Author: Roger Mugs

on swimming against the current

poetry

the sun shone bright 10 days
after i blackmailed you into
a dance

you were way out of my league
that was the fun

i didn’t really like you, people just
said you were unattainable so i pursued
and blackmail does attain
(even the unattainable).

so there we were friends
(or something like it…)
walking from lunch car parked
to classes soon to resume
the ground warming us beneath
our feet as blacktop can even in winter

“you do whatever the hell you want”
said you
and i responded more truthful than i knew
at the time
20 feet from the door
on cement at the time.
i remember it clear
under a tall cotton-less cottonwood (a shame to nature) ‘s shadow

“in a way thats exactly what everyone wants”

but in retrospect
my burns, yellow shaded glasses, sad excuse
for dreadlocks and invincible red chops

i was one sexy bastard
and i was

way out of your league

ethnicities i’m glad i’m not

poetry

but where you were born
determines your ability to play
in some three letter acronym at the national
scale
be it nhl, nfl, nba, or whoever

but say you’re born in samoa?
you’re probably great at just one

maybe your grandparents are from africa?
you’ll fit in any at all.

but before you say i’m racist
let me tell that you i aint white
i’m as minority as the day is long
in the country full of yella’s

a cross stick

poetry

coming to earth in
human awkward form
running, walking, eating, sleeping
incarnate holiness
still you chose
to die painful death for me

stuck there, hung there nailed there,
till three days later
undeservedly, the breath fades from your lungs
carrying my sin with it
k

run, pray, think, beg, live, hope, rinse, repeat.

poetry

repetitious pounding of heel to cement
slowly (faithfully) produces delusions of grandeur
and
i run not for exercise but to flee
cognitive stagnation

then dreams flow in

you’re God not man and your power
not limited by my dreams
is by all means larger than i fathom
(should i choose to try…
when i choose to try)

so when i pray to tug your heart strings
to change
for transformation on the city/province/country
scale

i know my dreams too small
i beg for bigger
i run much harder
thinking

if i can numb the pain in these joints
over time
perhaps i may numb the walls i’ve built around you

a little more
one bigger dream at a time.

verbatim

poetry

the problem with the digital age
is the lack of analog
‘digital’ reproduces in my brilliance
in too strong of color for the average
man to take in all at once

you’d like me better softened
by the blur of wear and tear.

grey. this time with refrain

poetry

oy these days press in on me
like walls in windowless rooms
with padded white cloth linings
screaming lack of money
lack of faith
worry worry worry

i know the cure but i fear the pill
because i must focus to partake

ache eases in slowly like the pain
in my back as i sit on these all too
soft all too cheap couches knowing
my posture is bad now but my
back irrevocably ruined

i know the cure but i fear the pill
because i cannot be numb and partake

reflections on the imminent fatherhood of fellow amateur poet Julio Chapluzki

poetry

(a new sieve norm – once it’s been done twice)

you spent at least two years
too many
in a former soviet republic

received at least two
too many
massages from strong muscular
bearded men in awkward
spa/tea houses because
that was just the custom

ate at least two
too many
parts of the cow which were
never intended by nature
or God
to ever be consumed

gave your wife at least two
too many
drinks on more than one occasion
just to watch her motor mouth
impress even you.

left at least one
too many
pairs of em… soiled(?)
boxers in my guest room during
a brief visit
where the child you’re about father
may well have been conceived

(probably not… i’m not soo good with
the numbers)

you waited at least one year
too many
to join the ranks of fatherhood.
welcome to the brotherhood.

“but i am confident you will
be brilliant” (and that boy will
love a pipe, beer, and literature
like a man should).


(p.s. i love that it’s a picture of you with someone other than your wife)

i just for the life of me cannot eek out a depressing poem. i dont know maybe i’m a product of some ridiculous cultural meme where the society tells me things cant end in tragedy for that would be too eastern and not the way things really are in this happy go lucky world. but then. maybe i’m just happy. sickeningly so.

poetry

the hopes of mine
waned
they say paint on modern cars will never
fade
the engine block may
rust
your feelings for me (like your ring) slowly
tarnish
and i’m left here
dying
knowing you were worth the
pain
but feeling for now perhaps this is
spring