"pbr" poems
All I wanted was a cigarette.
We weren't allowed to smoke.
He knew where to go.
We swept sidewalks together.
Raked sand together.
Talked about life together.
His window was across from mine.
I think he saw me changing once.
Maybe more than once.
He was getting dishonorably discharged.
I didn't think he was a good man.
I didn't think he was a bad one, either.
It had been two weeks since I landed in Monterey.
I only wanted a cigarette.
He knew where to go.
I bought the Southern Comfort and bottom shelf gin.
He carried them with him to his room.
I didn't think anything of it.
We raked sand together.
We ate lunch together.
We watched movies together.
We sat on a makeshift bench by the ditch by the installation fence.
We drank and smoked and laughed.
I taught him Farsi and he taught me Russian.
Russian for "hello" and "goodbye."
Russian for "This is allowed."
Russian for "This is not allowed."
I think he saw me changing once.
He tried to kiss me on the cheek.
I told him no, my boyfriend wouldn't like that very much.
We smoked some more.
We drank some more.
We laughed some more.
It was 2130.
I had to be in my room by 2200.
He said not to worry, I'd be back in time.
I insisted and tried to leave.
I fell to the ground.
He didn't help me up.
I only wanted a cigarette.
He kissed me on the mouth.
I did not kiss him back.
I was immobile.
Paralyzed.
Drugged?
He kissed me again.
And again.
And again.
I did not kiss him back.
I had a boyfriend.
All I wanted was to smoke and drink and laugh.
He grabbed me by the ankles.
Pulled me over the ditch behind the army barracks by the installation fence.
I could hear soldiers coming back to their rooms.
I was paralyzed.
I always thought I would fight.
Fend him off with car keys stuffed between my fingers.
I looked up at the tree branches above me, my watch said 2147.
That was the last time I prayed to God.
There were leaves in my hair and dirt on my arms.
There was something less than a man between my legs.
It looked at me with hate in its eyes.
We swept sidewalks together.
God kicked back and swigged a PBR
while I was ***** behind the army barracks,
over the ditch by the installation fence.
He helped me up.
I couldn't stand on my own.
How sweet.
I vomited by a tree.
I was disgusted with myself and him and God.
I wanted to drown in Southern Comfort and bottom shelf gin.
He walked me to my barracks building.
How sweet.
I made it to my room by 2200.
All the girls watched me stumble down the hallway.
I was so violently alone.
Taps wailed outside the window.
I left my hat by the bench by the ditch by the installation fence.
He brought it to me the next morning.
How sweet.
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 8:38 PM UTC
it's a college party
even though i never finished and the rest of y'all are spending money you don't have on the ingredients necessary for homemade sangria so you can drink the crippling anxiety of not knowing how to pay off your student loans away
there's a man living in a tent in the backyard, and i'm pretty sure we put one too many pieces of scrap wood in that very-hard-to-maintain bonfire. that has to be a metaphor for the state of most of our lives. stop throwing things i'm unprepared for in what already feels like a situation that is going to **** me.
is this a literal housewarming
i'm drunk, and sitting on the deck, counting the christmas lights. i smell **** and there are white people dancing and singing to blink 182 inside.
i paint my name on a drywall with a brush and canisters i find on my way to the living room, where i'm asked to referee a game of beer pong. i lose interest quickly.
i scroll through my phone, sober enough not to text you but drunk enough to desperately want to. someone sits down next to me because i've apparently become that person at the party.
i talk about rent with a guy who really wants to connect on the fact that we're both middle eastern, even though i'm not middle eastern. he smells like PBR and completely believes what he's saying. he says he's proud of me for following my dreams of coming to new york and that he likes my "crazy hair" and that he wants to **** me.
i raise my eyebrows, more in disgust than interest, but he then takes his perceived cue to shamelessly ask me if i have a ****** i don't, and i leave before he brainstorms any alternatives i am just as aversive to.
ironically, i find a ****** dispenser attached to a tree on the walk to the subway. considering the amount of catcalling i experienced on the way to the station, my level of discomfort is amplified by the fact that the neighbourhood literally, physically implies, ******* is going to happen in the streets. it's 2am, and i just want to go home. and i'm sitting on the J train, recalling everyone who's told me it's shady and unreliable and makes you feel like you're going to die.
a few months later, i am nicknamed J train.
Sep 21, 2016
Sep 21, 2016 at 2:24 AM UTC
I called to give you a rearrangement of irony and a bucket full of Jews, I tailor made a rebreather because the past connections were used . Indeed, just like a crossview that encouraged stars to collapse, then did a fix up for the X's and O's so every oxymoron followed with a laugh. A pail of shrubs, an ounce of yore, yesterday you were following your very own bated breath. Up until you challenged yourself to a duel, you didn't look so bad for a disastrous mess. Harms' Way could be the place in town where odds go to get even, or it could be the street where Blow-Pops aren't just made, but also handed out to toothless citizens. We the captured, please and thank you, sir and mam until our captors go, like if you imagine The Godfather in The Graduate, describing how the Komodo dragon roasts. We haven't made it thru a single day since they've come in packs of seven, but today we'll have the chance to share some face time with the hours that we are being given.
Misty-eyed, mournful, and very sorry walked in separately from the yard. They drank cold-filtered PBR and joked about all the kids they may have fathered. Has it been four weeks or just four days, since the Ferguson, Missouri Captain resigned his post? I was always taught that for a captain to go out, he or she must go down with their boat.
In time where boredom lays around with dynamite by the loads, tomorrow remind me of the basorexia I've had since we met not long ago.
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 2:39 AM UTC
Ironic wardrobe.
He only drinks PBR.
The complete hipster.
Sep 12, 2013
Sep 12, 2013 at 5:19 PM UTC
I wonder if they're happy.
They sure do seem so.
They're always talking about stealing their daddy's Jaguars and having beer blasts and getting in to fights and being bros and getting tan and buying new swimsuits and getting a call from different modeling agencies and crashing cars and smoking cigarillos and drinking fancy wine and going to their beach house and deciding between Harvard and Yale or Porsche and Mustang and did we win the football game and making new friends and oh my God Stacy actually said that and dude, I totally ****** her and my math teacher is such a ***** and my parents are putting me into boarding school and check out my new Jordans and did you watch the sunset last night?
I don't know if they're having fun, but it sure seems like it.
*I wonder if they're having fun. It sure seems like it.
They're always talking about hitch hiking to the next city over and going to shows and drinking PBR and sneaking out at night and yeah dude, that party was sick and my tumblr is so famous right now and check out my new denim jacket and smoking **** and getting in to fights and lifting cigarettes from stores and Austin and Katie slept together and Kyle broke edge and I'm still working at McDonalds and yeah I'm still driving my '93 Ford Ranger and smoking hookah and watching Mean Girls and yeah I love the ocean and check out my new Kicks and did you watch the sunset last night?
I don't know if they're having fun, but it sure seems like it.*
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 10:22 PM UTC
Pbr,
A Richmond hipster
Hip checking sobriety
And being hip in a social rivalry
Alcoholic tides to me
Nothing I can hide from me
****** American beer
Nothing but
Loathing and fear
Directed towards self
A reflection on the shelf
Left alone
With nobody else
Sinking
And sinking
And sinking
Mar 31, 2013
Mar 31, 2013 at 12:02 AM UTC
dinner Greenport-side, watching the shuffling ferries do
their sworn duty, a back ‘n forth wearisome toll,
while we sip a rose and a PBR, respectively and with respect
no enthusiasm afterward for anything but an early off to bed,
and slip into pj’s asap
me in my knackered wholly Hanes fundie knickers,
no thinking required
but she
retires, re-attires in a summery combo,
a gray sweat t-shirt and green and white
plaid pj pants
which she is unawares are my favorites
cause they lop off fifty years,
a teenage woman re-incarnate recreated
cause her figure now womanly full,
better than then
morning awake l, a disturbance of the peace,
recall a snuggling a wake up hug,
and her bottoms conspicuously
gone missing
over break fast I inquire
over yogurt and berries and a
smoked mozzarella omelette,
what happened to those plaid bottoms?
assuming I was innocent of any transgressions
as best I could recall
with a sheepish childlike grin,
that made look like she was twenty again,
to match the now yoga toned body,
she confesses:
forgot to tie the bowstrings
and they slipped down to my ankles
blessed and cursed I thought!
too much of a gentleman to take advantage,
AND my situational awareness was slipping badly,
but when a poem comes across,
ready and pre-writ,
I’m still young enough to grab aholt of it
and never let go
6/23/18
Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 2:42 PM UTC
Traipsing through alleys,
Awash in an alcoholic glow,
We play Frogger,
Headed to our usual spot.
PBR's and Mai Tai's disguised as Powerade,
The night elapses
In a haze
Of elaborate bottle passes.
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 2:08 AM UTC
Young and old people sipping beer, with hands in pockets and heads nodding to the rock music, standing in a crescent around the stage.
Some 30 year-old guy in a cut-off is on stage playing a bright red guitar which is shining silver. He finishes his set.
I'm sitting here alone and nobody seems to mind. Actually a couple of people have smiled and said hello.
One of the drunker guys sitting at the bar yells "Encore" first and then the rest of the room starts echoing him. Encore. I even let out a few "Woos!"
This man probably trades his cutoff for a collar during his day job. But we liked listening to him. He take a long drink of his PBR.
Then, he starts playing his bright red guitar again. The rest of the room is cast in red lighting with blue-christmas tree lights dangling around the room.
The bar itself looks like we are on the inside of the hull of a ship.
Woody, damp, safe. Decorated by a collector of whisky bottles and olden times posters.
I'm in a booth and to my right is the act which just ended and to my left, books. "Can I buy you a book," I ask a beautiful woman at the bar motioning to the books with a smooth wink.
Just kidding, maybe next time. But as the act ends I see a drunken, happy, young man with a girl who looked like she was his girlfriend.
In his drunken courage he attempts to take her hand and bring her to the dance floor, now empty. He pulls a rare for college, Charlie Brown dancing, sort of moveset and she is laughing. It's still red blue and dim but she's probably blushing.
He keeps dancing by her till she stands up and dances near him, both of them laughing and enjoying and somehow dancing to the rock music that is playing.
He keeps motioning his finger for her to "come here" as he backs in the center of the dance floor, until eventually she follows.
For one song, the two dance by-themselves to this music, in the center of the dance floor and lights, bobbing in and out, and just jamming.
Jun 2, 2014
Jun 2, 2014 at 3:45 AM UTC
To sit so happily slouched
around a burning skeleton
of PBR party packs
and revel in the cremation
of our troubles
To properly inter them
wreathed in white sage
and murmur melodies
until they seep into the dirt
To nourish.
Jun 14, 2013
Jun 14, 2013 at 5:19 PM UTC
Swift punt to the soda pop tin
Littering the low lit path before me
Flash back to kick the can
And hopscotch jumping rope
To wittled cans from which to smoke
And losing family to knotted rope
Years pile on tense shoulders
Bearing zirconium smiling teeth
Finding diamonds in my grief
But always pacing forward
To flash back on bronze days
Glowing like bonfire embers
Finishing the last of the thirty rack
Never realizing I was drowning
Just sad and aloof and smiling
Smoking bad **** from a PBR can
Jun 2, 2021
Jun 2, 2021 at 2:35 AM UTC
I saw this War Veteran on his porch yelling at this Hipster Kid who was tethered to his fence across the generational gapped front lawn, yelling back at him. And I mean, they got into it.
The kid wasn't doing anything really, just taking alternate swigs of foamy PBR and flat Red Bull and chucking the cans into the vet's unkempt garden, retorting Dylan lyrics and sentiments of Kerouac like the post-modern beatnik he was.
I couldn't make out what the Old Vet was saying. His voice was missing from probably smoking too many Benson & Hedges Black down in the trenches. I know he must have been saying something uncalled for, though, to get this Kid so riled up like that.
I'm not sure what they were arguing about since I awoke right in the middle of this altercation, hanging upside down on a bench in the park across the street. I suppose I'll just wait until the Vet goes back inside so I can go over and release the Kid and ask him what that was all about.
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 9:31 AM UTC
I knew who you were the right one when you stepped into my life
you had your thick rimmed, non prescription glasses
that were way too big for your face and you secretly knew it
your apparel consisted of Urban outfitters,
your grandmother’s closet or
“cute things you found on amazon”
and the scarf in the middle of august means one thing,
you're a hipster!
You stand out like fireworks on the 3rd of July
No not because you are one of a kind,
It's just that you were 15 minutes late to my History class,
you don't follow time because you go to places when the “vibe is right”
you pulled out your Mac Book Air out of your satchel and you waved at me.
Okay now you are one of a kind
After class We started talking about the music we listen to.
and we listen to the same music
Which is the equivalent of finding the holy grail in your studio apartment in downtown Portland
where the air taste like that Caramel Macchiato that you had this morning.
We talked more out of class
We talked about Michael Cera movies,
and how anything with a filter looks better on instagram
and how she writes poetry with her vintage typewriter,
and the undeniable fact that you will never be proud of what you are.
H
I
P
S
T
E
R
One day after class, I was walking you to you bicycle
(you don't use a car because you like going on your own path)
and I found the courage to ask you out on a date,
you sat there puzzled for a while and you said yes.
Later that night, I rode in my bicycle to your apartment as you hopped on your bike and we rode to a drive in theater, drank PBR, and loved every second of that moment.
When we stopped at your house
I held your hips and said, “lets fall in hipster love like Matt and Kim, I wanna see your Bright Eyes peer into the Pixels of our lives . I want you to see that
maybe a little Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver will make our lives a little Clearer
You bring the Modest Mouse out of me as it crawls through my wall of lies
You make me wanna jump in a Passion Pit with The Nationals,”
and then I hugged you like a Grizzly Bear
You kissed me as it gave me wings to fly off to the back of my mind
and that honey is what makes you one of a kind.
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 8:44 PM UTC
We both got blisters on that night
Same toe, but different sides
In retrospect the shield powered down
(and how could I?)
Eagerness worn around golden crowns
(and then)
Then I thought I saw your chest light
behind your full chin height PBR
More brightly than Naito streetlights
could illuminate waterfront park
where we sat
Exciting, isn't it?
Exciting, like nothing else, to be wrong
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 8:36 PM UTC
My momma always warned me
She’d say
“Baby doll liquor runs through our veins”
I was making a family tree for health class last week and a third of the people hanging from the branches had beer bottles clinking next to them.
My grandfather’s favorite hobby was downing a bottle of jack and carrying out the cliché tradition of beating his wife and kids
Just like his father did.
My dad learned from this vowing never to forget what alcohol did too his family
My uncle he drinks just trying to forget.
My mother has a similar background
She remembers riding into town with my grandma to buy her granddaddy’s medicine
It was only until she was older she realized the pharmacy was an ABC
The “medicine” cheap whiskey
As the elixir slid down my great grandfathers throat it trickled into the workings of our tree
Infecting its core
Yeah my parents would always warn me
Against the dangers of alcohol
Don’t drink the punch at parties
Don’t be like your uncles
Don’t end up like your aunts
But what they failed to tell me was depression runs through our veins too
They taught me how to ward off being a drunkard
But never told me to stay away from the dark spaces in my mind
They never taught me what to do about the numbness
And in my house people are more ashamed
Of going to therapy than alcoholics anonymous.
How do you protect yourself from something already inside you?
You see those relatives of mine
They were doctors
Preforming at home blood transfusions
Replacing the bad blood with good beer
The dark thoughts with white wine
Until the depression swimming through them was too drunk to see straight
We nurture our family tree with PBR and Prozac
Helping the roots twist and grow so they can grasp for the younger generation dangling from the lower limbs and I mean
Hey we all need something to make the feelings go away
And they say alcohol’s not the answer
But it sure as hell makes you forget the question
We all need something to forget the questions
And Like my kin I picked my poison
Because I felt it
The liquor in my veins I felt it
getting warmer
Hotter
Hot
This liquid in my veins it gets too hot.
I’m slitting my wrist to poor myself another shot
It’s not what it looks like momma
I just wanna feel that buzz and my blood is all I got
I picked my poison
I’m like my uncles
A crude copy of my aunts
I’m an addict
Just not an alcoholic
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 9:39 PM UTC
when it becomes more about
how ****** up can we get
how far away from sober can we fall or rise
when the see saw always has the neighborhood fat kid sitting at the other end
then it might be time to evaluate your life
but,
then again,
there's still a half case of PBR in the fridge
and marijuana's hiding behind every single corner
exciting until it gets too boring
then you can always search for that gateway they prattled on about so much in health class
walking down a straight edge only leaves you with ****** feet
and you need those suckers for running,
right?
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 3:34 PM UTC
yeah we're getting drunk at four in the afternoon
we don't have anywhere to drive to.
we have no class
no responsibility
my city's filthy
I live in the art district
nobody else anywhere else in the world can say that
Richmond knows how to lay it down
how to make the children feel invincible
how to make the women feel like super models
and the men like long lost kings
don't like my poems?
that's fine
we flow to a different drum beat
yeah we are a bunch of
PBR swilling hipsters in our non corrective lenses
but we know how humanity dances back and forth
like the flickering of candle light
and I've never felt out of place here
only just as weird as everybody else
we are pathological liars and sociopaths
our apathy is only matched by our endless empathy
My Mum thinks I am a hell of a writer
endless support
but the anonymity never ends
a scroll from God to lead us to death
and the transvestites are polite enough
*boy you smell ****
they blurt out as I walk past in a cloud of old spice
the art school chicks make me feel validated
when I find myself sneaking out of their houses in the morning's yawn
come to Richmond if you want a good time
if you're fake you'll make it
but if you're bitter and jaded
you might pass out of interest
like cartoons to a 15 year old
I could talk **** on this city all night
but truth be told
I love what I hate
and truth withheld
don't tell my English friends
that my heart beats
solely for that
RVA-lution
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 7:55 PM UTC
1800
Georgie boy
busch
bud
coors
PBR
they slide down the relaxed throat
of an unrelaxed youth
and these red squiggly lines mark my poems
as if to say
hey,
Harry buddy,
you realize that you make no god **** sense,
right?
and who decides what is and what isn't
nonsensical
All I know is that these crazy ******* yankees
are making me lose my grip on the English stiff upper lip reality
My tenth grade history teacher/JV soccer coach
liked to make songs up about me
There's only one Harry Baxter
true.
only not
there are many of us
the good Harry
The bad Harry
Ugly Harry
and swagger Harry
Violent Harry
and introspective Harry
Romantic and evil
caring and selfish
I get drunk to forget everything
life
money
cares
desires
needs
duty
I write about ten ************* poems a day
not because I'm prolific
or inspired
not because I'm deep
or smart
or romantic
I write because it stems the tide of suicidal thoughts
which barrage my inactive mind
like cannon *****
and I've got great ***** of fire
rushing the pace of every word I spit
but I'm afraid of my own genetic cowardice
From grandfather to father to son
it runs through my veins like people and bulls
I'm drunk tonight
I'll be drunk tomorrow
and what the hell do you care?
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 8:16 PM UTC
2 Mexican coffees
A shot of makers mark
A PBR,
It was a **** night.
Moving to New Orleans
Has saved my life.
there is always bad
And sometimes there's good,
It hits you like a salty wave.
Maybe I drink to much anyways-
Making my rent day to day,
At least I'm living
My way.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 3:13 AM UTC
Do you wanna be friends with me
do you wanna be friends
with a punk like me
My iron cross tattoo and a
middle school concept of
anarchy
we can
go to shows and smoke Newports
bring down the establishment with
empty cans of PBR and spraypaint
So you wanna be friends with me
So you wanna be friends
With a wretch like me
My dog eared copy of Slaughterhouse-5
And my irrational distaste for
Humanity
We can
Smoke *** in your backyard and
Scream about ****** babies
While burning bible pages
As if we were making a statement about the inherent theocracy plaguing
Our government
Do you wanna be friends with me
Do you wanna be ****** like me
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 7:28 PM UTC
Lost out in the summer rain
Lost in a haze of summer gazes
All the fences razed to the ground
Inescapable sounds
Of oh isn't he smart
He will go places
Yeah but not your places
Places full of plastic faces
Hiding behind glass window display cases
Going to the moon
The scent of mediocre doom
Filling the room
Like whiskey *****
Fined for misconduct
Of a conduit into a cliche artist
Talking like tongues twisted off of
Mouth numbing shots of grey goose and jäger
Talking like slick Rick spitters
Who don't long for quick fillers
Of life experiences poured in a pitcher
And I'm talking ********
Pbr bellied fool ****
But rest assured
My inhibitions cured
I talk true ****
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 9:02 PM UTC
please Lord this boy need's Jesus
**** that
tell God he needs to find a shrink
no a priest
no an altar boy getting ****** by the father
woops that one slipped out
like they slipped the boundaries of good taste and human decency
I'm a nightmare for the nice folksy people
I take their money
put in the church's biggest mausoleum
and burn it to the ground
take the daughters and sons
to the state border and set them free with a 24 cent phone call
inhale the night until we're all exhaled
pack my heater close to my business
walking with nerves taut
the breath breathed out by every man before the electrical storm
drinking fire in purgatory alley
until the gut glows hello
I slug back another PBR and let the night current take me
it's all alright
tonight we howl at the moon until it picks up the ****** phone
and we domesticate the domesticated in the art of the primordial
take a life tonight
yours his hers
it doesn't matter
we're all sprinting to the after life
and digging through earth is easier than ascending from earth on clipped angel wings
keep on slitting your wrists
and I'll keep on drinking your blood
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 9:40 PM UTC