Five Poems by Randy Barnes

 

The Gates of Heaven

 

Good god the snarls

keyed with scows and shining

toad lickers with horns to boot

remember those sack tuggers?

took the bait for slugfest

now it’s vacation vibe down on the farm

communal showers baby let freedom ring

how’s that endgame research working out?

ethnic space rays delousing the populace

piss drinkers anonymous roaming the sector

dumbest humans ever squeezed through a tube

with blown covers on display

making hay for judgment day.

 

 

Stabs On the Rise

 

Sidewalks aren’t safe

a length of blocks soil the depths

memory works dodging cracks

those pumps stuffed with rumours

a field of rust collectors

mistaken credibility and throat murmurs

too long spent in the boonies

leaving town swells the odds

name changers all the rage

there’s heaven in the stopgap

born thieves and mass anglers

give’em the slip your fury’s botched.

 

 

Travelin’ Dustbowl Blues

 

Shield sign talk with bandannas

turns out a joke too far

the Man knows his shit

no sense in nonsense

high plains investigator its ins and outs

in the flatlands it’s said mostly is

like riding with the king in front room chatter

listen close another diamond will form

kept swagger to himself the way it is

these meetings rare to embrace

hold that pose the audience in trance

a Slinger at the helm comprende?

so scoot the mutes out the door

there’s miles to consider

and the sky’s getting heavy

keep that distance in the crosshairs

a straight shot will steady the sight.

 

 

Disguise Meant to Mumble

 

Chance encounters dissed the act

found who wears the pants

balk talk with lambast

tune out bound for knocks

got the mind for what isn’t

peripheral side-step down pat

hysterics mined for confidence

consumed in a din a savage velocity

silence stumbles at the root

rumble that cage then plead the fifth.

 

 

Glandular Wreckage

 

They’ve digitized the spittle cocks

machined the deep to ratchet the rackets

elevated emotions to barren complexities

experimentations withheld for future approach

mass loathing patrols the slips

crush benders and organ fray

how they croon for crust flats

hard on laps with pall traps

give it a block and watch the tugs

incoming cycle those duds will bloom

lights primed for deliverance dumps

it’s smoke in the haunts dumbing the drub

we’re near the margins burning brine

contact cleared for drain flush

bottle that guff for lip fringe

pike bulge has bloodied the stumps.

 

 

Randy Barnes has published far and wide in magazines and anthologies nationally and internationally.  He has published three slim volumes of poems, now long out of print.  Was awarded Lifetime Historian/Beat Poet Laureate, Washington State, in 2020 by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, New Hartford, CT.