Close to me
Pick up the trash
Count all the little floaty things
I see coffee dripping
Parents dropping kids off
The race is on
So much poetry around coffee
So much trash not picked up
For weeks it blows
Sometimes longer
Set free from car windows
Escaped from cans
Stuck in fences
Bleaching in the sun
Might make it into a bird’s nest
Or lawn mower blade
A passerby’s thoughts
Eventually someone takes care
I’m reading a few for this tonight! 8pm Central Standard time.
8th Street Publishing Guild is proud to announce the release of Matt Roth’s new chapbook entitled “Dad”. Join us for an evening of poetry, music, drinks and more! An open mic will follow our featured readers. Be sure to pick up your very own copy of Dad at the reading!
8th Street Publishing Guild is Revolution Records’ in-house publisher of surreal & avant-garde poetics. To learn more, read what we’ve published, or find out how to submit, find us online or come meet us in person at the readings.
https://www.8thstreetpublishing.com/
Thank you for sharing with me
Your beautiful ballet in outer space
I fell in love with you at first sight
For a moment I thought you were a boy
It felt like it happened
Almost without thinking
Why did I do that
The shoes gave it away
Why do we need that
They were pink
From above clouds can look like
Skin under a microscope
The surface of another planet
Or the old standby cotton balls
The fabric of our lives
If I’m honest it was the hair that
First got my attention
The way it hung in your eyes
Like saying look at me
I can’t see you
Okay maybe it was the wheelchair too
I don’t know which came first
In this chicken or egg world
But I just wanted to thank
Thank you for the dance
Things were working
A stiffness
Prodding you in the back
Like an old boner
Attack it with a golf club
Tennis racket, garden hose
Work with professionals
People will spend a lot
To keep an ice cube
From melting in the sun
Open micing smartphones
Podcasts about poetry
Why bother being a star
When you can just look like one?
We sat with our own thoughts
And we wrote little things
On pieces of paper
That’s what we did
We ran wild in the streets
We put coins in slots
So inefficient
So disconnected
The noises told us
Take time today to
Remember dead heroes
And stoned ladies on stage
Take some more for dead heroines
The twice forgotten
Take twice as much time as that
And consider what a hero is to you
A trombone up my ass
A trombone up my ass
A little Philip Glass
And a trombone up my ass
Less attention to the speach speakers
The game gamers
The pay for prayers.
Converse with the dead.
Dead people make great listeners
You can learn a lot from a dead person.
Who painted these walls
Who put all these dents in the ball
Hunters and gatherers.
What is this stage for
It’s like
The audience forgot
How to be an audience
Sometimes in our attempts
To move boulders
We blow dust
In people’s eyes
Keeping the air clean and clear
Is all you need to see
The sculpture
Inside the enormous rock
In front of you
The light changes things
Three weeks is a long time
The rock changes
No connection to history
It’s just the wind
The midpoint
A scab on a knuckle
Word of the day
The rock changes
So unfimiliar with real love
It doesn’t move or try.
Maybe I am the first to notice
An astronaut of rocks
I see the dents, soften
They are like I was
I am like them.
The paper lives
We take it seriously
Or not
The sticks we sit on
In in waiting room
Wet leaves
Beneath our
Hospital beds
The art work drips
From the side of the staircase
Keep us from falling out
We decorate with rocks
And native grasses
The dog smells the day
From the back steps
The millions of coffee mugs
Not properly washed
When the work creates
Dirty dishes serve many purposes
When you showed your father
You could hold that snake
Without flinching.
When you heard them coming
Wrapping your finger around
The plastic trigger.
When you first glossed over.
Feeling the truth in blood
Learning to hold the leash.
The thrill of releasing the lie
About meat and making things happen.
Curled into a ball, in your bed
Anticipating unknowable lightening strikes,
Listening for the RAP TAP TAP of rain drops
The thunder shook your walls
Like the sides of a roller coaster.
That day in summer camp.
The tools and the protocol
The wood in your hand
The passing of the torch.
Not control,
Respect
For distant thunder,
The child
And the childhood’s end.
The leash follows your explorations
I keep my thumb on the button
I’ll bag your shit
For my neighbors
You feel free and safe
We limp along
Two bullets at the bar
Patriots under duress
Hollywood guilt
Outside the body
Boys find their purpose
Playing guns like guitars
Piece of wood
A Samari sword
At what age can I start judging?
To save a life
How big do I have to be?
How important
To me
Beef Jerky Clouds 