Indie Lit's Backyard BBQ Party
I’m about to reach max saturation
Turn completely spherical
Leave a slug trail when I roll
At first it’s frightening
Feeling more and less of different intervals and levels
Then it’s exhausting and awful
Then you get used to it
Still I bet you this
One day you’re out somewhere maybe the park
You bump into someone you haven’t seen in awhile
Between the how longs and now what’s they say something
Maybe the time you puked in geography
Or marital problems
Or trees smell like antique cardboard
When you roughed up the snake charmer
you forgot about the snake
and got bit.
Don’t worry I will bring a hammer.
When I get there I will bring the hammer down.
For now keep one eye on the snake and
one eye on your swelling venom filled blood vessels.
Today started with such up-tempo preparation
drinking coffee standing up
thinking you could walk into anywhere
and talk them into hiring you full time,
thinking you were headed towards an X marked
treasure chest.
Soon after, the day revealed its
inability to send positive plotlines your way.
I even heard 911 left a voicemail message
word for word imitating
a voicemail message you left them
proving you are a cotton candy brain.
You’ve probably got soft fluffy bunnies
in your picture book.
I get bundled up indoors and go outdoors.
One week into January
I am disintegrated and reconstructed
into a bag of frozen vegetables.
I cartwheel over moving traffic headed your way.
When I get there you are dead and
the snake is gone.
The charmer sees the snake in his dreams.
Mostly we are waiting
For whatever crumb
From the table of grief
Has lodged itself into tonight’s parade
Of mashing buttons and gnashing teeth
To name itself then disappear
I get the sticky controller
That Mac spilled a Natty on in August
And am stuck jumping the whole game
But still beat Chris
Who’s almost a year behind in practice
And refuses to choose any character but random
Pittsburgh
I’m high as balls
and my cousin is doing 90
around the f-zero highways
I’m a little worried cuz
he’s really ripping the pen but
His tolerance is way
higher than mine which
also worries me but
in a way less immediate
way
You Can Count on Me
the drunken mess of my little brother
dragging him home in the night away
from the party he had become militantly
comical screaming in the faces
of other party guests and laughing
in a strangely glottal way i had never
really heard from him before
his breath humid with beer
and wet cigarette butts
his torn military jacket faded
Batteries
My Tupperware™ container of used batteries
is a constant source of anxiety
I’ve been putting batteries in it
because they aren’t supposed to go in the garbage,
but the container is almost full now
I think they can be dropped off at City Hall
or a school—some sort of institution,
an institution where they have the solutions
to these kinds of problems
Unfortunately, I haven’t been to any institutions lately
I serve no institutional purpose;
I have no institutional knowledge
When the time comes,
I’ll probably just dump the batteries in the garbage
Or maybe I’ll recycle them
Yeah
Putting batteries in the blue recycling bin
almost seems eco-conscious
But if batteries don’t belong in either the garbage can
or the recycling bin,
is one choice better than the other?
Is one decision less destructive?
There is something to be learned here of intent
I guess I could try the composter—
try composting the batteries for a million years
Maybe Green Peace would laud my dedication;
an NGO committed to keeping batteries out of landfills
would be founded in my name
Let’s be real, though
When I inevitably throw the batteries in the trash,
They will meet their landfill fate
They will marinate in the soil;
their acid will mix with Earth
But until then, I’ll feel good
just having them right here
in the Tupperware™ container on my table
It’s like I’m saving the world a little
Dendrology
Have you heard about the great bristlecone pine?
It’s the oldest living thing
It can grow to be, like, 5,000 years old
That’s what it felt like when I met her
Like something 5,000 years old
was suddenly alive
I said, “Describe his apartment for me”
I was a detective of depressing facts
You were a criminal of nothing
You told me you’d hooked up with him,
and I thought you were joking
I said, “Describe his apartment for me.”
And you said, “He has these shitty leather couches.”
That’s when I knew
you were telling the truth
I was at this hipster bar in Detroit
I have this special power
random people give me free food
This lady I was sitting next to at the bar ordered chili cheese fries
She did not seem like someone who ordered chili cheese fries.
She looked to be around 40 and took care of herself
perfect white teeth
She asked me if I wanted some of the fries
I said yes and she asked the bartender for another fork.
She asked if it was weird sharing her food with me
My friend and I laughed and said it happens all the time.
The fries between us. I poked them with a fork and took a bite.
Got drunker
talked
in walks the biggest douche bag in the world
Alone, wearing designer clothes and a big diamond watch
The biggest douchebag in the world sat up at the bar next to my friend.
ordered wine, asked a bunch of questions about the year of the bottle and shit
he worked his way into our conversation
And once that happened the conversation was only about the biggest douche bag in the world
He told us he went to Africa and started his own mining company
He wanted to impress us
The mine collapsed and 50 workers died
He had to flee Africa and lost a bunch of money
He was upset about lost money
He really wanted us to know how upset he was
We all just nodded along
But I couldn’t anymore
I said, “man, yer like the biggest douchebag in the world.”
My friend slapped his hand on the bar counter and tossed his head back laughing
The lady giving me food giggled
The bartender bent over, covered her mouth, her hair drooping over her face, she twirled around and quickly walked away
“What did you say?” said the biggest douchebag in the world.
I repeated with a dead stare, “I said you are the biggest douchebag in the world.”
His face got red.
not impressive
“what … you can’t say that to me.”
I took a big drink of my beer then said, “yup, sure can. Just did.”
I ate more fries
I closed my eyes
The fries hit good with spices. The cheese so gooey and warm
The beer so cold
Tasting like exotic berries
I knew I would never drink this beer again
I did not know what kind of beer it was.
I don’t know anything
And
never will
My brain swam in the warm electric pool of an afterglow acid tab
Smiling mermaids as brain cells
Don’t bother me
“You can’t talk to me like that. You need to show some respect.”
Oh
I’d forgotten about the biggest douchebag in the world.
I opened my eyes
Turned to him
“Bro, nobody cares about your problems. Get the fuck away from us.”
It got quiet.
The biggest douchebag in the world left without finishing his wine
The chili cheese fries were gone now
The lady next to me put her hand on my shoulder
I felt the tips of her nails softly pressing into my skin.
she asked if I wanted to try the mac & cheese next
I did
No call, no show.
We don’t carry baggage, we carry lassos
and the time has come to move on,
rope someone else with our feelings,
drag their nights behind our galloping will
and hope they survive the long, painful cut through the mud.
It’s not that I mind the gesture.
It’s hard to sever ties, so we might as well start
by trimming the fat before we remove the heart entirely.
It’s just a picture. Two people smiling about something,
with a filter that made us look like sepia gods,
soaked in the sun of a beautiful, infinite day.
But I can’t stop thinking about the morning of.
We stopped for breakfast and you told me,
in between bites of your McGriddle,
that thing I promised I’d never repeat,
I reciprocated and we cried,
guiding our horses for another round
of circling the barrels long-since filled
with poison from our respective upbringings.
But we drove and eventually, we parked.
We found the sun and shed the greater weight
for the smaller moment.
For company so perfect
we had to save it. Smile into your camera
and preserve the day. Celebrate.
Not because we found happiness,
but because we’d found each other.
But fuck me, I guess.
Timothy Tarkelly is a poet from Southeast Kansas. He’s had two books published by Spartan Press. When he’s not writing he teaches English to Ninth Graders. One of them recently described his ponytail as “immaculate.”
Swimming With Dog Sharks
There is an Asian man on the subway
He likes swimming with dog sharks
I know this because I just overheard him
He said this to his friend:
“I like swimming with dog sharks,” he said
“It’s nice,” he said
I have never been swimming with dog sharks
It is a regret I didn’t realize I had
I don’t even know what a dog shark looks like
I picture a German shepherd underwater
It is gliding towards me
with fangs exposed
The dog shark has tiny fins
and they are wagging frantically
like so many tails
I should have asked the Asian man
what dog sharks look like
if only so I could picture them better
and relay the details to you
If I was ever in the water with you and saw one
I could say, “Look, there’s a dog shark”
My knowledge of dog sharks would totally impress
(I hope nobody asks any follow-up questions about dog sharks)
I guess I’ll just search “dog sharks” on the Internet
but it’s not the same
I often eavesdrop—it’s something I can’t help
but I’d never overheard anyone
talking about dog sharks before
So I really should have asked that Asian man on the subway
I should have asked him about dog sharks
I think I would have learned something
Michael Crichton
I want to write the Jurassic Park
of Great American Novels
But I’m worried that might actually just be
Jurassic Park
Library
I call the help lines on subway ads
Look for answers in phone books
I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of failure,
and I’m a glossary of defeat
What’s a synonym for all of this?
My life seems beyond definition
—only because nobody has come up
with terminology so bizarre,
vernacular so flawed
I read Web MD entries to satisfy my neurosis
There are sick plot twists in books
about the Bermuda Triangle
that I read as a kid
Josh Sherman does run the @iamdave_hello Twitter account.
Long Afternoon
light blowing through
slatted bamboo | across
faded carpet spotted with
reds | mustards | strands
of pale pup fluff and
shreds of shattered
leaves | washing tides
rolling and ebbing like
the years of
psychedelic trees
inconsistent in design
and direction
independent of the moon
Leftover Beer
the
last
warm sip
the next
morning
is even
sweeter
than
golden
nectar of
dreamed
up gods
luring me
again
inside a
predestined
quicksand
Wednesday
by hungry
overlapped
voids
unwilling to
be shuttered
unfed
Don’t Forget Breakfast
my nostrils flare & flap like dry
gills suckling air unsettled with
churning richness of butter-
drenched popped corn sagging,
stubborn, in its own congealment –
salty, lip-puckering & liquified
sunshine crème. or maybe it’s
the peeled & boiled eggs I left in
a foggy bowl next to the sulfur-
dank sink, steam twisting, oblique,
for the hills. I squeeze them
between finger and thumb like
plump cysts to be certain they’re
ready and, pleased enough, I
lock them away, droplets dangling,
tucked roughly on a too-tight
shelf that squeezes them like
shackles on a beauty awaiting an
unavoidable fate as the next scheduled
snack for a giant, drooling ape.
Stephen Ground recently packed his life in his truck and drove to the centre of the continent, where he makes movies and writes poems about the weirdness in the air.
Back Patio Press 