"saltines" poems
When Mars attacks
I'll be in Oregon
eating saltines
and everything bagels
washed down
with orange Tang
while you're probed
anally with a green stick
the size and shape
of a bottle of Bud
in downtown Tallahassee.
After the attack
I'll go fishing
in Crater Lake
and catch twelve
rainbow trout
or kokanee salmon
and fillet them
one by one
while you limp
and buy chairs
with extra pads
and change the gauze
at the base
of your ****
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 9:32 PM UTC
Loading the bowl and packing it tight
Take a rip off this chronic delight
Let your mind soar, weave and wander
Relax, hold it in just a bit longer
Let the spirit of the bud fill your lungs
Ghost it, ballpark, have a little fun
Feel your eyes droop low, streaked with red
When suddenly your stuck, you can't get out of bed
Your tummy starts to grumble, your mouth grows dry
You stumble towards the kitchen and eat an entire pie
You move towards cabinets laden with sweets
You eat the saltines, canned corn and canned beets
You devour all the candy, you inhale all the fruits
You head towards the fridge and receive some bad news
The milks gone sour, and there's nothing to drink
Your mouth is so dry and you can't even think
Water is flavorless and wine is too strong
Getting so desperate, take a swig off the ****
Ew, that's too gross, I'm sure you'll survive
But next time this happens, keep a soda near by
Oct 2, 2010
Oct 2, 2010 at 11:37 AM UTC
It’s been seven years and I still don’t think I’ve processed it
For most of my young life I had no mother
For most of my young life I had no father
There was only her, mother of my mother
A sharp woman with hands like sharpened scissors
Counsel and Care, the altar I was made to pray at
Her touch was soft unless it was hard, and hard unless it was soft
Like salt tossed over her shoulder,
Like warm potatoes in the sun
Like a bowl of cheerios before the bus comes
We prayed the rosary every morning
And I told her about my gods and myths
I told her about the rocks and crystals
And I cried about numbers
We prayed the rosary every morning, and I couldn’t bring myself to mind
We went to church on Sundays, and I sang as loud as I wanted
We picked out melons at the grocery store and ate them by the pool
It’s been seven years, and I miss her
And I will miss her
I’ll cry when I hear Que Sera Sera
I’ll eat saltines and still think to myself they aren’t that good
I’ll keep my rosary and sometimes I will pray
I will miss her
And I can only hope to be like her someday
And I hope that she is proud
Oct 22, 2018
Oct 22, 2018 at 3:05 PM UTC
One full bowl of chilli,
at least two dozen saltines,
one hot dog, and
two handfuls of chips later,
I vow not to eat tomorrow.
I had two small chicken tenders
and a bottle of carbonated orange juice at lunch,
and half an hour later
I was hunched over in a bathroom stall
and my mouth tasted of stomach acid and regret.
I ate once yesterday
and the same thing happened.
I know it's unhealthy,
I know it can **** me,
but all the same the only thing on my mind
is how much I regret eating so much.
I know it's unhealthy,
I know it can **** me,
but all the same
I find a strange sort of comfort
in knowing that I'm at least strong enough to control my appetite.
I know it's unhealthy,
I know it can **** me,
but all the same I can't get enough
of this self-hatred
spilling out of my mouth,
tinted with the taste of last hour's meal.
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 6:03 PM UTC
In the fluorescent mourning,
teary and bedded in the violence
of wandering violin -- seeking praise
and receiving a hospital bed,
I told my brother to paint the city,
the way in was in 2002.
The road kaleidoscope'd and fractured
all of Kerouac's high coups,
broken saltines and cold tomato soup,
in gown in feathered down--
the world sang couplets and through windows
I watched rain, and told my brother
to paint the city,
the way it was before my success and subsequent pain.
Mar 5, 2012
Mar 5, 2012 at 4:10 AM UTC
It ain't the pork, it ain't the beans
It ain't the mustard on saltines
It ain't the redneck social scenes
I love about the south
It ain't the ice cold sweet southern tea
It ain't the way that we say please
It ain't the way we lemon squeeze
I love about the south
It ain't the perfect slice of pecan pie
It ain't the wink in the bullfrog's eyes
It ain't the fireflies that light the night
I love about the south
It ain't the way we say yes ma'am
When you visit Alabam
It ain't the attitude of yes we can
I love about the south
It ain't the way that we say ya'll
With the syrupy sweet southern draw
No it ain't none of that at all
I love about the south
It's the crisp clear starry nights
Through the shifting shadows of the loblolly pine
As I stand here with your hand in mine
I love about the south
Just the fact that you are here
And that I can hold you near
As I hear you call me dear
I love about the south
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 7:37 AM UTC
The waitress said she didn't have any paper
As she took orders and names and personalities
And wandered
Tables ands kitchens and free bread
54 wants less water
Tom needs more water
Vinegar allergies and detailed taste
Unsalted saltines are a fountain of youth
As she takes my name and phone
And never calls again
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 1:02 AM UTC
i became the jumpin' jack flash in november '77.
there was slush in new york city and the bums at the piers
still burned trash in metal barrels you could see from over on coney island even.
just like kerouac said.
in the daytime foolish kids picked weeds in central park
and called them flowers. they got laid by stringing charming words together as they gave them
to the thousand daughters of manhattan's old monied men,
the wall street hacks hanging from the teats of the
great & frenzied cash cow of capitalist interest. the milk
came slow that winter.
one week, early december when the slush gave way to furtive snowfalls
i took a bus to patterson, NJ
for a few days, drank a lot of awful coffee writing obscenities in my journal but speaking
them aloud in the restaurants and bars and so
was deemed just like everybody else in patterson, NJ.
drunk & high, helicopter tours, stuffed with bread and half-truths.
and when shortly my irish luck ran out i raced back to the big smoke
in a drop-top mercedes driven by a man whose thick accent i couldn't quite place.
whose only serious question was whether i knew anyone
who had good coke.
in the city it rained for three weeks straight and
david byrne, in some bowery apartment wrote a song called 'flood'
which was never released on any talking head's album
but lingered in his brain as a reminder of the three weeks
he spent cooped up, eating saltines and dancing to the rhythms of the thunder and rain outside.
totally alone with his mind & a bass guitar. tina weymouth, naturally, was furious.
the bass was the last thing she had left in a band she half-started. and david had stolen even that.
but that was tina weymouth, that was new york.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 9:33 PM UTC
Storm clouds raged across the sky and the silver sea boiled in the wind.
The great green fin of La Isla de Tiburon cut the water,
Mysterious, so painfully close, yet dangerously distant.
Monsters swam the gap and past waist deep the ocean had a lethal tug.
All morning we (father, big brother, little sister, and me) hunted in the sand for clams and later boiled them in a sardine can.
Dad ran along the shoreline and into the waves wearing yellow trunks, hunting with a sharpened stick.
Dad, the Wildman —hairy and shirtless—ran for our entertainment into the surf and whooped when a skate flapped pitifully at the end of his spear.
My brother kicked a trio of ***** fishermen's gifts, kept them from scuttling back into sea, and leaped over them for fun.
Sardines on saltines tided us over as the main course—crab, clam and skate—cooked on burning drift wood.
We children watched in drooling anticipation as a claw, wreathed in flame rose in agonized supplication
then collapsed back into embers to cook. Froth bubbled out alien mouths and black stalk eyes.
Roasted alive seems an awful fate, but, oh, how delicious the meat!
Later, by lantern light my sister read her book over the protests of a gathering wind that scratched at our tent all night.
The sand spat out the tent stakes, but the poles held firm and our weight held our shelter down.
Never before and never again
I live here in my dreams.
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 12:11 AM UTC
tweet my injustice
Let's all us combustus
and fritter away french fries
from the local till us nuts
Freakin' Friday
Meek and Nigh may
take away the saltines from the
mouths of youths
and put a large bass in my
kissing booth
I am Xavier
I am Charles
I once supposited a pack of
Marlboro's
Shamus mc **** Batman
the 'copter's on down furrows
Sep 13, 2014
Sep 13, 2014 at 12:30 PM UTC
Now I'm a *******
From Scott's Bay
Where inbreeding took its toll
My mother and her mother before her
They were an exception not the rule
Or was it the other way around.
The only thing that saved me was my father
God rest this soul.
He was imported from Boston while a babe in arms
Later to met with the love of his life my mother
God rest her soul.
I guess you could compare us
With the hill billies from the hills of Virginia
Complete with some banjo playing
Only here in the Bay someone's
Always playing the bagpipes
You know the difference between the bagpipes and an onion
Nobody cries when you chop up the bagpipes
And as for crackers like Hank Williams the third
We crackers prefer to be called Saltines.
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 11:03 PM UTC
Last night, all the teeth fell out of my head.
You said it was a common dream,
but I wore away my gums with the bristles all the same,
and swallowed the mouthwash just to make sure
my insides were clean enough.
But then again,
perhaps my organs are not the correct organs
and the mouthwash is now dissolving the walls of
my simulacrum stomach.
Plasma will drip from my gaping, toothless maw,
the color of pea soup.
Grandma hated pea soup.
She said it was too opaque to see
the glass shards at the bottom of your spoon.
They would slice up your tongue
and you wouldn’t be able to call 911.
My tongue feels too big, overflowing onto my molars.
I chew, scraping off the taste buds,
whittling down the swollen muscle,
so I don’t swallow it in the witching hour:
your sleeping ears deaf to my wet choking.
I am eating saltines without soup when you come home,
in the puddle of mouthwash and blood my stomach spit back.
Your mouth runs over with **** your own teeth like rows of tic tacs.
I worry they’ll fall out soon, white and small against the linoleum.
Aug 21, 2015
Aug 21, 2015 at 11:18 PM UTC
When you wake up in the morning
And there's a note on your mug
"I didn't want to wake you"
"I left your favorite donuts on the table"
"When you sleep you make little sobbing sounds"
(And I think that's cute) is implied
To no longer be your own
To be stealing his deodorant
Because you miss his smell at work
And kitchen smells are not musician smells
And guitar strings are not
Your body
But they might as well be
Because you feel
Every
Tiny
Note
He plays
You would gladly do his laundry
For another song to fall asleep too
Many ways he kisses you
Too many places to count the stars
Too many phantom vibrations
And you think your phone is ringing
Because he just wants to talk about your day
You lose it for a minute
But it's nothing
It's the wind blowing
It's just missing someone
And you're terrified you've forgotten
The shadows his nose casts and
The dilations of his eyes
And the shapes of his words
As they meet your ears
But you look up at the moon
How it waxes
It wanes
Your love goes through phases
That bring in the tides
And wash lost shark's teeth out to sea
Your love changes daily
Loving him is often scary
You are perpetually quaking
Remembering how quickly
Sweet things dissolve in the rain
Sugar wastes enamel
Like time wastes muscle
You could fit a camel through the eye of a needle
Easier than you can handle this
Than you can wrap your head around
Caliente
Having no control
Because you cut the reins
You wanted it that way
And you forgot that fear
Taste like red wine and stale saltines
And being out of ice cream
You wanted it that way
You wanted a love story
You wanted to know that there's no such thing as control anyways
No such thing as
An autonomous heart
And you are ******
Because you could draw the shadows his nose casts
The squeeze of his ***
The way his eyes fluoresce at the sight of you
From memory
You are ****** because he is all you can think about
Past, present, future
I mean, you are seriously ******
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 10:23 PM UTC
i killed a spider
a few hours ago.
its body is still on
the wall next to where
i sleep.
all day was dark,
lying in bed
like a corpse.
gastroenteritis;
the stomach flu.
revival and rounds,
the kitchen, saltines.
"those items that are
no longer useful must
be exhumed."
refrigerator grave
cannot help but
remind me of my
sickness and how
you could have rephrased.
sometimes i wish
i could understand
you better than i do.
but then i realize it's
what makes our relationship.
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 10:56 PM UTC
Light bulbs were smashed in their sockets as she lost her mind.
She found a way to release the pain,
tearing the sofa cushions dusted with crushed saltines.
The sets of initials carved into the coffee table,
were the only thing left to remind her of the love she once lost.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 11:01 PM UTC
Old men drinking ***** on Monday afternoons ...
Dragging on Camels , warming calloused hands by
the burn barrel ...
Southern rail cars pass them by , their stories are another place in another
time ...
Cashing welfare checks for potted meat and saltines , Wild Turkey
and Goody powders ...
Crossing the railroad bridge bound for home on a frigid , blustery Georgia evening ..
Feb 9, 2016
Feb 9, 2016 at 4:05 PM UTC
Driving home from the airport
from High Ridge Road we peered at downtown.
I told our visitor
this is the view tourists like
looking at the city from afar
or driving past its monuments.
But if you really want to see the city
you have to smell the streets the morning after
or visit Aunt Stella in her trailer.
That night we did just that
laughing with the folks
sitting on her old stuffed couch
and on rickety folding chairs
she’d fetched from the bedroom closet.
We listened to Fred
leaning over his old guitar
playing it as if it were a woman.
His voice was gravel
but when he sang falsetto
I could see him in his mother’s arms.
Stella quietly left for the kitchen
and brought back beers
and saltines and sharp cheddar cheese,
Fred still crooning softly.
We were completely mesmerized by him
and his humble country charm.
As I sat there with our visitor
I was again a boy at home with Mama
and Daddy who’d just got in from the plant
in his khaki pants and shirt
smudges of oil on his sleeves
smelling of the day’s sweat.
Dec 29, 2022
Dec 29, 2022 at 12:53 PM UTC
Him
written July 8th, 2021
This is painful stuff, for me to post. I need to get this out of my "In Process Notebook" and into the "Finished Notebook." For me part of ptsd is avoiding anything about the trauma. I don't even want to call him my father, but that is who this is about. There are not graphic details of trauma in this writing, but there is some graphic language. I would avoid it if words can trigger you. Please feel free to skip this one and move on to something else.
-----------------
The other day, I stood in the kitchen, and had velveeta on saltines, a snack indelibly associated with, him, like the big hershey bars with almonds, that he kept in the cupboard over his junk drawer filled with screws and nails, with the shoe polish for our Sunday shoes kept below.
I can smell the shoe polish, unexpectedly real, that drawer and the shoe polish, and my soul recoils, instinct to flee as far away as I can get. There are memories, of him, that I have practiced remembering, until I don't flinch, at the thought of him, in my home - in my mind - in me still.
This isn't one of them. This one comes crashing through me, like a tidal wave, the love and the hurt. If it was just one, love -or- hurt, it would be bearable, perhaps, but that is not what this is, one or the other.
Love and hurt, together, shatter me, over and over, and I am broken glass, on that kitchen floor, all over again. I resolve, to practice this memory, practice him, until I can walk over the glass of these memories, keeping the smile on my face, and not want to flee.
Dec 2, 2021
Dec 2, 2021 at 9:10 AM UTC