"cinemax" poems
in our
besieged republic
snipers are
popping up
everywhere
taking ***
shots
ending lives
with a well placed
head shot
active shooters
star in
world premier
events
jokers
rise like
dark knights
casting large
looming shadows
on real 3D cinemax
multiplexed screens
sprinkling overpriced
buckets of popcorn
with generous
dollops of blood
others
head back to
school
still ******
about missing
recess and
excessive
sentences
to detention
halls where
bullies tortured
scrawny inmates
with wedgies
and painful
***** twisters
they’ve
come back
to even the score
leaving
bullet hole
pockmarks on
Sharpie smudged
smart boards
declaring endless
summer vacations
for classrooms
of children
who don’t
give wedgies
and only dream
of soft *****
these
urban guerillas
are now working
to liberate airports
from the tyranny
of TSA agents
fulfilling
PATRIOT ACT
duties for
10 bucks
an hour
and
last night
the latest
active shooter
showed up at
the Garden
State Plaza,
-my hometown
mall of america-
mumbling about his
Grand Theft Auto
score, strung out
and crashing
from an unfilled
pharma addiction
script
he grew
up as a
Highwayman
in Teaneck
a former
classmate
working
at Nordstroms
said he was
a really good kid
he was,
one of the good ones,
he could have shot
some people
but the only
person he
shot in the head
was himself
legions of
police officers
surrounding the mall
stood down
grateful for overtime
milling about
in the flashing
red strobes
inhaling the heady
blue fumes
rising to commend
Bergen County
Blue Laws and
next Sunday’s
time and a half
active shooter
training day
Jimi Hendrix:
Machine Gun
Oakland
11/5/13
jbm
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 1:12 PM UTC
I'm paying tribute to one of the finest Poets I know, Tony Hoagland. He recently passed away from Pancreatic Cancer at 64 years young. This is one my absolute favorites and I believe you'll love it also.
Romantic Moment
After the nature documentary we walk down,
into the plaza of art galleries and high end clothing stores
where the mock orange is fragrant in the summer night
and the smooth adobe walls glow fleshlike in the dark.
It is just our second date, and we sit down on a rock,
holding hands, not looking at each other,
and if I were a bull penguin right now I would lean over
and ***** softly into the mouth of my beloved
and if I were a peacock I’d flex my gluteal muscles to
***** and spread the quills of my cinemax tail.
If she were a female walkingstick bug she might
insert her hypodermic proboscis delicately into my neck
and inject me with a rich hormonal sedative
before attaching her egg sac to my thoracic undercarriage,
and if I were a young chimpanzee I would break off a nearby treelimb
and smash all the windows in the plaza jewelry stores.
And if she was a Brazilian leopardfrog she would wrap her impressive
tongue three times around my right thigh and
pummel me lightly against the surface of our pond
and I would know her feelings were sincere.
Instead we sit awhile in silence, until
she remarks that in the relative context of tortoises and iguanas,
human males seem to be actually rather expressive.
And I say that female crocodiles really don’t receive
enough credit for their gentleness.
Then she suggests that it is time for us to go
to get some ice cream cones and eat them.
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 3:14 PM UTC
12:45
The sun has gone black,
the world is asleep.
In the family room,
the television clicks on by itself.
It illuminates my father,
half-naked,
covered in processed cheese dust.
The channel changes to Cinemax,
******** ***********
My mother walks in
without her glasses,
and for a moment
her screams of disgust
are indistinguishable
from the throes of passion
broadcast on the cheap
Acer dad bought at Costco.
Elsewhere,
in South America,
a volcano has erupted.
It sprays debris
and detritus
over a small village
with a long name.
Postmodern Vesuvians **** ash,
frozen not with fear
but rigor mortis.
The CNN report plays for three hours.
The world moves on.
Later,
a man explodes in a convenience store.
Guts rocket outward,
onto wine coolers
and travel packages of Chex,
and the clerk just shrugs.
If you go there today,
all that’s left is the smell of ammonia
and a dark stain on the ceiling.
At the same moment,
a toddler steps off a cliff,
spiraling into the abyss,
but never stops falling.
He’s been going for days,
months,
years.
He has kept his audience updated
through a Bluetooth that we tossed down after him.
He’s had windburn since he fell,
but the ointment we sent
hasn’t reached him yet.
His parents are now expecting.
He just yawns.
In my family room,
the woman on Cinemax is climaxing,
screaming,
pulling her hair out
while a greased-up middle aged
pizza deliveryman autoerotically asphyxiates
himself with a hair tie.
As she wails for the last time,
the TV screen shatters,
glass ejected,
blazing through the air
like Flight 93
seconds before impact.
Sparks salivate from the exposed wires,
then cackle down
into a signed black.
And as this happens,
the children on Exeter St
stop crying.
The alcohol in a small town liquor store in Wyoming
un-ferments,
and the world, for a moment,
ceases to turn.
But only for a blink.
Jan 18, 2013
Jan 18, 2013 at 2:02 PM UTC
I've been listening to static for years.
Watching the black-and-white zigzags
Crumple across my screen
Defeated, without knowing the enemy.
Overwhelmed, without taking perspective.
Suddenly pictures are coming through
Sounds that don't just seem to be dying aluminum.
Laughs smiles conversations
Touches...
Gasps.
Heartbeats.
Those black and white zigzags are fading
Blurring out until you see the picture
They've been trying to form for too long.
And behold, the picture is clear.
Maybe the repairman upgraded me to hi-def.
But that repairman sure is sneaky.
Apparently the channel is now set on Cinemax
And I have no idea where my remote is.
Jul 21, 2010
Jul 21, 2010 at 1:35 PM UTC
Life is but a cinemax,let's face the facts
we travel round and round the screen and though we'd like to be a scene within the picture that's being seen,we haven't got a hope in hell.
They sell these scenes to make our dreams and any scenes we may fall in are cut and put into the bin.
The real sin lies in the lies we're told,
as the green screen folds our lives in two
and the camera crew don't give a frig, to us, the not so big that we don't matter but we could shatter all their dreams by boycotting their clapped out screens and yet we still pretend that in the end,we'll get our break,take our fifteen minutes of fame,
well,thank you all the same I'd sooner not,I'd sooner scratch the spot that's sat upon my ***
and one day anyway the day will come when we all get our moment in the spotlight of the sun
so why worry?
Sep 16, 2013
Sep 16, 2013 at 2:57 PM UTC