Author: Roger Mugs

ode to me pantaloons

poetry

and their single-layerness
their supposed callus-inducing
zippers (a common misconception)
and the way they bend and grow
and mold with me

from youth
till now
and furthermore
my friend
my pants will
ever be

and that love will be demonstrated in a once-each-month ritual cleansing process less religious than one might think, though certainly not lacking ritualistic practice. there will be a soak, a wash, a rinse, and tumble dry cycle — religiously, almost as if by machine.

you live void of beauty for a while and i’m convinced you’ll all end up chasing eternal life. just read john 17 and try to tell me (once you’ve lived void of beauty) that you’re unmoved. just try.

poetry

i recall youth
and fields where i asked my father
to explain the minutiae of the
grain my family called ‘wheat’.
i’d run through with broken
shoes on skinny paths past
harmless snakes and burst past
sandstone while chomping straw
freshly picked and void of
grain as it’d already been chewed.

i recall smiling as the skies were so
bright my mother feared for sunburn;
that and my father’s smile of delight
on his boy and his utter obliviousness
to the complex world around him.

i was there when snow fell and filled
the dirty fields with redemptive white
long before i understood any symbolism
i appreciated the beauty, even the cold.

and the mountains i took for granted?
now i regret my lack of understanding.
regret my granted taking
my youth leaving
and my lack of picturesque memory keeping.

i remember when the world was smaller and my goals much less lofty. there was a certain ease in believing my life mattered only as far as i could throw it. there was pleasure in finding my only joy in the sun on my skin. the afternoons were filled with barefoot walks through grass wearing nothing but shorts, followed by inhaling large slurpees with expressed brain-freeze intent. but back then i owned the world because the world needed an owner and everyone was too caught up in their own crap to notice i had already seized power.

poetry

put the front glass down
and don protective eye-ware
then cruise these streets
like a badass in a badass
car.
foldable front windshields
don’t win the favor of the ladies,
but leather flying helmets
and bottle-cap glasses earn
the envy of the idiots
(your target audience).

put the front glass down
and don protective eye-ware
in the rain like you own
this street. smile like
the cold doesn’t chill you to
your bones because you’re already
much too cold inside.

cruise these streets like
a badass in a badass car
because the shops are closed,
your friends are all at home
but your pipe is firmly
planted between your teeth
and you own this street

you may be an ass, but at least listening to you speak provides me with fodder for a later endeavor i call writing

poetry

nothing of note
just a few thoughts
you shared i wrote
down because of their
poetic nature.
your speech was beautiful.
your main points?
not so much.

yea this old thing?
this napkin from the diner
where we sat to discuss
life but really you just ranted
against your friends,
politics, and everyone else
you blame.

just a napkin with some
scribbles.
nothing of note.
just a few thoughts
you shared and their
poetic nature.

real life sometimes demands ugly things. like breaks. too bad they’re not as easy to take as they are in on-stage performances.

poetry

a brief interlude
(a break if you will)
will now be taken
to give the actors
a break for a few moments
as they re-adjust to
life outside of their
character.
to kiss their girlfriends
instead of their in-play
wives.
to use the bathroom facilities
because opera with the
tension of diarrhea is less
than enjoyable for the singer.
thus the interlude.
we apologize for the break.

i don’t rant often enough. hereby resolved: rant if you can (but don’t make any extra effort, certainly do not promise you’ll rant more often. what if, after all, you forget to rant tomorrow or throughout the whole week and it turns out you resolved to do something you would fail at? what then? well, i learned a long time ago never to make promises in writing unless i was absolutely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that i was 100% likely to keep said promise. but such promises are extremely-awkwardly rare. so i settle instead to resolve things in my head instead of writing and then when i succeed i say, “hey me, good job. i’m proud of you”, and then i pat myself on the back — physically, not mentally, and continue my life slightly more satisfied with myself than i was a moment earlier, which is to say, extremely satisfied as the amount which i find myself satisfied with myself is probably sickening to most people). whew.

poetry

it’s that time of night
where the night before
you didn’t really sleep
worth beans
and you’re still up
because of that thing
you don’t need to do
but have no power over
yourself to keep yourself
from doing it
and you’re dreaming of
writing something long
and valuable and worthy
of your fingers hitting
the keyboard
but you know it’s too
late for coherent beautiful
words and so you settle
for something much much
less. something like a
rant where your sole
goal is a column of words
nearly uniform in size
but even that you
fail at in several
lines. but seeing your
comfort in failure you
resign yourself to bed.
and sleep comes, but much
too slowly.

our lovely government

poetry

idea swapping
behind every vaulted wall
but that’s where it ends.
they all got here with lofty
goals, dreams of change.
but they stay after selling
their souls, minds, hearts,
for power, prestige, foolish
green sheets of paper which
bring them no joy. no peace.
no change.

life in the mafia is about what i figured it would be

poetry

francis was whacked today.

i lost a toy i’ve loved since
childhood. a small green frog
stuffed with sand given to me
by a friend in sixth grade as
i walked out the door to move
a lifetime away and return much
too late for our friendship
to remain. i miss that toy
and the memories it’s always
represented, but that seems so
trivial now. as

francis was whacked today.