i.
discount buggers,
sitting too short in the saddle
to catch any light
but, far too tall
to be dead things,
since dead things
don’t sit tall in saddles
not quite full-fledged maniacs,
lacking in the forthright candor
of more honest lunatics
mockeries of invisible garbage
pieces you can’t quite sort
from all the other forgeries
ii.
the easiest lie to tell
is always the one
that was undisputed,
when you told it
to yourself
iii.
broken pieces
of education,
peppered liberally
over a plate of
wishful thinking
half-truths,
fractions of wisdom
chicken scratch cheat sheets
in secret breast pockets
decency spent
far too many wasted evenings
trying to shape a pile of vomit
into a snow angel
but, the toothpaste is already out of
the inner tube
besides, the inner tubes
are all useless now;
the tires were all stolen months ago
there is no sculpting
dour secular emptiness
into glorious, golden cathedrals
one does not simply turn
recidivistic destroyers
into genius inventor candy makers,
acrobatic violinist movie stars,
or unicorn blacksmith ballerinas
thespians of the eternal grift,
they have no thirst or pallet
for love stories,
only tragedy
and horror
it is exceedingly difficult
to shape small piles of
deformed turd nuggets
into the colossus
the thing is…
if you put a hat
over a turd…
no one sees a turd;
they just see a hat
and, god help
the poor bastard who
tries to put it on
sprinkle a big pile of rose petals
right over top of the whole thing,
and you won’t even smell it
but it’s still there
iv.
it’s really not important,
what I’m going on about
probably better if you just
take a nap
through the rest of this
v.
if the impressive would stop
trying to elevate the unimpressive
then, they’d be more impressive
if they’d stop trying to
raise the dead,
it would be very impressed, indeed
if the unimpressive
would stop trying to
decimate the impressive,
they’d already be half the way
towards making a
positive impression
but, none of this
is due to change
vi.
seven in the side pocket?
my ass
there are four in this room
who can make that shot,
and you ain’t one of ’em
like I said, it really doesn’t matter
what I am babbling about
go back to sleep
or better yet…
there’s a small slip of paper,
rolled up around a dull pencil;
it’s not a number two pencil,
but rather, one of those
no-name brands
it’s in the top right drawer
of that bureau over there
it’s held in place on the pencil
by a rubber band
it’s underneath a pile of
old letters and yellowing catalogs
go open the desk drawer,
remove the stacks of papers, and
pick up the pencil
remove the rubber band,
unroll the little slip of paper
from off of the pencil, and unfold it
what’s it say?
that’s right,
it says,
“Fuck you.”
no, that’s okay,
you can keep it;
it’s yours
take it with you,
and share it with
the rest of your kin,
all the other
black holes
the liars, fakers, pretenders,
predators, thieves, naggers,
reality-twisters, dream-stealers,
complainers and haters,
would-be conquerers
of insignificant kingdoms
fighting razor tooth fang nail claw
over the right to wear a crown
made out of rusty wire coat hangers
or, a tiara crafted from zip ties,
and tinsel from
last year’s Christmas tree
two-legged, toothless dogs,
gumming each other to death
over rotten meat
the unintelligent,
masquerading as geniuses
half-geniuses and quarter-geniuses,
unintelligently masquerading as…
well, who really cares?
the impolite, leaning
on the good manners
of those who are too kind
to tell you the hot, vibrant,
fundamental truth
which is,
that you are
fundamentally
without truth,
or heat, or vibrance
I, on the other hand,
have misplaced all of my politesse,
and have no qualms about
sharing these things with you
I don’t recall which drawer
I left my good manners in,
or what I wrapped around them
but, I can tell you,
with great certainty,
that I’ve had
more than my fill
of the full measure
of you
I can
tell you
what you
can go get
wrapped around
vii.
the steely, red-hot poker of murder
in your eyes
is only a compliment to me
I would be perturbed, ashamed,
if you approved of me
I have no love for your kind
the secret whisperers, rumor starters,
terminally restless luddites
who shun such newfangled,
diabolical technologies as
empathy and dedication
to things other than self
nonconsensual emotional sadists,
pullers of wings from houseflies,
slayers of fierce dragons, or rather
harmless dragonflies
you are all that is ugly
in a world that was already
teeming with ugliness
busybody breakers of
other people’s toys,
ensnarers of time,
ambuscaders,
ambushers of vitality
there isn’t a pencil
on the whole planet
that’s dull enough
to write your little
shit story
there aren’t enough
rubber bands, twist ties, handcuffs,
thumb cuffs, shoestrings, or nets
on Earth to bind you
there aren’t enough
iron chains, piano strings,
or Mardi Gras beads made out of
concertina razor wire
to wrap around your neck
and throttle you with
nor is there a steamer trunk
heavy enough and sturdy enough
to fit you into, weight it down
with all the barbells in the gym,
wrap the whole thing in chains, and
toss it off the backside of the ferry,
just like Houdini, except,
hopefully less skilled
at the art of escape
you, who have such a knack for
finding beautiful things,
and shattering them
or, at least, doing your damndest to try
you will find
no welcome here
as if you
thought any more
of yourself,
honestly
which of course,
you would
never be
viii.
news anchor
spin games
rewriting history
playing both
the victim
and the hero
convince us,
once again,
explain to us,
what a paragon of virtue
you are
I’ll wait.
you are the weeds,
choking out beautiful flowers,
because you envy them
but, you wouldn’t be happy
being a rose
not even if all the work
of being a rose
was done for you
the moment you actually
became a rose,
you would instantly
become jealous of the orchids
you’d swear that you were
being cheated
by all those selfish petunias
you’d be
stabbing marigolds in the back,
shanking them with
a bundle of thorns
you made in your
unlocked prison cell
stealing their soil and their sunlight,
telling all the dandelions,
honeysuckles, and carnations
what terrible, awful creatures
the petunias and orchids are
and, all the joy
of being a rose
would perish
somewhere in the dark,
shaded corner
of a dry bed of dust
where nothing
ever grows
go on,
be as angry
as you like
I tried to
warn you
I told you
to go take
a nap
©2024 Kevin Trent Boswell
Kevin Trent Boswell 