by Justin Karcher
More poems about Cowboy Bebop.
More poems about Red Bull, but the sugar free kind, cuz the 7-Eleven u go to was out of the regular kind & ur kinda addicted to the idea of having wings… even if those wings aren’t as sweet as they should be, cuz it’s so fuckin’ nice to fly over all the assholes in ur life.
More poems about Kyle MacLachlan.
More poems about jukeboxes that don’t work, that sit against bar walls as decorative relics, that when you walk by em, their dusty cords hiss at you like snakes & all you can think about is music that doesn’t happen, the songs stuck in our stomachs until the day we die.
More poems about running into someone you went to high school with in the freezing cold, but you can’t remember their name, so you make small talk with them hoping you can remember, but you can’t, then they ask you what you’ve been up to & all you can say is, “I write poetry.”
More poems about snow angels, but the kind who rebel against their creator, maybe over pride or boredom, the kind who can turn snow into fire, the kind who can fuck up your weekend but also make you forget about your depression.
More poems about lying awake in bed at night writing on your smartphone & maybe you can hear the wind blowing or ambulances screaming at America, so to drown out the noise, you start humming the Twin Peaks theme song & you can’t help but feel really lonely but also kinda hopeful.
More poems about being at ur office gig & then looking up the qualifications for ur job & oh shit, u might be overqualified so u get kinda depressed cuz ur not the only one & so on lunch u listen to “This Must Be the Place” by Talking Heads & go for a walk & it’s overdramatic af.
More poems about not writing, like u have multiple jobs or a family & u beat urself up for not writing more & shit taunts u cuz of it, like flashlights turn on when u walk by & they’re like, “We work when there r storms,” & it’s like, “Fuck u flashlights, I work at my own pace.”
More poems about strange winter, like how overworked plow drivers play hockey but they don’t use a puck, they use a Klondike bar, & they’re real gentle with it, a tenderness that makes all the people watching cry cuz it makes them think that they’ve never really made love.
More poems that make people look at the world the same way that Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper look at each other.
More poems about drinking coffee & a coworker’s like, “U drink a lot of coffee,” & ur like, “That’s the least of my addictions,” then there’s silence but then u bond over the fact that neither of u sleep much, like America’s this democracy of tiredness & we’re looking for a bed.
More poems about when u make an insignificant typo on a tweet & it fucks up ur whole world but then u go smoke & remember that imperfections are actually beautiful, that u should prolly focus on the bigger picture, like freeing ur friends from the labyrinths they’re trapped in.
More poems about when you’re depressed AF & smoking in the cold & you become hypnotized by all the footprints in the snow & you wonder if you follow them, would they lead you to a different world where everyone you love aren’t messed up by the torturous music in their brains?
More poems about walking to work in the morning when it’s cold AF, icicles on ur lips like you made out w/a White Walker, ur listening to “No Surprises” by Radiohead, u don’t expect the sun to pop out but then it does… & it’s the most beautiful serotonin starship u’ve ever seen
More poems about the hypocrisy of a new GOT trailer, how u see it online so u rush outside to watch it, climbing over desks that look like headstones, the bones of ur coworkers, & for 2 mins u watch the dead fuck things up, like every day in America but no one cares about that.
More poems about walking to work when the frostbite feels like little vampires feasting on ur body & u see a lighter in the snow & it’s wet, so it won’t work, & u get sad cuz inner fires shouldn’t go out like that but then ur heart tells u, “Live life like fire that doesn’t die.”
More poems about when you’re having a breakdown in your car & listening to the Sirius XM chill station & it’s frustrating AF cuz the song playing isn’t chill enough but your depression actually starts to fade cuz now you’re obsessed with what “chill” means & if it’s something that will destroy humankind.
More poems about my mom cuz she’s awesome.
More poems about moms whose hearts are maps & every time they show their kids what direction to go in life, they have to rip out a chunk of themselves, so whenever my mom tells me she’s feelin’ lost, I know it’s cuz she gave me all her cartography.
More poems about when you saw Morrissey live & he took off his shirt & threw it into the audience & you caught it but then it got ripped from ur hands.. but for a moment, you smelled his melancholy & it was beautiful & all you thought was, “My melancholy doesn’t smell THAT good.”
More poems about when ur at work & u drop a three hole punch & like a billion little paper circles are everywhere & u think about the night sky, that if angels or ghosts ever dropped it, there would be like a billion little stars everywhere & it makes u happy cuz that’s beautiful.
More poems about when u overhear coworkers talk about “The Bachelor” for like an hour but all u can think about is that dead seagull in the parking lot, its bones exposed, maybe it was a bachelor courting the wind, but the wind ripped it apart- shit, deleting loneliness is tough.
More poems about when u kill it at an open mic & afterwards somebody comes up to u & is like, “I desire more of ur poems” & u think, “Time to sell a book,” so u hand em one but they quickly put it in their bag & u think, “Too late to mention the price, ur a shitty salesperson.”
More poems about when ur walking on lunch & u find a bird’s nest in the snow & an empty mini bottle of Fireball in it, so u stare at it for a bit thinking about ur struggles with drinking, how addiction is fed to us as kids but we’re always trying to fly someplace better.
More poems about the hypnotizing allure of anywhere cuz you’re still alive, when you’re standing in the rainbow Gatorade light of possibility, your heart full of supernatural electrolytes, all the energy in the universe, when you scream out, ”I’m who I’m supposed to be!”
More poems about toxic bros spontaneously combusting during St. Patrick’s Day parades & their green ash looks like a fresh field of grass where better things can grow, open-minded flowers that sing to the sun no matter how bright it is, four-leaf clovers giving luck to everyone.
More poems about when u open up the Venmo app & all u see are symbols & emojis & u think, “Shit, it’s like hieroglyphics for broke-ass millennials” & then u get sad af, cuz at least hieroglyphics were on walls that could be undusted & discovered, not on clouds that fade away.
More poems about that one friend u have who never has enough time to work on their second album, which sucks cuz their first album shows so much promise, & u get sad af thinking about all the voices left behind in multiple job darkness, hearts too tired to pump blood into music.
More poems about watching snow melt in real time & all u can think about is how depression can melt too but sometimes it takes a while & there might be frostbite but eventually a sun will burst out of ur chest like that scene from Alien & all ur snow will melt, the heaviness gone
More poems about how all your lovers look like Walt Whitman, leaves of grass where their faces should be.
More poems about how comets crashing into earth are really disco wrecking balls trying to get us to dance again, glitter from heaven incinerating every asshole who kills our vibe.
More poems about how you’re the rock of your family, how you feel like a plane with a fear of flying & you just wanna rest, but you’re carrying so many people in your heart & if you don’t take them to their destination, nobody will, so you gather enough strength to kiss the sky.
More poems about how it’s April & there’s still snow on the ground & you imagine that’s how the human heart looks like under a microscope: patches of cold where ex-lovers still live, ghostliness that refuses to melt away.
More poems about how awesome Jordan Peele is, like how each of us has our own personal Twilight Zone & we need to get it out into the world & maybe they’ll merge together in the sky above America & it’ll be beautiful af, all those different dimensions swirling in the air.
More poems about icebergs, how climate change is a lot like leprosy but only for them, how they’re always losing chunks of themselves, so it’s kinda like how a broken heart feels, when you turn into a iceberg but there are no polar bears or Titanics around to hug you.
More poems about ducks… ’nuff said.
More poems about resurrection but nothing too grandiose, no choir of asshole angels, no sky sawing itself in half like a lonely magician, cuz resurrection sometimes means you get out of bed, make yourself some coffee & try to deal with the world.
More poems about when you find a really cool bar & there’s this kickass band, so things are going good but then you come across the inevitable picture of Hemingway on the wall & you think, “There are way better alcoholic writers.”
More poems about making out on Easter cuz our lips are really crucifixes… it’s how we’re born again, how we solve the hell in our lives, how we climb down this hill of skulls but it has nothing to do with religion… my breath plus your breath is the Holy Spirit.
More poems about how a whale has a sweet tooth too.
More poems about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
More poems about when you’re at work listening to FKA twigs “cellophane” & your world stops cuz it’s so damn beautiful & you have to go outside to smoke & remove the pianos from your chest & afterwards you set em up around you & watch squirrels run across the keys as day fades.
More poems about how poetry is magic, how u cut open a dictionary & pull out words that matter, throw ‘em into the heavy cauldron called America & stir with ur tongue. Put a hex on every asshole, surprise the sky, replace the sun with ur sun cuz we need stars that burn brighter.
More poems about poets turning poems into paper airplanes, standing on rooftops & throwing them at the world, poem-planes growing in size & picking up the lonely, the depressed, the beaten-down… flying them to someplace better, where assholes aren’t in control, where we sizzle.
More poems about how every time you hold an umbrella, you can’t help but imagine it’s a really cool sword instead, like you’re Brienne of Tarth. Then you think, “I, too, am in love with Jaime Lannister.” By this point, you’ve forgotten about the rain, your depression, all of it.
More poems about crying. Like right now I’m getting all teary-eyed listening to The National. The heart is a fake empire full of graceless pink rabbits… they run & hide before you have a chance to catch em. You just want them to sing to you. That’s all.
More poems about a world without oceans where people put on scuba suits & stare at fish bowls, jealous of the tiny fake scuba divers still clinging to their glass dreams & at the end they think, “When did cries for help become so abstract? We shouldn’t have bottled up everything”
More poems about how every couple months you re-download the Indeed app hoping there’s a millennial promised land finally blooming, jobs where you can change the world with art & empathy… but you always find desolation, low-paying tumbleweed blowing across America’s limp body.
More poems about being your best self, how you stare at the emptiness inside you & scream, “Fuck you,” how you turn into Arya Stark & scream, “Not today,” how you want to experience joy again & again… give me your triumphs, the brokenness you mend, how you say “no” to the end.
Justin Karcher (Twitter: @Justin_Karcher. Instagram: the.man.about.town) is a Best of the Net- and Pushcart-nominated poet and playwright born and raised in Buffalo, New York. He is the author of several books, including Tailgating at the Gates of Hell (Ghost City Press, 2015). He is also the editor of Ghost City Review and co-editor of the anthologies My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry (BlazeVOX [books], 2017) and MANSION (dancing girl press, 2019).
(And dance with Justin’s poem It’s Prom Season in the Wasteland from the November 18, 2019 Weekly edition. – Elephants Never)