg. the pin up girls have been crying in the chapel over strange men with belly problems. it is very early and the sky is still a black mongrel rolled in waves of silence. i was king midas for forty minutes in a dream last night, i held a crazy unspeakable microphone and i slapped myself in the face. buy me a soapbox just like jesus had, hang posters of houdini and exist in silence. i have the mad pulse of a child, a rosy cheeked poet am i. last night i secretly tried to chop down the church steeple, "down with enthusiasm."

unsuccessful potatoes & you found a tree in the ocean
i spent the afternoon digging, digging
my fingernails into my own fear of commitment
the fear of my own reputation

now the cat's in heat & richard nixon (the dog)
is teasing her with his trump card
she takes it
& squeezes it
very gently
then rips it open madly & snarls
& it oozes and drips out of her mouth
we all pick up a thousand pieces of a minute

i cremated my sister this morning & new spirits
arrived at my doorstep before noon
they sang to me of instinct,
whinnying about the antique zenith
up in cheyenne

"gimmie some secrets" she said
so i carved them
into my arm
into a minotaur's chest
into a giant looking glass
into a wooden boat
& i set sail for the sundial,
"there is no truth"
my eyes are wax & the ocean
means nasty filth

but everything is useless now
frogs carry high powered harmonicas
& walk into the spells of Poe
& into the hexagrams of Hamlet

i do not want to carry a pitchfork across
some godforsaken desert
i do not want to feel my own evaporation
while the real artists brood in the meantime
i want to waste away on a slushy evening
i will live in my armpit
& hate you
& never wear deodorant

"your mind is small--it is limited--why must you understand?"

You want to beat us
over our heads with your crosses
You want us living in garbage
You want us to give ourselves to gods
named consumerism
named money
and fame
and celebrity.

You want us to ignore
history and
buy
buy
buy
into your
debt ceiling, your tired excuses,
we are to sing your siren's song
and tie our own nooses.

today is ****** monday
there's one knocking on
my front door
he is scribbled and bleeding
from his forearms,
he carries a pigeon on a leash
and gets high on hotrod drivers' eyes.
i'll give him two pints of hillbilly sugar
and a book of voodoo pictures,
but he insists upon my daughter
and at least 3 lines of coke.
instead i hand him a corn on the cob
and the number of the girl scout troop up the road,
he asks me for one more moose head and although
i'm almost out, the sun is still yellow
so i pour him a double brandy
because
today is ****** monday
there's one
driving naked down
a one way street