fundamentalist style
by Roger Mugs
this beard of mine
laced with honey
dripping for sweet
to you
i never felt i lacked something
i never felt i had need of until
this void grew so big
i never felt anything like it.
i never felt satisfaction after
searching like i know i’ll find
when i find it. i know it because
until now
i aint never felt it.
i’d stuff you with bamboo
for with you i’d take extra care
the best of taxidermists
hang your right side on the wall
(it is your best side)
and i would not settle for mere
cotton
for with you i’d take extra care
you’re my trophy, and to prove it
i’d spend a little extra and
i’d stuff you with bamboo
thanks for rocking and rolling with me
while i fathered children
raised them, fathered more and began
the process of adoption.
thanks for writing with me through moves
and furloughs and job changes and
countless different degrees.
thanks for poetrizing through thick and thin
and daily (or at least sometimes daily)
giving what you got the sieve.
i grew a beard, got scruffier, meaner
and generally slightly more gruff.
but you’ve stood by… a writin’
often sans-inspiration.
thanks eh.
the beauty of being male
(apart from not having to curl up
beside a hairy buttox at night)
is in the 14 years since
we’ve seen each other
the two years since we messed
everything up
and the five minutes it took to repair.
the beauty of being male is that
a swift blow to the face solves
all our issues. and then we’re bro’s
again.
have we really come to this point?
is this really the best we can do?
line standing reduced to numbers
handed out on small printed papers
views from games we spent too much
of our valuable time playing now
burned in the backs of eyelids
clear as the sky when we close our eyes
when we try to sleep
when we wake and find
we’re still standing, waiting for our
number to be called and wondering
is this really the best we can do?
there was one thing the greats had in common and it weren’t
education
height
weight
shoe size
shoe string length
love for mcdonalds
patience with children
or the location of the roll in their eyes
socks socks daddy you wear some socks
daddy tickle me
daddy tickle me
or like this or like that
daddy tickle me
tickle me
daddy tickle me
tickle me
sometimes all we really need is a swift kick to the buttox of our pants
but other times a swift kick needs to followed by several hard blows to the face
and when that is insufficient being threatened with our lives tends to help
though should our own life prove disposable loved ones are always there for threatening
a book of wisdom
filled with pages
of foolishness
in the hands of many
without hope for
more
basing every decision
on being better
when the best is
nowhere near good enough
when the best is
menstrual rags
before the only One
whose opinion matters
kingdom shakers
fumble when they shake your hand
their mouths don’t work quite
right, nor their memories
and despite their high level of
education they keep copious
notes because of an accident
they had in a car riding off the
side of a mountain 15 years ago
(and incident they don’t recall
personally at all, only what they
‘ve been told)
which left them with a perpetual
at-best three months of memory
but yet they shake
the kingdom at its foundations
and to have stood in the same
room with these people
(let alone to shook hand with them,
or worshipped alongside of them)
never fails to humble me.
some folks get all the attention
and some folks brew coffee
some folks go live on television at 9
some folks take out the trash at the tv station
some folks, they say, long to not be known
they sit in their cubicles, wait tables, laminate construction paper,
all for the greater good
and some, i hear, desire nothing more than a great name.
famous cubicle sitter, waitress extraordinaire, or THE construction paper laminator.
some folks get all the attention
but some folks just brew your coffee
or grow it
or produce the fecal matter with which your coffee is fertilized.
some folks get all the attention
but other folks have all the power
smoke from a pipe
from a chimney
smoke from your mouth
up through your nose
into your lungs
from a pipe
from a cigar
from a cigarette
smoke
in this house as
we run screaming
from the fire
fire in your pipe bowl
wrinkling your thumb
as your cover the top
yellowing your thumb
from the fire
fire in your pipe bowl
fire in your heart
fire in the house
we run
fire in your heart
you run
fire in your pipe bowl
as we sit in the snow
bundled in warmth
warmth from the fire
as we sweat and run
from the smoke coming
down the halls at full
speed
as we sit and stare
fully relaxed at the smoke
in our mouths
the fire under our thumbs
the burning in our hearts
the cranes are still here but
the people have gone
and this place feels alone
but i still walk along
this crack-ridden sidewalk
deserted and grey
the prices were rising
then fell fast one day
and i run past these things with my eyes closed and music on blaring to drown out the silence of the people who left and left me here staying in a city of so many, but none of them living.
my lack of need for pen and paper to compose
has removed the problem i’ve had with
the roundness of my legs.
no flat surface is now—
no problem.
more and more writing can be done
whilst otherwise occupied upon porcelain.
certainly technology has more to be praised than this. but right now, there is little for which i am more thankful
water slips between.
you slip quickly between my fingers as i grasp
for you.
10 hours from now I’ll be in the air
still agonizing over the length of the road ahead of me
14 hours from now I’ll be on the ground sprinting between man-made obstacles to prove I’m not a terrorist
15 hours from now I’ll be in the air
19 hours from now I’ll still be
24 hours from now I’ll be questioning my mental sanity, my own stamina, life.
26 hours from now I’ll again be on the ground between pain, but in a country where everything works right. It will be relaxing. There will be a meal consumed.
28 hours from now I’ll again be in the air
35 hours from now, for the first time in six months, I’ll be home.
there are always things to worry about
there is never good reason to worry
and yet here i am quivering in my shoes
attempting to control my blood sugar
so my brain chemistry maintains itself
drinking my last beer for days
before my mind allows my body to shut down
panic, fear, more quivering.
there are always things to worry about
there is never good reason to worry
“behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened
that it cannot save
or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;”
i ask
i fear
i am not heard
there are always things to worry about
there is never good reason to worry
cradling man-sized ladybugs
and climbing lived-in trees
this is the education we give our children
then we wonder at why they leaveith not the house at 18
“in childhood things were softer,” they say innocently enough, “foam enforced, carpeted, with padded walls.”
the real world they fought over patterned flowers on their mall floors and argued over who could jump to the next butterfly
they cradled themselves in tunnels of plastic, sterile, blue, climbing stairs and exiting slides
we taught life would be easy ups and slippery downs
we taught life lessons when we thought we were encouraging play time
taught padded walls as we cemented the forest
introduced easy-together legos in our rusting, over-heating, perishable, use-by-thursday world
and yet we wonder
we ponder
scratching our heads
eating smooth peanut butter on wonderbread and drinking pulp-free juice from disposable cups
a leap for life
for some is a literal
bullet dodged, or a grenade avoided
but for you a leap for life
is a mere plane flight.
a ticket purchased
such that life blood can stop being
clotted at the source
and with new oxygen flowing to the brain
hope arrives and strikes you
startling you like the bullet would
had it made an impact on the other
for whom that life-giving leap was not metaphorical
and struck by hope, you’re taken aback
and furious that you stalled — knowing the steps required for forward momentum, for life, and not taking them.
new life, a change, bought cheap, rearranged;
sometimes one leap’s too short for “in”, but never-wager folks don’t win
an island bypassed
on foot we continue on
mud betwixt our toes
the muffling of sound
the sun hidden behind the white engulfing the trees
and the constant reminder of our
forced submission to nature
our true blindness
able to overcome polio, leprosy, even tuberculosis
but unable to see down the street
past the corner with the 10 car pile-up soon to be 11
because of the way the sun is hidden behind the white engulfing the trees
and the fully muffled….
the silence.
a birth bore with choice to stoop so low
we’d believe He understood
humility unmatched
thanks eh.
though we don’t often show it
we mean it
i’ve fished for fresh blood
for flesh and blood
blood, the non-stagnant type
to bring life to this flatlining
place so many of us call home
we’ve received some applicants
blood that wants in
but we must check blood type
and confirm it is virus free.
worse than life-bringing blood is the type that looks like such but when the gates are opened and the fresh let in the body rejects it and spits it out where it is then of no use to anyone at tall.
for want of a pant line he had hip injections
for want of a butt crack he trained to be a plumber
for want of reason he played sudoku
then for want of friends
he purchased gift cards to his wonderful hip-injection doctor gave them to his acquaintances
then for want of acquaintances he moved, ran for president, and claimed stupidity
Near,
And in addition to near also far,
Really, wherever you might be at all,
It is compatible with my belief system that the heart doth persevere,
And then one more time,
You unlock and then open the door,
And you will find yourself here inside of this dwelling place I call my heart (please do not intervene with the blood flow, it is surprisingly essential to my ability to live)
And my heart will persevere and then persevere some more.
Whew.
I’d gird up my loins if I could with something other than these old suspenders, but you see, lack of proper loin-girders is the primary reason for my sloth. How dare I run when in an un-loin-girded state?
the lack of direction
the lack of focus
the lack of meaning
the lack of answers
the lack of a definite timeline
the lack of vision
the lack of relationships
the lack of a good book to read
the lack of decent jazz
the lack of piano
the lack of meaningful information
the lack of stress
the lack of focus
the lack of direction
thelackofmeaning
third graders gather on the floor and ask about toilets and school uniforms in a land they cannot fathom and who am i to introduce them to it? i’ve brought pictures to say the things my words cannot, and speaking of eating dog, rabbit head, or pig lung, may inspire exactly the wrong kind of awe, i fear, but do my best as they gaze in bleary wonder knowing all this time one or two may be moved to drop their lives and leave a world where a child must have 100 crayons if they’re to be expected to color, where three simply would not do. sewage runs through streets in images i’ve taken of places where the scent overwhems any bad feeling one might have from the way things look, and it’s been five of my six months and all i can think of the whole time i’m showing these pictures is how much i miss home, and the “grind” and being on the winning team. to know the work i’m a part of ultimately wins when i feel like away, i’m more of a bump on a log than an addition to society, and snow is not near as romantic as i remember it, and consumerism literally makes me want to vomit in these cities where people are virtually strangling their children, choosing to suck the life out of them so they can have a swimming pool in their back yard, and while i’m not foolish enough to believe this is the case everywhere in this great country, i nonetheless catch a glimpse of the vastness of the nationwide epidemic as i get reports from the “bud light sports desk” during the “coors light half time show” where you spend the whole day in awe that infinite jest had this thing figured out years ago and it seems like only a few years ago i read that book (part of that book) and
laughed at the absurdity of the extremity of it all
