The Pre-Dawn Wreck

Just had this published in The Crank. See here: https://www.thecrankmag.com/issue-12

The Pre-Dawn Wreck

Palm trees twisting in their dark bodies,
sky lit up in blue, amber, broken glass
on wet asphalt. And there it is: a crushed
Dodge Ram, a landscaper pacing nervously
in soft twilight. On the other side
of the street, there is a Subaru with shattered
windshield and bashed-in quarter panel.
Lying in the dewy grass beside it, there is a woman.
She is on her back. She is gaping at the clouds
and face of the stranger floating over her.
He says something.
She doesn’t respond. Maybe she is dazed
and can’t process the words.
Maybe she thinks
she’s still home in bed and dreaming.
Maybe she is truly as comfortable as she looks,
or dead. I pull forward a little, try to get a closer look.
But then the red light
turns into a wet splotch of green against
a dim blue sky. Even the traffic lights
are beautiful at this hour.

the poets

the poets

there he goes
yet another self-assured
slam poet shouting his tepid
lines into an indifferent
universe and there’s another reeking
of sanity poet
a reading cow poet
a poet cultivating wounds out of lemon
coconut cake and here comes the angry
republican poet toting his bible and his government
check and his loaded .38
and there goes sylvia plath’s heir minus
the talent and orchestral despair
and what about the word vomit poets
passing off locust-shells as though they were
the henckel von donnersmark tiara
and what about the gossipy grabassers
humping along in their herds or the poet
of soft-soaping self-conceit
writing cutesy gated community
verse about his precocious
children and let’s not forget
that unemployable trustafarian
poet waving his mfa nor the one marketing
her bloated ego
even as she posts obsessively
quotes from the famous
dead does she bask in the glow
as though she herself said it
and there goes the hyper-political
blowhard
poet dragging his mighty soapbox
like a galley
slave’s last bullet and though
no one even notices
it doesn’t make him puff his chest
any less and what about the rust
belt poets with grit under their nails
and shit
for brains and what about the rest
the others those 16 zoom poets
trapped in a grid and blabbing
and blabbing and blabbing over each other
the poets.

my father’s hands

my father’s hands
there is nothing delicate
nothing of the luna moth
or geisha
in a japanese tea ceremony
about my father’s poor
hands

they are large and unruly hands
and I can see them
sometimes casting shadows
on my bedroom walls at night

my father’s hands
with their thick and twisted
octogenarian
fingers often panic
when trying to answer
his smartphone hammering the screen
swiping it poking it jabbing it
to no avail
the caller has hung up

my father’s hands
seem to be disconnected
from the rest
of him and are no more
of the luna moth
when opening cans or closing
cabinet
doors than they are handing pots
and pans or washing
themselves

anyway
I once had this dream
that my father’s hands
were evolving in reverse
growing knotted coarse-haired
and finally powerful
enough to crush
a honeydew melon
in one squeeze
a feat for even
a neanderthal

Passport

I was 38 when I acquired a passport and left the States for the first time. That was fifteen years ago and since then I have become a permanent resident in Germany, traveled to Italy Poland Denmark Hungary Sweden Spain France Netherlands England Ireland Czech Republic Austria and Portugal. Some of those countries I have visited multiple times. I have also worked as a film extra a landscaper a renter of construction equipment a maintenance man a forklift driver published a couple books taught myself how to draw and paint and had a child with one British woman and got married to another. My son is now eleven and fluent in German and English. Sometimes when I hear him speaking with his bilingual friend, both switching seamlessly between the two languages, I am happy for them and envious too. When I speak German it’s like I’m moving dumbbells around in my mouth and burning humiliation often occurs. Still, I manage to get by with my skills and never complain that – despite all my traveling – I have been living at the poverty line for the past 10 years. The main thing is that the people closest to me are happy or at least content and I think they are. As for me, I am happy in moments. That’s all. But I think those moments are more frequent than they would’ve been had I stayed in my hometown doing the safe and practical and convenient thing rather than waging the bank on the prospect that kimono dragons would one day don capes and lipstick and roller-skates and fly backwards in the clouds. More to living there is not.

 

‘D’

Just had this poem published in Punk Noir, for their Good Death theme.

‘D’ — a Good Death Poem by M.P. Powers

‘D’                              

my grandmother
kept her 1924
high school yearbook
handy
and whenever
one of her classmates would die
she would take out a black pen
and write a capital ‘D’
on the top of their b & w photo.

my grandmother lived to be eighty-nine
so in the end almost all her classmates
had earned
their ‘D’
my grandmother never told me
about these people
and wasn’t one to write down her thoughts
so I have no idea how any of these ‘Ds’
affected her, but if it were me

I think I would get a strange feeling of power
and satisfaction
every time I marked a new one down
especially if some pattern were forming
or a column had been
knocked down. you see the problem
with school shooters is they just don’t have
enough patience.

The Debt Collectors

I posted this here recently but with the beginning of the story hacked off. This is the version that was just published at A Thin Slice of Anxiety.

The Debt Collectors

Just when I thought the ground had swallowed him, in came Glen Johnet, navigating his motorized wheelchair around the pressure washers in the showroom. “Hey bossman. Got sumpn for you. Got it right here in my pocket.” He dug in. “You’re gonna like this.” He pulled out a little plastic baggie, peered up at me with his candid blue eyes. “Told you you’d like it. Consider it interest on that money I owe you. Got a knife? What am I talking about? Of course you got a knife. You got a whole QVC collection here. Who’d you sell that sultan’s sword to anyway? You know I wanted that thing.”

“I sold it to a pastor,” I told him, handing over a little Swiss Army knife.

“A pastor?”

“That’s what it says on his business card. Pastor Ron Stroker.”

“What’s a pastor need a sultan’s sword for?”

“Pastors are often very bloodthirsty people,” I told him. “He’s a hunter.”

“He’s gonna hunt with the sword?”

“Probably.”

“See that’s what I like about you, Patrick. You’ll do anything for a buck. You sell paint, hand tools, sultan’s swords. Who would’ve ever thought you could get a sultan’s sword at a tool rental shop?”

“Probably the same people that call to rent breast pumps.”

“They do that?”

“It’s happened a couple times.”

“Does Pastor Ron Stroker use a breast pump?”

“If he doesn’t, he should,” I said.

He shook the baggie. “Anyway, this is the last of my stash. There’s just a little bit here. Just a bump to get us through the afternoon. Believe me, I know how they can drag on sometimes. Especially Mondays. So, I thought you’d appreciate….”

He stuck the point of the knife into the little baggie and scooped up a little white mound. I snorted it. He scooped up another little mound for himself and whoofed it away.

“Just interest,” he said. “What do I owe you now, $24?”

“Think so.”

“I’m gonna take care of that very soon,” he said. “Trying to clear all my debts. All of em. I’m sick of owing people. How’s business?”

“The hurricane was a big boost.”

“I bet. Hurricane, flood, pestilence, meteor shower. Any kind of natural disaster would be good for this fuckin business.”

“I pray for them,” I joked.

“I don’t pray,” he said. “Unless you call thanking prayer. Prayer is about gratitude, something most people don’t know nuthin about. It’s not about asking for a brand-new Cadillac. I bet if you were to do a survey, 90% of the world’s prayers would be asking for money in one way or another. As if the gods give a dog’s moonlit ass what you got in your wallet. Hey, looks like you got a customer pulling into the lot. You want me to go in the back?”

“You don’t have to. This should be good entertainment.”

The customer was Joe DeFilippi, fortysomething, ex-high school football star, addicted to pot and cocaine and pain killers and always had a running balance with me. We watched as he stepped down from his crusty Chevy pickup truck and strode through the parking lot, the hard sun blazing off his sparrow’s nest hair and capacious skeletal features. He tore open the front door and had barely entered the shop when he hollered, “Hey Patrick! What’s with the obnoxious message you left on my machine? You know I’m good for the money.”

“I never said you weren’t. It was a subtle reminder.”

“Subtle? If that’s your idea of subtle, what’s your idea of unsubtle? A jackhammer to the head? My knob in the vice?”

I grinned.

“Alright, what do I owe you?”

“You actually came to pay?”

“Kind of,” he said. “I got my girlfriend’s card, but you can’t put it through till Friday. And I need a drill. What’s my balance?”

“$200. What do you need the drill for?”

“What do you mean what do I need it for?” he asked, as if flabbergasted. “You know what I need it for.”

“Happy Days Pawn Shop?”

We laughed.

“Listen,” I said. “I’ll give you the drill. I never rent it. You just need to do this one thing.”

“Oh no.”

“Ever done collections?”

“Collections?”

“I have some people that owe me some money. Deadbeats. Even worse than you if you can believe it. Scum of the earth. And close by too. I need you to pay them a visit.”

The Arnie Cadmus Ferrari and Maserati Car Dealership had rented a boom lift from me for three months, but only paid for the first two months. They owned $1750 and had been promising to send me a check since the lift was picked up, almost 6 months ago. I called them about it almost every week, and every week, there was a new excuse, or the person I needed to talk to wasn’t around, or my call would go straight to voice mail and they wouldn’t return the message. I was done with it. I gave Joe the clipboard with the contract on it.

“Do you want to go with him?” I asked Glen. “He might need reinforcement. I’ll wipe that $24 clean if you two pick up a check.”

“Sure, I’ll go, but what about my wheelchair? How am I going to get that over there? It’s too heavy to get in the back of the truck.”

“I’ve got a push wheelchair you can use,” I told him.

He laughed. “I should’ve known. Is there anything you don’t rent?”

“I don’t rent you,” I told him.

“Not yet,” he said, and laughed, driving his wheelchair into the corner of the showroom. He parked it. I brought him the other one, the rental. He sat down in it with a loud groan and adjusted his thighs and feet. I wheeled him to Joe’s truck, helping him in. I threw the wheelchair on top of all the rakes and palm fronds in the bed of the truck.

“Wish us luck,” said Joe.

“You won’t need luck. Just be yourselves. Be exactly who you are. It’ll be perfect.”

What happened while Joe and Glen were over at the car dealership, I only know from what Glen told me later. He said the first thing they did was park Joe’s truck on the opposite side of the building from the office. Joe didn’t want anyone to see the condition of his truck, which was covered in dings and dents full of lawn debris. Joe then rolled Glen through the football field-length parking lot and into the main office. A brunette in a pantsuit came out of a little room and told them someone would be right with them. They sat down in the waiting room, Glen coming down from his cocaine high, Joe strung-out and fidgety from whatever he was coming down from.

They sat there waiting, Joe’s thinning gray hair standing in angry spikes, his face unshaven, his beautiful ghostly blue eyes blazing like Gorgonian fire. He looked like a cobbled together version of every hitman you’ve ever seen in any Hollywood movie.

“Hey,” he shouted from his seat. “Did you forget about us?”

No answer.

“This ain’t right,” he went on in his voice that was like Achilles dragging Hector over a mile of broken stones. “Every car dealership I’ve ever been to, they swarm you like locusts the moment you get there. What kinda place is this?”

He got up, paced a bit looking in the rooms, poured a cup of coffee and sat back down.

“Hey,” he shouted. “Can I smoke in here?”

Again, no answer.

“I like a smoke with my coffee,” he mused. “Don’t tell me I gotta go outside to light up.”

Glen rolled his wheelchair up to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup.

Five minutes passed.

Finally, a tall, dapper-looking man in an elegant gray suit stepped out of one of the little rooms.

“Sorry about that, guys. We’re a little shorthanded today. My name’s Matthew. How can I help you?”

“How can you help us?” asked Joe. “I’ll tell you how you can help us, Matthew. Got a light?”

“I don’t have a light,” said Matthew, smiling.

“Okay, listen Matthew. Here’s the deal. You see that yellow Ferrari in the lot? Yeah, that one right there. I’d like to give it a test ride.”

“You what?” Matthew was still smiling.

“A test ride?”

“Well, just to let you know, before we let anyone drive anything, we have to make sure they’re qualified.”

“Qualified?” said Joe, springing up from his seat. “I’m paying cash! What do you want from me? A bag of money?” He grinned his shark-like grin.

Matthew rolled his eyes.

“Okay, forget the test ride,” said Joe. “What we’re really here for is much more important than that. I need to speak to your boss’s boss.”

“My boss’s boss? I am my boss’s boss. I’m the owner.”

Joe lifted the clipboard with the rental contract that had been tottering on his lap and gave it to Matthew. Matthew was no longer smiling.

“We’re with Ares Rentals,” said Joe. “We’re here to collect.”

Matthew stood there looking the contract over, presumably reading every line and detail. He took it into his office without saying anything. He came out several passive-aggressive minutes later with a check. He gave it to Glen but still didn’t say anything and headed quietly back to his office.

“Thank you, Matthew,” shouted Joe.

Matthew said nothing. The office door closed.

Joe then wheeled Glen out the door and across that football field of 6-figure automobiles.

Ten minutes later, when they returned to my shop, both with a victorious air, I noticed the handwriting on the check was pressed into it so harshly it almost went through the paper.

I gave Joe the drill and the two of them went back out together somewhere.

 

2 Poems – Gorko Gazette

Two new poems up at the Gorko Gazette today.

Doody and Memory

in a world ruled by chance
there are infinite abnormal ways
to cash in your chips like getting high
and drowning
or being devoured by pack
animals being thrown out of a 12-story window
being squashed in a human stampede anyhow
today I read in the news that two young men
from new york have just expired after falling
into a large tank of hogshit

well, I thought, that’s certainly not a romantic
way to go it’s certainly not jim morrison
in a parisian bathtub or cleopatra
with the egyptian cobra

the surnames of the two men were doody
and memory
they could’ve been a famous comedy
duo with names like those but they weren’t
unfortunately they were only cattle farm
employees with that one act.

the parrot motel                           

it was an accident how I got there,
he said. I’d been drinking
at the cane toad’s tongue
and waited till the last minute and forgot
to read the reviews
I just saw a parrot
and the neon vacancy sign with $49 a night
so I went into the office paid
the little cuban
man.

my room was on the second floor
and it smelled of old smoke
and the doors were loose-fitting
and the blinds were broken
so anyone could look through
and there was a brown waterspot
on the ceiling
and the temperature of the
shower depended on who in the building
was flushing their crapper

and there was a dead
cockroach lying face-up in the corner
and there was a punchhole LED
thing for a light
and there was a small flat screen tv
with parrot switchbladed into it by
a maintenance
man with the DTs.

I didn’t turn it on I just sat on a chair
in the dark with my flask and thought this
is the place you go if you want to hang
yourself
but don’t have the guts
this is the kind
of place you go if you want to
plan a crime or start a religion.

I only stayed there one night
but on that night
got into a fight with the preacher in room
#301 and a dead body
was found in the bushes.
it’s that kind of place, good luck.

The Nobody Inn

Just had this poem published over at Cajun Mutt Press. Maybe you’ve been here:

The Nobody Inn

it claimed it was a non-smoking unit
but it reeked of stale smoke and there were
cigarette burns in the bedding and the refrigerator
was about a meter from the bed

and there was a towel in the freezer
and a toaster and coffee pot were on top
of the water boiler and there was a hat
wedged behind the tv and the toilet seat

was cracked and someone had left infection
ointment in the vanity and given the number

of bugs and other hungry organisms
in the room you got the impression
the owner of the hotel was a believer
in the sanctity of life

he was a little old indian man
a kind old man with the most elegant hands you’ve
ever seen but when I called him to complain
the phone just kept ringing
and ringing so eventually I gave up

and had a little whisky
and watched bonanza
then lay down
on top of the mattress and slept
with all my clothes on.

The Motherfucking Boat, 38B (Middle Seat)

Had a few poems published yesterday at Revolution John. Here are 2 of them. The third is The Sisyphos of Bruno-Brügel-Weg, which I already published here.

The Motherfucking Boat

a moonfaced kazakh girl displaying
much cleavage; a lank-haired liverpudlian
of noisy clattering tongue;
a spanish dj offering african chants to jupiter
and jupiter responding with a late-night summer
thunderstorm, the lightning glittering
in the waters and dancing around the boat like fire,
then following you off it, leading you splashing
along peachblue cobblestones past neon
burger joints the sleeping u-bahn station
a man with missing fingers lighting a cigarette
raucherkneipen ugly pre-war buildings
squatting in the bowels of pink crepuscular dawn.
it’s 5 a.m when you get home, some crumbling altbau
in neukölln, the walls eternally damp from the swamp
this city was built on, a mildew odor rising
from the cellar, a toilet you can only get to
if you walk through the shower. you do that,
careful to step around the puddle that forgot
to go down the grate, then crash on an ikea mattress
and wake four hours later, a colony of bees circling
your head, your hearing eyes
listening to invisible fingers
roving over a keyboard somewhere. you curse
the ceiling, look to the floor, observe the damp
pile of clothes that wore you last night.
and suddenly you become conscious
of your thick animal tongue and broken mind.
is this you? or is this the universe
happening to you? do you have anything
to do with any of this at all? you close your eyes
again and listen.

38B (The Middle Seat) 

sitting between two businessmen
both german both in suits both drinking
water flipping the pages of some glossy
wirtschaft magazine they are who my dad
wanted me to be well-groomed well-grounded
comfortable sober smitten by money numbers risk
reward investments luxury success success

sure my dad wanted only the best for me
but what a loathsome load of crapola I would have
considered myself had I achieved the kind
of success he had in mind for me I mean instead of being

a simple failure I would’ve been like these dullards
pressed out from a rivet machine obsessed
with the obvious eyes stuck on some overvalued
unnecessary thing even as the plane slams into a patch
of heavy turbulence and they go

bouncing in their suits neither lifts his eyes
off the page and their loafers remain
flat on the floor.

Real Gone

Just had another poem published at don’t submit! here

Real Gone

evidently a cat is walking a cigar-
puffing man on a leash
as the streetlights
squirm like bellydancers
twirling tinseled haloes on the wet streets;

a night train passes a vintage
clothing shop and vanishes;
the silence quickens into significance;
shadows grope
a scarlet alleyway, clamber up
the stairs of a fire-escape, peep out
a window, take the form
of a simple a nothing
a chickenbone with dumpster
fire dreams; and there goes a page
of homeless periodical floating into the dawn;

there goes a skeleton sucking on
a bottle of rum; there goes the silhouette
of a cockroach growing
to hideous proportions
on the wall of a cathedral; a gargoyle utters
in brogue; an area man exits a french
restaurant convinced
he is real.