|
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Grocery list: to live & die & get by
By J. Reich
QuailBellMagazine.com 
1, Crucify me & nail me
to the wide pine floors 2, The pumpkin pine 3, Stolen pies in sill 4, Painkill me plainclothes junkie stealing up fire escape 5, Soon to become son found dead in alley, insane brother humiliated hollering at sister beneath rainy Sunday matinee 6, Trying to make a name! Trying to make a name! Just trying! 7, Beautiful bully tomboys starting up in schoolyard charming vampire bankers from the subway at dusk 8, The leftover aroma of roasted chestnuts & hot pretzels from the houndstooth Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan 9, Paint me by numbers that only you are capable only in russet & crabapple & forest-green & violet 10, Whip me & me be both protagonist & hero of your silent stag ragtime film like one of those used & abused old time slapstick vaudevillians 11, Only scent at the concessioners being rubber cement & oranges & formaldehyde & pork- fried rice & blintzes & stuffed cabbage 12, Up & coming coming-uppers literally being chased down 2nd Avenue waving unpaid checks by hollering maître d’ & waiters 13. Rich kids getting a kick out of it nodding out on heroin 14, Light a cigar, light a candle & clamp it to my skull like one of those long poles you bolt & slant down from doorknob to floor to keep out the criminals whose breath smells of diesel & pig knuckles in the gaslit cobblestone of Orchard & Ludlow 15, With a view of the backyard & cows who have escaped once more along with crawling delinquent super heroes over the stone wall 16, I shall make my way through the seasons & chimneys & crosses & shore, tap dancing till eternity, till hell freezes over, slide, shuffle, slide & hopefully, miraculously 17, Melancholy, be scene no more 18, Hobos making s'mores 19, Weather be wind screaming 20, Shutters slamming in storm 21, Monkey bread & prayers caught between the law & The Lord 22, Long lost rainy days exploring labyrinth catacombs of second hand holy & haunted subterranean Magazine St. stores madmen & fallen confederate southern gentlemen antique wives’ pristine precious treasures 23, That antique woman who was always there for you & had been left abandoned at the alter now perverse, perverted, romantic & explosive 24, Long lost contemplations along The Mississippi River only thing you learned, only thing college was good for 25, The madwomen like ghosts, ghosts like folklore 26, Peddling your bicycle home, excruciatingly alone when the lonely night settled in, now clearly knowing you know no one at all, forgotten by the world, when the moon starts to glow, seeing it all through the keyhole of the peephole of mausoleums murdered & resurrected by the constant vicious deep dense thick poboy aroma of sweet magnolia, wafting, penetrating your nostrils, your being, your bones, your soul 27, Everything turning to spirits, so surreal & slow only knowing this after feeling like you’ve lost it all & seen it all & learn & love & sincerely know it all 28, Surviving off cornflakes & bananas & staticy Ol’ Satchmo barely hanging on, striking a match to light the gas to the fire of the grill to the radiator, like an eternal beacon which kept your heart beating, the eternal prisoner, the damaged son survivor to guilt & anger & conflict & triangulation of not being able to live up to the wishes & expectations of a martyr of a savior who just merely saw you as an extension, knowing you’ll never ever really return home cause they’ll never ever really know (nor care to know) understand what you been through & will never ever possibly have a clue 29, Later on The Hothouse along The East River with a midnight view of Brooklyn in Winter meeting black girls from Yonkers leaving the cemetery nunnery to become alcoholic nurses 30, Me in the solitary confinement hospitality business with old madmen who used to be in the merchant marines named such things like “Pee-Wee,” slurring concierge, muttering to himself, who would literally like clockwork go mad every time just around midnight on the outskirts of The Bowery on the outskirts of sanity between Chinatown & Little Italy with such down-to-earth titles 31, Like St. Marks like The Pioneer Hotel 32, Lock me down within a porthole so’s I can look inwards, outward & in once more 33, I’ll raise a plastic goblet backwards filled with sangria to the floor to all the whores I’ve known who literally turned my life around 34, Stone me with your betrayals & I shall recycle & bicycle with a great big smile & have a blissful picnic with child- like fiancé & lovely wild black families along the shores of Cloisters on The Palisades of The Hudson in the prison of your jism of your phosphorescent, polluted metropolis 35, Aimless bridesmaids & angelic ballerinas turned to hookers 36, Nameless naked black girls turned to statistics, incarcerated by Lower East Side pigs, disgusted, not in the job description 37, Fold me up in your shadows & bullet-ridden soul & I shall crawl back into my nightmares & find out what it was all for 38, Gravediggers on strike 39, Time for tea & animal crackers 40, Sun streaming through like tuna fish & matzah.
#Unreal #Poetry #GroceryList #GettingBy
Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
CommentsComments are closed.
|
© Quail Bell Press & Productions, 2024. Founded by Christine Stoddard. Based in Brooklyn. Contact us.
