Three Poems by Jay Passer

 

Pretty Pinkie

I'm birthing a six-pack,

she's on her knees egging me on

with the ceiling dripping eggs

while in the kitchen

the band's

piled up like dogs,

snoring,

broke boots bad breath

emptied keg and

burn holes for butter pats.

we were done squatting in traps

though which city's the

question mark,

cursing through unplugged mikes at gas pumps

smashed-up cobwebbed skylights,

charred pop tarts

and a 5-hour straight line-drive.

for what? 15 bucktooth aliens moshing

while hotties come late for the

headliners.

resurrection,

resuscitation,

reincarnation,

all ecstatic feedback

with a chubby line of blow.

we name the baby after the pit bull,

quick call your biker uncle,

I know he tats on the side,

and even freshly inked

I could use a second.

I Wait for You

but the therapist is hooked up to a battery

there’s a demolition derby at the opera house

and I’m gradually going blind since I jerk to excess.

as the days flee past

it gets easier and easier to justify

blowing my face off

like Hemingway or Kurt Cobain

so when you finally call

it’ll already be old news.

I wait for you

like that dog across from the train station did

when the professor died;

that loyal pooch kept coming back

for like a decade

but the professor never arrived.

now there’s a statue instead of the dog

in some city where it’s snowing

somewhere in Japan.

I only know because a film was made about it

in our case I highly doubt a film will be made about it

maybe about the rechargeable therapist

or my face like spaghetti sauce

all over the wall.

This Shell Drifts from Fortune to Fealty

What happened to Harold

listing along the fence or Benjy

in a frothing fury of the mouth?

He lost several layers of skin

from the drag strip to the dunes,

semi-parched subsistence based

on lozenge-enamelled golf balls.

Hayward hills, scarlet ditzes

strip-club coupons irredeemable

from the discotheque to the ditch.

Mt Diablo through benzo scorchers,

buses farting amidst freak rainfall

posting bills indelibly on barbed wire.

Harold turns to Hedwig, then Hank,

blitzkrieg per diem, faux July 4th

Harry at the ready, sneaks behind

Monopoly-money enemy lines, decked

out, second hand thrift-store pinstripes

Exactly what they’re aiming for!

Pieces of Harry pepper the skyline

catapulted chunks of bone and meat,

Watch it, don’t step on that mouth,

perhaps Harry’s still trying to smile

although it could be involuntary

Jay Passer's poetry first appeared in 1988 alongside the work of William Burroughs and Wanda Coleman in Caliban magazine. He's been included in print anthologies and online publications worldwide and is the author of 14 collections. A lifetime plebeian, Passer has laboured as dishwasher, barista, soda jerk, pizza cook, housepainter, courier, warehouseman, bookseller and mortician's apprentice. Originally native of San Francisco, Passer currently resides in Venice, California.