come destroy me.
new work by big poppa e
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
POEMS
propers.....................................................................................................6
mission statement ....................................................................................8
muscleman ............................................................................................10
closer to the heart ..................................................................................13
oh! canadian fedex lady! .......................................................................15
napoleon ................................................................................................18
emo love song in the key of 9-3/4.........................................................20
michael6 .................................................................................................22
scars.......................................................................................................26
tigerlilly .................................................................................................29
i want to hold you .................................................................................30
untitled ..................................................................................................32
cats ........................................................................................................33
us ...........................................................................................................35
the train station......................................................................................36
loneliness...............................................................................................37
someone ................................................................................................38
birth control...........................................................................................39
skinny white girls ..................................................................................41
thoughts of gay marriage ......................................................................43
open letter..............................................................................................45
dead horses ............................................................................................47
JUVENALIA
rage........................................................................................................49
man in a lighthouse ...............................................................................51
mmm mmm, pro patria! ........................................................................53
whym.....................................................................................................54
lycanthropy ...........................................................................................55
steeple-stabbed and hell-bound .............................................................56
PROSE
disillusion curry ....................................................................................58
the glitter girl fiasco ..............................................................................59
the better maker-outer ...........................................................................61
death wish .............................................................................................63
the lord of the breakfast club #1 ...........................................................65
the lord of the breakfast club #2 ...........................................................67
HAIKU ..............................................................................................71
3
4
“come destroy me,” she said.
“i’m in the mood to be competely destroyed.”
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PROPERS (2004)
this one goes out to those who refuse to be defined, who look at
government forms as a challenge, who see the safe little boxes next to
“caucasion” and “asian” and “black” and “hispanic” and make their
own little box labelled “all of the above,” who scratch out the question
entirely and write their own names in large capitol letters, who, when
forced to choose between “male” and female” write “see attached 27page document detailing why my gender and sexuality will never fit
within the confines of your need to define me.”
this one goes out to those who fight every day for the simple right to
exist, for every gay kid who’se ever been beaten up for being gay, for
every straight kid who’s been beaten up for being gay, for the fat girl
who’s not just A fat girl but THE fat girl who maintains the self-respect
others refuse to give her.
for every girl who looks into the eyes of britney spears and christina
aguillera and whispers, “don’t you think for a moment that you are
speaking for me!” for every boy who hears his friends tell sexist jokes
and is man enough to call them out for it.
for every band geek who picked up a guitar or drumsticks or a french
horn instead of a bong, for every poet who picked up a pen instead a
gun and expressed their anger with words and not blood, for every jock
who refused to see those physically weaker than them as less than them,
for every teacher who ever lived who ever listened when no one else
would...
this one goes out to you.
to those who refuse to define themselves by their gpa, by the size of
their parents’ pocketbooks, by the clothes they wear or the music they
listen to, to those who demand to be defined by their actions not by
their fashions, who refuse to be passive consumers in this self-centered
nation and throw away their teevees and make their own movies, who
throw out their playstations and make their own videogames, who teach
themselves to play their own music and write their own novels and create
their own art.
and most of all... this one goes out to the kid listening right now who
thinks i cannot possibly be talking about them, the quiet kid, the one who
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never speaks, the one with no friends, who’s never been on a date, the
one ignored by parents, by teachers, by other kids, yes, this one goes out
to you most of all.
know this...
i understand.
i hear you.
i used to be you.
don’t you let anyone tell you your voice has no value. raise your voice,
kid, and don’t ever stop.
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MISSION STATEMENT (2004)
we are poets, and that lifestyle choice has destroyed our credit, yes, it has
destroyed relationships, yes, and it’s destroyed our backs from sleeping
on couches between times when we can afford a place of our own, yes,
but oh, the beauty! oh, the soul! oh, the whole wide world!
we live for that connection between a poet and someone moved to
touch their hand to their chest and whisper “oh...”, between two people
sitting cross-legged on dusty wooden floors bathed in joni mitchell and
candlelight at 3 a.m. heads bowed and hands held and knees touching,
between the wind and a person alone at a bus stop whispering his truth
from the shady confines of his hoodie. it’s all poetry -- all of it! -- every
single breath is scented with poetry!
we will die penniless, but oh the stories! oh the love! oh the whole wide
world held limp in the palms of our hands! oh the smiles on our faces as
we bid you all goodbye with a twinkle in our eyes and so many sweet
sad songs in our hearts!
so many people never get a chance to fly because they never have the
courage to leap blindly stupidly floppingly out of the nest and bash
themselves against all the branches all the way down, then get up and
do it again and again so many times they feel like they’ll die if they try
again, but that’s the only way to fly, and every poet who’s ever spread
their wings and left the bonds of this earth has a body covered in scars
and bruises you feel in every word they speak.
we don’t just write poetry: we live poetry. warm noses on cold
windowpanes leave haiku in frost. blank pages across foreheads yield
truth. we can cut our wrists on your lips and drip psalms on your tongue.
we can’t help it, we are poets.
people chain themselves to desks and cage themselves in cubicles and
trade their precious hours on this planet for scraps of paper and a gold
watch and some fleeting notion of security, and we are the crazy one? we
are the irresponsible one? we are the one wasting my life chasing fireflies
and raindrops? to hell with that! poetry is the pair of xray specs through
which we see the whole wide world, and we see everything!
we are hopelessly, painfully, ravishingly, wonderfully, terribly, horribly
in love with love and life itself, even when it hurts, even when we cry
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and beg for it all to end, even then it’s all so very beautiful and real and
perfect that we carry sunshine in our chests, our ribcages cast shadows
on the blind side of our skin, you can see ghosts dancing in our flesh if
you squint, and we can guide ships to rocky shores just by toeing the lips
of the ocean and spreading our arms wide.
our goal in life is simple: to be wide-eyed and breathless at the world
around us and dance barefoot in the warm rain and laugh and laugh even
when everything sucks because we may not always be happy and we
may not always be right and we may not always be beautiful, but right
here and right now we are young and we are alive and all the stoplights
are so green they sprout tendrils that tickle the tops of passing buses and
the whole wide world is still so full of magic and possibility it would be
an insult not to drink deeply of it.
that’s what we do: we drink deeply of life in full-throated gulps.
that’s who we are: we are poets.
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MUSCLEMAN (2005)
i never wanted a weightlifter’s body
bulging biceps more granite boulders than meat
carved by steel and syringes
useless
save for poses
and intimidation
no, i always wanted a swimmer’s body
perfect poetry in motion
liquid made flesh
hairless and streamlined
muscles taut as drumheads
beating rhythms on the surface of the water
a syncopated symphony of grace and power and purpose
but alas! alack!
obviously, i was graced with neither
no water has honed these thighs
no iron has etched these calves
for i... have a poet’s body
hunched-backed and pot-bellied
eyes rose-rimmed and glassy
skin not bronzed and oiled
but pale and sallow
from basking in the radiation
of a computer screen
in a darkened room
body fueled not by steroids and energy bars
but old grandad whiskey and marlboro reds
at 4 in the morning
and lot and lots of coffee you got any coffee where’s the coffee you
who’s got the coffee i need some goddamned coffee!
this body
doesn’t pump iron
it pumps irony
into poem after poem
slinging sweat on reams
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of bright white ink jet paper
sumo-wrestling demons
by candelight
as the postal service
plays on repeat
i’ve traded rock hard abs
for a rock solid vocab
toned trapeziuses
for threadbare thesaureses
a mountainous gluteus maximus
for a moth-eaten moleskine
and 20 reps at the bowflex
for the 20-volume set of the oxford english language dictionary.
oh yes... 151 pounds of definition,
and i got it for $1500 on amazon.com
with a 10% frequent buyer’s discount.
uhhh!
give me a smoky poetry slam
in a dingy dive bar
over cleanin’ and jerkin’
at gold’s gym anyday.
my fellow poets might not be muscle-bound freaks
but they are multisyllabic motherfuckers
lifting the masses
with the strength of their convictions
and pulling down crooked regimes
with pen strokes
my muscles propel
my fingertips across keyboards
at 86 truths per minute
and my eyes
that flick
in the direction of every sigh
and my heart
the strongest muscle in the human body
that weeps and moans and gnashes its teeth
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and fights and loves
so hard
it nearly bursts from my chest
when it rains
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CLOSER TO THE HEART (2005)
when i was in high school, the popular kids didn’t listen to music simply
because they liked it, no, the popular kids listened to music to enhance
their popularity. guys back then didn’t really like the music of journey, but
the cutest girls loved journey, so if you wanted to get laid back in 1982,
you had to at least pretend to like them.
but it didn’t matter what music my friends and i listened to, because us
geeks, dorks, goofs, nerds, poindexters, and neo-maxie zoom-dweebies
weren’t getting laid no matter what music we listened to, and that left us
free to listen to any goddamned thing we wanted, and we wanted that
righteous power trio from the great white north, yes, we wanted RUSH!
sure, rush was girlfriend repellent, but so were dungeons and dragons and
black t-shirts with superheroes airbrushed on the front and really, really
bad bacne. we weren’t cool! our only possible dating partners were nonplayer characters! therefore, RUSH made perfect sense!
we didn’t just listen to rush, we worshipped them!
rush was led by gary lee weinrib, who’s yiddish grandmother pronounced
his name “GEDDY,” who would grow up to be geddy lee, the best bass
player in modern rock history. he was cursed with a high-pitched voice
only a yiddish grandmother could love, but that voice sang of things we
could whole-heartedly endorse -- princes of darkness and necromancers
and spaceships sucked into black holes, lords of the ring and trees that
fought each other. if geddy lee could get laid with a voice like that -- and
we knew he was getting laid -- that meant there was hope for us, the
voiceless masses who yearned to be modern day warriors with mean,
mean strides of our own.
and those life-affirming lyrics were written NOT by the singer, but by
the drummer, neil peart, who ensconced himself in a fortress of snares,
tom-toms, double-bass, timpanis, timbales, crotales, windchimes, splash
cymbals, crash cymbals, pang cymbals, and not just one cow bell, but five
cowbells. When you saw rush live – which i did seventeen times before the
age of 20 – the only thing you saw of neil peart was the spray of splintered
drumsticks showering the stage like the persied meteor shower.
and as geddy and neil laid down the beat of our pubescent hearts, alex was
right there with his cherry-red doubleneck gibson guitar and camel-toed
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white satin pants, alex, who changed his last name from zivojinovic (zihVAH-jen-uh-vitch) to its English translation “son of life” and became alex
lifeson, whose fingertips furiously fretted six-strings and twelve-strings
with surgical precision.
in our teenaged bedrooms that had never witnessed real live girls, we
silenced our loneliness by cranking the best record rush ever committed
to vinyl – “2112” – and wielding broomstick micstands and singing along
not just to the lyrics, but to every guitar riff, bass line, and drum fill like
our sad, lonely, virginal lives depended on it.
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OH! CANADIAN FEDEX LADY! (2005)
oh! canadian fedex lady!
the way you giggled
when you caught me beat-boxing
to your hold music
after you tracked my customer’s package
made me want to forever renounce
my american citizenship!
oh! canadian fedex lady!
if you are half as cute
as the entire city
of vancouver, british columbia, seemed
the last time i toured through canada,
then you are so very, very cute,
especially if you are also short
and wear cat’s eye glasses
because short cute girls who wear cat’s eye glasses
totally kick my ass!
oh! canadian fedex lady!
the fact that you mentioned
how cool it was that bob marley’s “buffalo soldier”
was playing on my hold music
when i had to talk to my stupid american customer -who was rude and mean, as most american customers tend to be,
unlike most canadian customers,
who seem every bit as polite as you -makes me think you are cool,
because i like bob marley, too,
only i hope you don’t like bob marley too much,
as in not enough to be a smelly, nasty, hippy who also likes
shitty jam bands like moe and leftover salmon and phish... and... and...
fucking... moe...
oh! canadian fedex lady!
i loved that you said “zed” when you said the last letter in the alphabet,
and i loved how you ended most of your questions with “eh?”
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and i loved that you asked me for my customer’s postal code,
then giggled and apologized and said,
“oh, duh, you guys say, ‘zip code,’ eh?”
and i imagine when you said that
you shyly tucked your long hair behind your ear
and rolled your big anime eyes,
and i’ll bet those eyes were as blue
as the great hudson bay
only deeper
and warm.
or, better yet, green
like calgary bluegrass
in the summertime
only they wouldn’t make me sneeze.
or hazel with little yellow flecks orbiting your irises like
the lights of toronto winking from the surface
of lake ontario.
and even if your eyes are brown,
like mine,
and i hate mine,
canadian fedex lady,
i’ll bet they’d be the loveliest shade of brown
like... like... pudding,
and i fucking love pudding!
oh, canadian fedex lady,
i love rush!
i love neil young!
i love joni mitchell!
i don’t really like alanis morrisette’s music all the much,
but i’d spank her bare bottom ‘til she squeeled like a pig
in a red, hot american minute!
i love... uhm... canadian bacon -although you probably just call it “bacon” -unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case fuck bacon! stupid bacon!
oh canadian fedex lady...
i wish i had given you my website
so you could check out my poetry
and see that i am witty and charming
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and will be on hbo’s “def poetry” on july 29th at 11:30 p.m.
with mos def, alicia keys, and common.
and we could’ve used your employee discount
to send each other mixed cds for free
that would’ve made us fall crazy in love with each other,
and the next time i was in canada
we could’ve met in a cafe
and gazed lovingly into each other’s pudding brown eyes
as bob marley played
over the coffeehouse stereo system
and we held hands
and smiled
and sighed.
but i didn’t
and now...
i will never, ever meet you,
canadian fedex lady,
and i will never know
what colour your eyes are
when it rains,
or what you think of this poem
i just wrote for you
five minutes after we finished our call
as i kept my stupid, rude, mean american customer on hold
the entire time
i typed it.
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NAPOLEON (2005)
it always happens.
when i rock a microphone, i feel ten foot tall and luminous, steel-toed and
bulletproof, but then i’ll walk triumphantly off stage and inevitably some
tall fucker walks up to me and feels compelled to state the obvious:
“wow, big poppa e, you’re not very big at all, now are you?”
well, allow me to retort.
FUCK ALL Y’ALL TALL MOTHERFUCKERS!
SHORT PEOPLE ROCK!
being short is not a shortcoming, it’s a strength! all it takes to turn a tall
person into a whiny little bitch is a roadtrip, but me? i’m stretching out
and going to sleep!
if this venue were engulfed in smoke and flames like a great white
concert, tall people would fall to their knees trying to suck up all the
good air, but us short people? we just walk right the fuck out because it’s
ALL good air when you’re this short!
we short people are built for maximum maneuverability, dodging through
crowds like liquid mercury, avoiding knees and elbows with acrobatic
agility. if a tall person trips and falls alone in the forest, would there be
a sound? hell’s yeah, there’d be a sound! you could hear that shit in the
next county! but me? i’m so low to the ground, falling is like laying my
head on a pillow. and i never bump my head on ANYTHING! if i bump
my head on something, that shit is too fucking low!
and don’t talk to me about reaching shit, oh hell no, that’s why the good
lord invented chairs and tall people.
“yo, michael jordan, get me that tuna can off the top shelf now, bitch!”
and yes, the rumors are true, we short guys do have small penises... that
is, if you think a throbbing purple eiffel tower of flesh is small!
tall people are up to no good! all the truly innovative thinkers of the
modern age have been short. einstein? 5’3”. ghandi? 5’1”.
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shigeru miyamoto, the creative genius behind donkey kong and mario
brothers? 5’0” bitches! suck on it, because short people rock!
the taller you are, the more fucking useless you are. george w. bush? that
motherfucker is 7’9”!
now, i don’t want you to think that i’m drinking haterade... that’s not
what i’m all about, with me it’s all love love...
fuck tall people!
fuck tall motherfuckers who stand in front of you at concerts and
movies!
fuck tall people who take up the whole damn bed like they own it!
fuck tall people and their pointy ass elbows and their gangly knees
knocking shit over all the time!
fuck basketball! the only good thing about basketball is that the nba has
corralled those who will be shot first!
oh yes, the revolution is indeed coming! and the revolution will not be
super-sized, it will be minimized! and when the short people of this
world unite and rise up, you might not be able to tell... right away...
but when steel-toed boot shaped bruises appear on long-assed shins the
world over, you will know that me, gary coleman, that kid from webster,
and mini-me and the fucking oompa loompas have finally had enough of
your shit and have begun taking over the world one step-stool at a time!
represent!
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EMO LOVE SONG IN THE KEY OF 9-3/4 (2003)
i see you sitting there in the library
with your nose pressed into a book,
and i’m sitting across from you crossing my fingers
hoping you’ll stop and give me a look.
the sound of your voice makes my face go full flush,
as red as ron weasley’s hair,
and i want with all of my being to reach out
and take your hand, but i do not dare.
i used to think that cho chang was the one
who was the object of my desire,
but now i know my dear you’re the witch
who turns my heart into a goblet of fire.
(chorus)
oooh oooh, hermione granger i love you,
i can’t keep you off of my mind.
climb on the back of my nimbus 2000.
we’ll leave hogwarts far behind,
far behind, wooo oooh oooh ooooh oooh
sometimes i hide under my invisibility cloak
just so i can watch you from afar,
and i don’t care if your parents are muggles,
the lights in your eyes shine like stars.
if i had the chance to go back to first year,
i’ll tell you just what i would do,
i wouldn’t take that sorting hat off my head
‘till it said i belong to you.
and yeah i know “you know who” is out there somewhere
trying to kill me with his evil dark art,
but the mark he left on my forehead is nothing
compared to the lightning bolt-shaped scar on my heart.
(chorus)
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i’ve written you a note on a scroll my dear
and tied it to my owl hedwig’s leg,
and i’m hoping my words will convince you to love me,
so i don’t have to fall to me knees and beg.
it says, “if you love me half as much as i love you,
meet me at midnight behind hagrid’s shack,
and if you’re not there i’ll know that you don’t,
and i’ll have to find my way back to being your best friend.”
(chorus)
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MICHAEL6 (2005)
pissed1 on jesus2 juice3,
we bounce5 on michael’s6 bed7 and
watch8 dirty9 videos10.
_________________________________________________________
1] by pissed, i mean the english11 slang12 term for “being drunk” and not
as a synonym for “angry,” and yeah, we were so drunk13.
2] this would be the son of god in christian14 religions15 and not the short
guy16 with the mustache33 who cares for michael’s6 garden23.
3] actually, it wasn’t juice, it was wine17.
4] it was me18 and macaulay culkin19 who were there at the time because
jesus20 hadn’t arrived yet.
5] and by this, i mean we4 were jumping up and down on the bed7 clad
only in the underwear21 and rainbow toe socks22 michael6 had purchased
for us the afternoon before.
6] yes, that michael28.
7] it was this huge king-sized four-poster bed with dark maroon sheets
and an impossibly fluffy maroon comforter scattered with throw pillows
and stuffed animals. the weirdest part was the gigantic26 painting of
michael6 rising up out of the sea on a clamshell clothed in nothing but a
diaper24.
8] to be honest, we weren’t really paying attention to what was on the
big screen teevee25 because we were too busy spraying each other with
canned whipped cream31 and watching michael6 watch32 us4.
9] at first, we thought the videos were showing us4 on the big screen
teevee25 because they featured two boys in their underwear jumping up
and down on michael’s6 bed7, but then there were shots27 of someone
wearing spiked heals stepping onto the heads of mice42.
10] michael6 used a beta max machine25. i remember the tapes being very
small, and michael6 kept bragging about how much better they were than
regular vhs tapes.
11] i love english slang. when i read the harry potter books43, i always
make sure to get the uk versions with all the british slang12 intact.
12] here are some of my favorite british slang words and their meanings:
22
pram=baby carriage; trainers=athletic shoes; jumper=sweater; candy
floss=cotton candy; whingy=sad and whiny; pissed=drunk; shag=to
have sex.
13] i have to admit now that i wasn’t really drunk because i was afraid of
alcohol and only pretended to drink it, but mostly i spilled it on the carpet
and dumped it in the sink when i went to the bathroom44. i am pretty sure
macaulay culkin19 was very drunk40.
14] michael6 told us that he was a devout jehovah’s witness45 and that it
was okay to drink the wine because it was the “blood of the lord.” that’s
why he called it “jesus juice.”
15] i’ve tried all kinds of religions, but none has ever really fit. i tried
methodist, mormon, catholic, baptist -- even this one church where their
thing was singing without musical accompaniment since the bible never
mentioned singing to music -- but the whole thing creeped me out. i
never felt like i could get a straight answer from anyone. they would
all just lapse into this rote godspeak like recruiter robots for the lord.
my views have since been influenced more by non-western beliefs like
buddhism.
16] jesus gonzales-ortega pronounced his name like this: “hey-suess.”
he was always around when we4 were with michael6, so much so that
we started calling jesus juice14 HAY-SUESS JUICE. this would crack
michael6 up to no end. he would laugh and laugh and laugh.
17] we were never told what kind of wine it was, but i tasted something
many years later called port46 that was very similar.
18] my name is bill, but at the time, i went by billy. i was 12 then and in
sixth grade. i am 24 now and just finished by bachelor’s degree in english
literature with an emphasis on creative writing. michael6 paid for my
college. a lot of people40 think he did it to keep me quiet. i am not sure
what i think.
19] yes, that macaulay culkin. we were the same age at the time, and
even though we had fun when were playing together with michael6, i
always felt a little jealous of him since he was so rich and famous and so
obviously favoured by michael6. we never talked or hung out outside of
neverland ranch47 because i wasn’t famous, i just had cancer49.
20] this would be the short guy16 with the mustache33 who cares for
michael’s6 garden23, not the son of god in christian14 religions15.
21] i had always worn boxers, but michael6 preferred that we wear tightywhities because he said they offered more support. plus, he said that they
were more attractive. mac19 already wore them, but michael6 bought me
several packages so that i could wear them, too.
22] michael6 bought these for us, too, and i still have several pairs in a
box in my closet.
23
23] the gardens were filled with all kinds of amazing examples of topiary,
these large bushes trimmed to look like elephants and giraffes and other
exotic animals. there was even a maze30, and in the middle was a giant
bushy tree carved into the shape of michael6 holding a small child. there
were benches around the leafy michael6, and i used to sit on them and
read comic books29 for hours at a time as jesus20 manicured the bushes.
24] well, it might have been some sort of loin cloth, but it sure looked
like a diaper to me.
25] it was a sony, i believe, which was michael’s6 record company at the
time, so he probably got it for free40.
26] i mean, it was really big, by far the biggest painting i had ever
seen41.
27] i found out much later these were known as “crush” videos.
28] michael jackson, a soul/r&b singer whose early fame for musical
brilliance was over-shadowed by his eccentricities and taste for boys4.
29] i really liked thor and spiderman a lot, and michael had loads of
comics in his mansion, way more than you could ever read in your whole
life40.
30] now that i remember that maze, i am reminded of the one in “the
shining38.”
31] michael6 taught us how to suck the air out of cans of whipped cream
and hold our breaths until it made us feel lightheaded and funny. he said
it was even better than jesus juice, but it just made me feel dizzy and sick
to my stomach. i threw up on michael’s6 carpet in the bedroom, and he
was livid. it was the only time i had ever seen him angry.
32] michael6 would usually be dressed in a dark forest green smoking
jacket sort of thing with these absurdly pink house slippers that he thought
were a gas, and he would just sit there on a big orange faux-leopard
skin bean bag chair and encourage us to jump on his bed, laughing and
shouting, “shoot more whipped cream on him! jump higher! higher!” i
still remember the look of joy on his face.
33] who has mustaches these days? mustaches are weird. cops seem to
have a thing for mustaches. it must be some vestige of ‘70s masculinity.
i think it makes a person look cheesy and cheap. whenever sean pean37
is playing a character that is unsavory in some way, he always wears a
mustache.
34] i think if michael jackson6 is truly guilty of the crimes that are alleged,
he should go to prison36, but i really hope he gets counseling while he is
in there, because if there is anyone in need of counseling, jesus christ,
it’s michael jackson6.
35] if michael jackson6 turns out to be innocent, then i hope the people
who made him go through all this pay very, very dearly, then i hope
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michael jackson6 leaves america and stays the rest of his life in a country48
where people will leave him the fuck alone.
36] i do feel, though, that if michael6 goes to prison, he will probably
not last very long. he would probably die there long before he is due to
be released, and that would be such a sad end to such a turbulent life.
i hope he gets help. i don’t know if michael molested anyone, but i do
know he never molested me. it was jesus20 who did it while we were in
the garden.20
37] sean pean is one of my favourite actors. his movie “the assassination
of richard m. nixon” was amazing.
38] the scariest movie of all time40, especially those scenes with the
creepy little girls and that elevator gushing blood.
40] i cannot confirm this.
41] which is not to say that i had seen all that many large paintings as i
was only 12 at the time, but still it was huge.
42] i think they were mice, but they could’ve been rats.
43] don’t get me started.
44] you have never40 seen a bathroom as opulent as this one. the sinks
were literally gold. not just golden, but made of solid gold. the toilet
had a seat that was not only covered in velvet, but it was self-heating.
the spigots for the sink we shaped like the arching necks of swans with
the water spilling gently out of their mouths. and the tub? wow... it was
as big as a jacuzzi. we4 took many bubble baths together with michael6
watching from the toilet seat, and the suds nearly went to the ceiling.
45] while i would never want to disparage anyone’s religious beliefs, i
have to say that the whole “no blood transfusions” thing kinda weirds me
out about jehovah’s witnesses. i asked a jehovah’s witness once if they
would just let their child die if they were in need of a transfusion, and this
jehovah’s witness said, “better to let the body die than the soul.” i don’t
know if i believe in that.50
46] port is a very sweet wine with spices and a notable raisin flavour. it’s
higher in alcohol content than most wines, according to the guy at the
wine store.
47] neverland ranch wasn’t really a ranch; it was more like an amusement
park. my favorite part was the garden23.
48] france? sweden? luxemborg?
49] i got better.
50] to be honest, i am not sure what i believe.
25
SCARS (2003)
when i belch,
i finish by exhaling deeply
as if ridding my lungs
of any remaining gases.
i don’t make a big deal of it.
it’s just something i do.
and every time i belch like that,
i think of trish,
the first person i ever knew
who belched liked that.
we only dated two and half months.
graduation was enough
to end our college romance,
but she left the belch with me.
there was a time when i could eat
campbell’s tomato soup all by itself,
but no now, not after kimberly.
now a bowl of campbell’s tomato soup
just seems... silly
without a grilled cheese sandwich
to sop it up.
i have a scar
on the knuckle
of my right pointer finger
from when i slammed the receiver
of the phone so hard
after breaking up with sonia
it shattered both my phone
and my skin.
once a year
every year
just before the academy awards
that old scar prickles,
26
and i’ll send sonia an e-mail
asking for her oscar picks.
she usually answers.
two lives dig their nails
into each other
for a couple of months, a year, more
and leave curly-cues of flesh
in their wake
favorite movies co-opted
catch phrases caught and adopted
books
discarded concert t-shirts
for bands you’ve never seen
found beneath futons so long ago
you’ve forgotten they were once someone else’s
they are
blackened rings
hidden deep
in the hearts of oaks
they are hiroshima shadows
on crumbling brick walls
i don’t know what you will have left behind
how you will have marked me
a love for sweet tea and the central texas hill country
sushi and avocados and alt-country and naps and buttermilk pie
and the endless pursuit of the purfect plate of migas
a yearning to write from a deeper place
to calm my anger and defensiveness
to quiet my insecurities
to remove the stone held tight between my shoulder blades
arguments about traffic about money about jealousy
about space about space about space
27
these scars
are water stains
on eggshell plaster walls
so faint
you can only see them
when the light’s just right
they are small half-moon crescents
dug into the meat of my heel
whispering of barefoot summers
fishing from wooden docks
they are badly-fused broken bones
that ache
when i read poems about rain
but i want you to know
that i have torn my shirt off for you
whip my bare back with rose bushes and nettles
i’ll take the scars
and i cherish every one of them
and i gladly collected them
and the stories behind them
and the lessons learned
and all the songs that for the rest of my life will sing only of you
i’ll take the scars
they’re the only things that prove you have loved
and i have loved you as much as i could.
28
TIGERLILY (2004)
a key to understanding her is understanding tigerlily.
she introduced me to tigerlily about two weeks after we met. tigerlily is
what she calls her period, and there’s a magical lilt to her voice when she
speaks of it, and a gravity.
all the girls at the treatment center where she spent six months named
their periods. it was a ritual of healing and rebirth, a sacred ceremony
marking the time when her tiny body had healed enough to bleed again,
a celebration that the 75 pounds of flesh wrapping her thin bones had
blossomed to 85 or 90 pounds, just enough to flick hidden switches in her
body and reawaken the dormant womanhood held captive by hunger.
when she bled again for the first time, she wept ferociously, reclaiming
her body and reconnecting to every curve and hollow, refusing for good
the fight of finger and throat that burned her tongue with acid and etched
the enamel of her smile and distanced her soul from her flesh.
the other night, we walked to the 24-hour restaurant near campus holding
hands and smiling. as we talked and absent-mindedly rubbed bare
legs together under the table like grasshoppers, she picked bits of my
blueberry pancake and plopped them into her mouth, little bites, and i
realized it was the first time i had ever seen her eat.
she still struggles. she’s a vegetarian who skips lunches too often. she
smokes too much. drinks diet coke. her 5’1” frame is all gossamer and
willow branches, but there’s a determination in her gaze that radiates to
every limb, a solumn promise she made to herself to never again drive
tigerlily away.
29
I WANT TO HOLD YOU (2005)
i want to hold you
like an audience holds its breath
when the trapese artist lets go
i want to kiss your knees so weak
the grassy arms of the world
wrap themselves around you
and press your head
to its loamy bosom
i want to love you
like we’ll never be alone
like we’re never gonna die
like all that matters
right here and now
is that we can whisper
promises
on the backs
of our necks
and feel them
before we hear them
carved on the roof of my mouth
in a language your tongue alone speaks
is one word:
yes.
i want to drink deeply
the beads of sweat that collect
in the hollows of your hips
and tattoo devotion on your ribs
with my lips in glistening script
etch a trail of tingles
with gentle taps of my tongue
from the base of your neck
to the tip of your spine
until your belly beckons me
in syllables of sighs
30
i want to read psalms
from your open bible
plant soul kisses
that blossom into heartbeats
on my tongue
you taste just like god
i want the riverbend of your body to blend
with my ebb and flow and grow
to embrace us and engulf us and
send us cascading over
the edge of the bed to the floor
with the sheets and the blankets
as the cats run for the door
i want to press my flesh so tightly against yours
our spines entangle and our blood commingles
and your heart
pounds marimba beats
inside my ribcage
and then i just want to lie there
beneath the glow-in-the-dark stars
on the ceiling
and listen
to the cobalt blue sky
shushing against our windowscreen
as the first bird of morning
clears its throat
31
UNTITLED (2001)
“Mmmmmmm....”
and the darkness
could not hide
her smile.
“That was...”
(searching)
“...so...”
(yes yes)
“...nice,” she said, exhaling the word
like incense smoke,
like warmth,
like new.
And it was
nice,
very nice
to feel those words
tickle the back of my neck,
her arm
curled around me from behind
her fingers like petals
gently pressed against the open book of my chest.
And we had no use
for question marks
in this poetry of the flesh
no use for foreshadowing
no use for words
other than “perhaps... perhaps...”
and sweet, sleepy sighs
as we faded
and her cats snuggled tightly
around our toes.
32
CATS (2004)
why can’t you be more like my cats?
my cats are happy when i come home. they greet me warmly, are very
obviously happy to see me, even wiggle their little tails at me with
anticipation for my touch.
they’re never, like, “where have you been all night long?”
they’re never, like, “what’s this? is this cat hair on your hoodie? you’ve
been hanging out with other cats, haven’t you?”
they’re never, like, “how come nothing but cats leave comments on your
livejournal? you’re using your livejournal to flirt with other cats, aren’t
you?”
they’re never, like, “who made this long distance phone call to the
vatican?”
they’re never, like, “when are you going to pay me back that $2100 you
owe me?”
no, they’re just really, really happy to see all the time. the only thing my
cats want more than for me to touch them is for me to pick them up and
hold them and whisper cute things into their ears. they love that shit. why
can’t you be more like my cats?
my cats are never cold and distant for weeks at a time. my cats never
roll over and turn their backs to me immediately upon getting into bed
because it’s that time of the year. my cats never say, “don’t pet me, i have
a headache.” my cats never say, “i hate it when your legs touch me when
we sleep because you get me all sweaty.” my cats never say, “don’t kiss
me, you breath stinks!” my cats never say, “i hate giving you blow jobs
because it takes you 30 minutes to come and then my jaw all hurts.”
my cats don’t care where i’ve been, all they care is that i’m back, and
that makes them happy, because they miss me when i’m gone, even
when it’s just to go to the bathroom. they love me dearly, and they have
no problems with that. they need me, and this does not fill them with
insecurities. they know i will always be there for them, and i know they
will always be there for me. they love me for who i am. and they don’t
33
sweat me all the time about looking for a job. and they aren’t always on
my back about never having any money. and if they had been the ones to
have bailed me out of jail that one time, they would’ve been glad to do
it, and they would’ve been over it by now.
my cats love me.
why can’t you be more like my cats?
loving you is like having a great big potty box full of cat crap right there
in the middle of the living room, only there are no cats around to pet.
34
US (2003)
you might not know them, but you’ve seen them.
standing stifly beside each other
in the line behind you at the supermarket checkout stand
in the video store
in the dmv
the bitter couple
fingers curled into ballpeen hammers
held rigidly at their hips
the rictus of frustration
on their lips
the silence
measured in sighs
35
THE TRAIN STATION (2003)
i remember it like i’m right there, right now, and my shoulder’s wet, and
my back hurts, and the hard plastic chair is making my shirt stick to the
small of my back, and the train station is packed with people waiting on
their own hard, sweaty plastic chairs, and my shoulder’s wet, and i am
miserable, and i can’t hold her tighter without hurting her, and her head
is on my shoulder, and we are waiting for her train to come and take her
away, and we both know she will never come back, even if she does
physically come back, she will be different, it will all be different, and
my shoulder is wet, and i am miserable, and i know it’s the right thing
to do, and she knows it’s the right thing to do, but we are dreading the
moment when her train is announced, and then it is, and she lifts her head
from my shoulder and stands, wipes her nose, and i pick the sweaty shirt
out of the small of my back, and i adjust my shoulders, and i pick up her
bags, and we walk to the gate, and we just look at each other, red-rimmed
eyes, puffy cheeks, miserable, knowing we have to do this, knowing
there’s no way around it but through it, and we hug, and my shoulder is
wet, and i am miserable, and she walks away from me without ever once
looking back, and i watch her the whole way until she gets on the train
and disappears.
36
LONELINESS (2004)
if you submerge
a chunk of dry desert soil,
it won’t get wet.
the intensity of its need
insulates it
from the very thing
it needs the most.
loneliness
loneliness is like that.
lonely people reek
of desperation
and its intensity
repulses us.
there’s no one more alone
than a person surrounded
by those who refuse to touch them
simply because they need so badly
to be touched
this society breeds
bothers and sister of tantalus
surrounded by orchards of fruit trees
with wrists that flick at their approach
chunks of desert
shining silver
in buckets of water
37
SOMEONE (2003)
someone who is quicker to laugh than rage. someone who does things
rather than just sit on the couch talking about doing things. someone
who makes things. someone who watches the news and gets pissed and
wants to do something about it. someone who can appreciate a long, deep
breath full of austin in the summertime after being pelted by rain the size
of baby fists. someone who can sit on a couch under a blanket and read
with me while nick drake is playing on the stereo and not say a word for
hours, sipping chamomile tea with lemon and honey and touching toes.
someone who will look me in the eye and disagree with me. someone
who can have an effortless conversation lasting for hours. someone who
enjoys debating movies and politics and books and food. someone who
enjoys a long walk in zilker park. someone who would rather see local
theatre than watch teevee, but who also appreciates that sometimes “six
feet under” and “queer eye for the straight guy” make teevee almost
worth watching every once in a while. someone who isn’t afraid to dance
even though they secretly know they look silly when they dance, but it’s
okay since everyone looks silly when they dance. someone who can’t
pass a jell-o butt puppy without patting its wee scruffy head. someone
who yearns for travel and adventure, but who also appreciates the lure of
home. someone with their shit together most of the time. someone who
doesn’t take themselves so seriously that they can’t laugh at themselves.
someone who can tell me, “you know what? that thing you did the other
day bothered me, and i wanted to talk to you about it.” someone who
can tell me, “you know, i really don’t feel like hanging out tonight.”
someone who can kick my ass at balderdash and scrabble. someone who
can appreciate the joy of mix tapes. someone who spoons. someone
who kicks ass. someone who has goals they can actually taste. someone
who has gotten their heart broken and has learned from that experience.
someone who appreciates hand-made birthday cards and homemade
cakes that are kinda lopsided but honest.
38
BIRTH CONTROL (2004)
dear future ex-girlfriend,
first off, i am so sorry.
i mean, i don’t even know you... yet... but if we dated, then yeah, i
probably owe you an apology.
i’m sure things started out pretty good.
i probably met you at a poetry slam, right? met you in the break between
rounds after having rocked the mic, and you said, “hey, good job!” and
i said, “hey, wanna be my girlfriend?” and you probably looked at me
with that gleam in your eye shaped just like me, and that gleam probably
looked kinda cute, and kinda witty, and kinda cool.
then we kinda... did it, right?
then the gleam kinda dimmed, right?
and you probably found me kinda... high maintenance, right?
you probably noticed that i said “i love you” more times in a day than any
other guy you’ve ever dated, which, at first, was pretty cool, until you
realized it had less to do with you and more to do with me hoping for that
echoed response i crave from all my audiences, and that probably made
you think i was a wee bit clingy, and that probably hurt my feelings and
made me feel defensive, and that probably made you feel like i needed to
take care of my own shit instead of depending on you to take care of it for
me, and that probably made me feel you were cold and distant, and you
probably started thinking i needed therapy to get over my co-dependency
shit, and i probably started thinking you were a mean-spirited bitch and
fuck you anyway because you are so very obviously the one who needs
therapy...
and then... i made you laugh by saying something silly and charming
even though you hated me having that power over you, and i was back to
being warm and witty and wonderful again.
until the next time we got back on that white water rafting trip of love, and
it could’ve gone on that way forever, except something inside us finally
39
snapped, some intrinsic connection was lost, and we de-crescendoed from
there, holding on ever more loosely with a grip powered by the fading
memory of the good times we had that got more and more distant until it
was like they were never anything more than poems i once wrote.
i no doubt wrote poems about you, right? and they probably made you
feel kinda special, right? please know this: even when those words were
recycled from old phrases in old poems about old lovers, i meant every
word.
i hope to meet you again someday, someday after the anger is gone,
maybe bump into each other in the supermarket and chat a bit by the
organic produce, you with your committed life partner, me with whoever
i happen to be writing poetry about at the time, someone caught between
me writing this letter and actually giving it to them. but that probably
won’t happen, since you probably hate my guts and have replaced my
name in stories you tell with some cruel nickname i no doubt deserve.
i am sure i think about you a lot. i mean, i must since i probably perform
poems about you all the time at the poetry slams you no longer attend.
i hope every once in a while you play those mixtapes i gave you, the ones
you think i made especially for you, and i hope they make you smile in
spite of yourself.
be warm.
love, eirik.
p.s. i have to admit something: i fucked your sister once. i couldn’t help
it. we were so drunk that one time you were out of town, and she smelled
just like you.
p.p.s. i am so kidding about you sister. i don’t even know if you have
one... yet.
40
SKINNY WHITE GIRLS (2001)
if you are not a skinny white girl
you are nothing
if your ass isn’t tight enough to
launch a thousand ad campaigns
across mixed markets
you are nothing
if your breasts aren’t full enough
if your cleavage isn’t deep enough
if your nipples aren’t erect enough
to sell a 19-35-year-old middle class American male
a brand new shiny automobile
every two years,
you are nothing.
your breasts, after all, are not meant to nourish babies,
no,
they are meant to sell men with money things they don’t need.
and your body is not meant to house your soul,
no,
it is meant to push product.
inevitably, when i start on my so-called “feminist kick”
some asshole has to come up to me and say,
say the phrase that pays, baby,
“how can you be a feminist?
you’re a guy.
what, are you a fag?”
yeah,
supporting a woman’s right
to live in this society
without having corporations
dismember her body
tear off its arms and legs and head and shake what’s left at a nation
of testosterone-infected dickheads like yourself
in order to induce a capitalistic frenzy
yeah,
41
that’s makes me want to suck your cock.
how can i be a feminist?
the question, asshole, is not how can i be a feminist?
the question is this:
how can you
look your mother in the eye
and justify not
being
a feminist?
42
THOUGHTS ON GAY MARRIAGE (2004)
i don’t think gay people should be allowed to marry each other.
i think any gay people who want to get married should be banished to a
desert island with nothing but a remote control for a teevee, only there’s
no teevee, and even if there were, it wouldn’t matter because there’s
no electricity on the island and no batteries in the remote, and it’s not
even really a remote, it’s a old broken calculator that doesn’t even work
anymore, and that would serve those gay people right for wanting to get
married.
in fact, i think anybody who wants to get married should be shot out
of a cannon on live teevee in front of a studio audience. that would be
so cool. if you had tivo, you could pause it when they were in mid-air,
then you could rewind it and make them go back into the cannon, then
you could forward it again, and go back and forth and back and forth,
and it would be so funny because it would look like they were humping
the cannon, only with their whole bodies. oh, and they should be made
to wear red, white, and blue leather body suits like evel knievel and it
would be patriotic and every time someone was shot out of the cannon,
the audience would all rise to their feet and put their hands on their hearts
and sing the preamble to the constitution like on “schoolhouse rock,” and
after we shot them out of the cannon we could banish them to gay island,
too, with all the gay people, only they could never take the red, white,
and blue leather evel knievel body suits off no matter how hot it got,
and that’s the way you could tell the gay people from the straight people
because the straight people would all wear red, white, and blue leather
evel knievel body suits and all the gay people would just be naked all the
time and humping each other around huge bonfires made of all those old
broken calculators they’d have laying around, only they’re so gay they
don’t even know they’re not teevee remotes, they’re so gay they don’t
even call them remotes, they call them ‘clickers,’ and the straight people
find this so annoying that they launch a big attack on the gay people and
come into their camps while they’re humping each other and pelt them
with rocks and garbage and the gay people would jump up and start
throwing flaming clickers back at them, and all of this could be broadcast
live on cable teevee and it could be called “battle for gay island,” and
they would fight and fight and fight, then we’d cut to commercial, then
we’d be back and they would fight and fight and then godzilla would
come and kill them all by putting them on fire by shooting fire out of his
mouth on them and stomping on them and eating them live on teevee,
43
and you could always tell when he’d just eaten a straight person because
he’d spit out their red, white, and blue leather evel knievel bodysuits and
lift his head up and do that roar.
i don’t think gay people should be allowed to get married, because this
would be way, way cooler.
44
OPEN LETTER (2004)
open letter to the straight, white, middle-class, american, male poetry
slammer who complained with a straight face that he is, in fact, one of
the most oppressed persons in the scene because he isn’t allow to, and i
quote, “pull the race card.”
subtitled: twenty reasons why you should shut the fuck up
you can walk into any drug store in america and find flesh-coloured
band-aids that actually match your flesh colour.
you can go to any city and be stopped by a police officer and be reasonably
sure your skin color had nothing to do with it.
you can be a student at any university and not be told the only reason you
are there is to fill some kind of quota.
you can be fairly certain that the neighborhood where most of the people
who look like you live will not be given a cute nickname like “little
montana” or “oklahoma town” or “the ghetto.”
you can do well in a challenging situation and not be called “a credit to
your race.”
no one is ever going to preface a question with a phrase like, “as a straight,
white, middle-class american male, what do you think about...”
no one will ever say, “you are so well-spoken... for a straight, white,
middle-class american male.”
no one will ever claim to have friends that look like you in order to prove
they are open-minded.
no one will ever try to gain your trust and approval by saying, “i love
straight, white, middle-class american male food! i eat it all the time!”
no one will ever try to date you simply because you are “exotic.”
you can write about any fucked up thing that’s ever happened to you, and
no one will ever accuse you of “pulling the race card.”
45
no one will ever pluck the creative fruits of your artistic labour and those
of your culture then take credit for their creation and make more money
from them than those who created them.
you can be sure no one will ever claim you deserved to be sexually
harassed or beaten or raped because of the clothes you wear or how
many people you have had sex with.
being a straight, white, middle-class american male ensures that you
will probably never have to endure laws passed to prevent you from
exercising your reproductive freedom and the freedom to marry someone
you love, it means you have probably had more access to a higher quality
of education, better housing, better health care, better police protection,
better fire protection, less air pollution, less water pollution, less crime,
and more political representation than any other group in the history of
the planet.
if you refuse to admit your overwhelming privilege and how that privilege
has helped you in this country, then how in the world can you use that
privilege to change this country? and if you are not using your privilege,
motherfucker, if you can’t even admit to that privilege, motherfucker,
then you are not just part of the problem, motherfucker, you ARE the
problem, and until you are ready to do something about it, you can shut
the fuck up.
46
DEAD HORSES (2005)
i was molested as a child... now, give me a 10.
my mother had to raise me by herself while hooking on the street corner...
give me a 10.
i have so very little self-control that i am addicted to everything, and
everyone who’s ever tried in vain to help me has given up on me, and i
think this is all somehow so... very... romantic and tragic and moving...
and so not my fault! give me a 10!
the government hates people of colour! and gay people! and feminists!
and ravers! give me a motherfucking 10!
and i’m not going to actually write a poem, oh no, i’m gonna slap together
the most unsubtle images and over-used similes stolen from every highscoring slam poem i’ve ever seen and use them to paint my tragedies
with such bold strokes and lurid detail that you will be both repulsed and
proud of the strength it takes to admit them... over and over on stage after
stage, a single tear rolling down my cheek as my voice cracks with passion
during the same... pregnant... pause... pushing the same worn buttons and
manipulating the same hackneyed emotions.
i dare you to disrespect my pain, because if you do, everyone will know
that you think i DESERVED to be molested -- even if the story i want you
to believe is MY truth is actually a conglomeration of stories i’ve either
overheard or made up.
give me a 10, because if you are against me, then you hate america AND
the baby jesus, and what did the baby jesus ever do to you, heathen? give
me a 10 or every bad choice in my main character’s life will have been in
vain! give me a 10 or this audience will know that you think watching my
best friend die in my arms after i shot him up with that eightball of speed,
or dimebag of... heroin, or what the fuck ever is NOT fucked up.
you see, i don’t want you to rank my poem; i want you to rank my
issue.
and when i come here next week and drag my dead horse to the corner
of this stage and spend three minutes and ten seconds beating the living
shit out of it, then pass the mic to the next poet so he can do the same, we
47
can all abandon any pretense of poetry and simply pit “i was molested”
vs. “i was discriminated against” vs. “george w. bush is an asshole” and
force the judges to assign scores to these ideas rather than the poems
used to communicate and explore these ideas, turning every truly moving
human tragedy into just another strategy to pimp our real or imagined
pain for points.
and then we can pat ourselves on the back for rendering yet another vital
form of expression irrelevant by the very people who claim to be its
staunchest supporters, derailing our revolution by simply writing about
a revolution we’ll never have the courage -- or writing skill -- to bring
to fruition.
and let’s be honest... i don’t really want to change the world...
i just want to think i do long enough to win.
48
RAGE (1989)
the sun
lurches
from behind
the steeple-stabbed town
violets
shake
sun-splattered dewdrops
from dark petals
that quiver
in the prowling,
miasmic haze
a worker bee
grumbles
crisscrossing the field
collecting tithes
carried wearily
at his sides
a stigmata-skinned lizard
arches
on a warming rock
its ridged backside
folded and wrinkled
into a frown
then
white-hot light
bursts
through stained glass
rains
multicoloured shards
upon a lowing herd
the grimacing preacherman
scarlet robes ablaze
lashes
his followers
49
into the apocryphal agony
His love invokes
sunday mourning
in a prairie town
50
LIGHTHOUSE (1998)
i am
a leaf
in a storm
drain,
mouse in a hurricane,
tossed
by winds i no
more
control
than i do the channels
of the moon
of the frequency
of the
child’s
screams
i scream
across the bandwidths
of unmodulated
white noise
the light’s
gone
out
the rocks
below the waterline
can’t be seen
my fingerbones
etch
wicked bloody wakes
51
across
my
face
scattering
red splinters
down
tinto the frothing current below
52
MMM MMM, PRO PATRIA! (1988)
big, sticky parfait
of cherry syrup,
vanilla cream,
and blueberry gel,
a gooey concoction
whipped up
by bitter, aging chefs
and waved
in front of the rotten-toothed mouths
of innocents ready
to be spoon-fed anything
candy-coated
and easy to swallow
until
the acrid aftertaste
sours their stomachs
and twistst their bodies
with malnutrition
and transforms them
into a new wave of bitter, aging chefs
doling out new and improved bonbons
and lemon drops
and heroes
wrapped in
red
white
and blue.
53
WHYM (1987)
the pale flame of an unformed idea flickers in my mind.
on sight, i give chase, trying desperately to bind
and capture the flame, giving fuel and tinder
to build and shape and coerce the bright splendor
of a raging bonfire of flowing creation
that swells to burst into its fruition
and onto the paper that lies blank before me,
becoming the words that tell their own story.
54
LYCANTHROPY (1998)
arching
twisting
gnashing man
all teeth and gums and shotgun eyes
shatters
splatters
the air about
with claws of rabid hate and rage
his drooling-thick
saliva scream
stains the silence razor red
smearing
dreary
disappearing
echoes drip and run and fade
55
STEEPLE-STABBED AND HELLBOUND (1999)
he’s back
his jet black sedan
prowls the darkened highway
imbedded
with blackened husks
of this victims’ fingernails
his engine’s roar
is the plaintive wail
of a thousand howling wolves
and the sticky black hurricane
of furious bat wings
steely grip
around a steering wheel
fashioned of arthritic knucklebones
of a thousand suicides
the black-clad thumb and trigger finger
pinching
a swollen black stogie
wrapped with crackling baby skin
and stuffed with eyebrows
and a thousand strangled children
crucifixes and swastikas
of brittle bone and twisted hair
rattle from his rearview
to the rhythm
of his cackling laughter
his headlights
cut the night
like a knife
through a black velvet dress
he knows
where i live
knows
i’m alone
56
knows
how i slammed the phone
on you
last night
and now he’s coming for me
in a cloud of black crows and locusts
and bitter black wind
he’s coming for me
and i close my eyes
and wait
57
DISILLUSION CURRY (2003)
i knew a girl once.
i don’t remember her name. i may never have known her name, to be
honest, but she was “the cute girl at the thai place” for a long time, my
favorite waitress in my favorite restaurant in my favorite little college
town.
she always made me smile.
one day, she was wearing a sheer white shirt, and you could see right
through her sleeve to see the large tattoo on her forearm. i asked her
about it, and she rolled up her sleeve and showed it to me, this huge
colorful tattoo of a pepsi can.
i was... well... sort of taken aback.
i asked her about it, and she said, “yeah, i used to love pepsi. drank it all
the time, so much that all my friends used to call me ‘pepsi.’”
we paused for a moment, then i asked her about the use of the past tense,
and she said, “yeah, the real shame of it is that i don’t even drink pepsi
anymore. i drink coke.”
at that very moment, precisely as she finished that sentence, i fell deeply
out of love with the cute girl at the thai place.
58
THE GLITTER GIRL FIASCO (2003)
i was dating someone at the time... kinda... from what i remember.
i think it was kimberly, the person i consider my college girlfriend, the
one i dated off and on for about two years, then had break up sex with for
another, oh, two years after that.
the glitter girl fiasco happened sometime during that “we’re not going
out right now, but we are currently having sex on a regular basis” period
in between official break ups and make ups, a time where the idea of
“other people” was a subject filed under “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
so, we’re at a party in our little college town, and kimberly spies some
girl in the corner of the party dressed for maximum magnetism -- tight
red skirt, tight black scoop-neck top, glitter sprinkled all over her bosom
-- and kimberly huffs, “oh jesus christ, look at her.”
and i feign like i haven’t already scoped cleavage girl, and i’m like,
“who?”
and she’s like, “that floozy over there. the one with the glitter all over her
tits. jesus, what a slut.”
and i’m like, “sheesh, yeah, gosh, what a slut. i’m sure glad you don’t
dress like that.”
she smiles at me, and she squeezes my arm, then she makes for the table in
the corner by the drinks and the snacks. kimberly dressed conservatively.
she never had cleavage exposed to open air unless the lights were off or
she was ready to take a shower. her favorite color was lavender. every
piece of her favorite clothing was lavender. she was a soft lavender
sweater type of gal, very definitely not a tight black scoop-neck glitter
girl type of gal.
and the night goes on, and the drinks are drunk, and snacks are snacked
upon, and before you know it, kimberly is over in the corner chatting up
some people she recognizes from class, and i find myself in the opposite
corner chatting up glitter girl, who actually happens to be really cool.
and... you know... one thing lead to another...
59
and suddenly i am in some back bedroom totally romping with glitter
girl. (hangs head in shame)
yes, please, feel free to think i am a cad. i accept that. i was a cad, a cad
who had been drinking an exceptional amount of bailey’s on the rocks
and pretending not to stare at glitter girl’s boobs all night long. anyway,
something had to give, and give it did.
so i walk back into the living room with the rest of the crowd, and i waltz
over to kimberly, ready to show her some guilt lovin’, and she takes one
look at me and just about chokes on her drink. she spits what’s left into
her red plastic cup, and she goes, “you are such an asshole!”
and i’m like, “what?” and i’m thinking, <i>there’s no fucking way she
can know! how can she know?</i>
and she’s like, “oh, i can’t believe you, that’s it. i’m going home right this
very minute.” and she slams her drinks onto the table and bolts for the
door, with me following after her going, “what’s wrong? what the hell
happened? what’s going on?”
she was silent the whole way to my place, then skidded to a halt at my
curb without stopping the motor. i just looked at her... she looked away...
so i got out of the car and she floored it before i could close the door.
i went up stairs wondering how in the world i was going to smooth this
over, and when i got to the bathroom to brush my teeth before climbing
into bed, i looked at my self in the mirror.
my face sparkled and shined with a fine coating of glitter, my guilt
broadcast for the whole world to see in flashes of rainbow hues.
i just put my head in my hands and laughed. what else could i do? i was
cold-busted.
60
THE BETTER MAKER-OUTER (2003)
i have only ever known one nicole.
and it could be that i am wrong, that i have known many nicoles in my
time, but one nicole stands out among them all -- nicole, the twin sister of
misty, the extremely cute girl i worked with in the record store.
i remember i had such a crush on misty -- we all did -- but she was so
aware of her power over us foolish mortal record store boys that she
rarely gave us the time of the day, preferring to reserve her affections for
the occasional ruffled rocker boys who drifted in from what must have
surely been sweaty band practices in dank garages.
and then, her twin sister nicole got a job there, too, and nicole was a
hottie just like misty was, only nicole was cool and approachable, and we
ended up going out on a date once or twice or three times, long enough
to make out, and she was really cool and really sweet, much cooler and
sweeter than her sister.
and this was the topic of conversation for several weeks amongst the
boys at work who yearned for misty’s affections... questions were asked,
stories were shared, and the u2 song “even better than the real thing”
played in everyone’s minds.
and then nicole started dating another guy from work, and this changed
everything. misty suddenly seemed to realize that people were digging
on her sister more than her, so she became nicer, more approachable,
only, like... agressively so.
misty and i ended up making out at a party once, and while it was nice, i
couldn’t help but think she was doing it for no other reason than to show
me she was a better kisser than her sister.
after it became widely known that i had made it with not just one of the
sexy twins, but both, well... i can say that any doubts about my game
were erased. along with a newfound respect from my peers came the
questions about who was the better maker outer, but i never told: i merely
said, “you’ll just have to find out for yourself.”
(for the record, nicole was the much better kisser of the two, plus nicole
would let you touch her boobs.)
61
after that, it was like this competition between the twins at work to see
who could make out with more record store boys than the other. it was a
rare boy at that record store who had not made out with both nicole and
misty, and most agreed that nicole was the better maker outer of the two.
we would share whispered war stories and compare how far we had been
allowed into the sacred jungles of their loins.
i was the first to make out with both twins, plus i was the first to break
the boob barrier with nicole, so i had a sort of aura about me initially,
like a record store chuck yeager, but then the underwear barrier was
shattered in both the twins nearly simultaneously, and my exploits were
over-shadowed as the duel for the twins’ golden temple of the buddha
heated up.
by this time, doug was dating nicole and had made out once with misty
at a party (the same party, i think, where she made out with me), and tim
was dating misty and had made out with nicole and touched her left boob
once after a party. us guys who were, by this time, left out in the cold,
gathered every monday to hear of the weekend’s conquests.
tim would end up claiming victory as the first of us record store boys to
succesfully have sex with one of the twins, although he and misty broke
up almost immediately after. the rumor was that doug and misty 69’ed,
but she wouldn’t go any further; still, he got honors for being the only
record store boy to venture down that path with either of the twins, so the
quest was considered a draw in the end.
it’s hard to remember now, but it seems that within two or three weeks
of these momentous occasions, both the twins quit their jobs. misty met
some navy guy and fell instantly in love and moved in with him. we
heard months later that they got married and moved out of town. as for
nicole, she broke up with doug and got a job at a bank.
i would see her every once in a while because her bank was the same
bank i used to cash my paychecks from the record store. we would chat...
she would ask me to say hello to everyone for her... i hardly ever did. and
then one day nicole didn’t work there any more. and that was that.
and now any nicoles i meet bear the burden of this memory, like a big
backpack i put on their shoulders the moment i hear their name, a tattoo
they have no idea i’ve etched into their skin: the memory of nicole, the
better maker outer.
62
DEATH WISH (1999)
We are all going to die someday.
And we all have to deal with this fact our own ways.
Some people are New Agey about their deaths, requesting that their
bodies be burned in a big Tibetan ceremony until their heads burst open
and release their spirits skyward. Then, a small gathering of friends can
mix their ashes with potting soil and have a tree-planting shindig where
everyone wears party hats and tells dirty stories and feels a whole lot
better afterwards knowing their essence was coursing through the veins
of a living tree.
Well, that scenario is all fine and good, but I see a slightly different
scenario for my death.
Call me grandiose, but when i die, I want world markets to collapse,
tectonic plates to shift, volcanos to erupt, hurricanes to blow, jet planes
packed with passengers to plummet from the sky, endangered species
to fall dead, mountains to crumble, and the entire Bush Family to
spontaneously combust the very moment I breath my last breath.
I want virgins sacrificed by the busload and lots of weeping and moaning
and gnashing of teeth when I die, and I want the thousand years following
my death designated as The Millennium of Mourning. I want the year I
was born changed from 1967 A.D. to “The Year Things Got Cool.”
I want my last words to contain the cure for AIDS, cancer, heart disease,
bad breath and the common cold and the exact location of Jimmy Hoffa’s
body. I want my shitty hometown of Bakersfield, California, consumed
by a holy firestorm and anyone looking at it to be turned into a pillar of
salt.
I want everyone who believes in God to tear at their eyes and jump off
bridges and tall buildings, and I want everyone who doesn’t believe
in God to make me their deity. I want the members of Christian youth
groups to wear little motivational bracelets that say, ‘WWBPED’ and
when they look at those bracelets in times of moral dilemma, i want it to
give them the motivation to launch tri-state crime sprees because that’s
exactly what big poppa e wants them to do.
63
I want hundreds of thousands of women to claim I was the father of
their love children, because i was the father of their love children. I want
every person on this entire planet to simultaneously write in their online
journal, “Oh shit, big poppa e died.”
I want the oceans to dry up and every crop to turn brown and every puppy
to get hit by a car and every voice raised in one colossal global wail.
I want Obi-Wan Kenobi to pause, put his fingertips to his temples, stagger
and say, “I just felt a terrible disturbance in The Force, as if millions of
voices cried out, then were suddenly silenced.”
I want reality to come to a screeching halt when I die, and the only way
you’re gonna prevent the Apocalypse from dancing down Main Street
in a tight, red dress, is by protecting me like the fucking Crown Jewels
because if anything happens to me, man, I am taking every one of you
motherfuckers with me.
64
LORD OF THE BREAKFAST CLUB #1 (2004)
SCENE 39. RIVENDELL - DAY
Gimli and Legolas kiss, Legolas rips a patch off Gimli’s cloak and climbs
upon his horse to ride away. We see Frodo take off a diamond earring
and put it into Sam’s hand. They kiss and Frodo climbs aboard the sleek
white swan ship, which sails into the sunset. We see Sam put the diamond
earring in his ear.
CUT TO:
40. INT. MORDOR - DAY
We see Sauron pick up a scroll and begin to read.
FRODO (VO)
Dear Sauron, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice thirteen months
of our lives marching across Middle Earth to defeat you. But we think
you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are.
You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most
convenient definitions.
CUT TO:
41. EXT. RIVENDELL - DAY
We see Sam walking towards us as Frodo’s monologue continues.
FRODO (VO)
(CONT’D)
But what we found out is that each one of us is a hobbit...
ARAGORN (VO)
...and a ranger...
GIMLI (VO)
...and a dwarf...
LEGOLAS (VO)
...and an elf...
65
GANDALF (VO)
...and a wizard...
FRODO (VO)
Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Fellowship of the
Ring.
We see Sam walking across an open field outside Rivendell as he thrusts
his fist into the air in a silent cheer and freezes there.
The strains of “Don’t You Forget About Me (Elvish Remix)” swell as
Enya’s voice is joined by a children’s choir and lots of pipes and flutes
and fiddles and drum loops provided by Moby.
66
LORD OF THE BREAKFAST CLUB #2 (2004)
SCENE 36. EXT. - a meadow in RIVENDELL
MERRY, PIPPIN, and ARWEN huddle around a raging fire, rubbing their
hands against the heat and staring deeply into the flames. Several moments
pass in silence with nothing but the crackling of the flames.
ARWEN
You know what I wish I was doing?
MERRY
Oops, watch what you say, Pippin here is a cherry.
PIPPIN
A cherry?
ARWEN
I wish I was on a swan-shaped ship sailing into the western sunset.
PIPPIN (whispering to MERRY)
I’m not a cherry.
MERRY (whispering back to PIPPIN)
When have you ever gotten laid?
PIPPIN
I’ve laid... lotsa times!
MERRY
Name one!
PIPPIN
She lives in Bree, met her at the Brandywine Falls. You wouldn’t know
her.
MERRY
Ever laid anyone in the Shire, or around here?
PIPPIN shushes MERRY and points at ARWEN whose back is still
turned.
67
PIPPIN
Oh, you and Arwen... did it!
ARWEN (spinning around to face PIPPIN)
What are you talking about?
PIPPIN (to ARWEN)
Nothin’, nothin!
(to MERRY)
Let’s just drop it, we’ll talk about it later!
ARWEN
No! Drop what, what’re you talking about?
MERRY
Well, Pippin’s trying to tell me that in addition to the number of hobbit
girls in the Brandywine Falls area, that presently you and he are riding
the Green Pony of love!
ARWEN (to PIPPIN)
Little furry-footed pig!
PIPPIN
No, I’m not! I’m not! Merry said I was a cherry, and I said I wasn’t!
That’s it, that’s all that was said!
MERRY
Well then what were you motioning to Arwen for?
ARWEN
You know I don’t appreciate this very much, Pippin.
PIPPIN
He is lying!
MERRY
Oh you weren’t motioning to Arwen?
PIPPIN
You know he’s lying, right?
68
MERRY
Were you or were you not motioning to Arwen?
PIPPIN
Yeah, but it was only...was only because... I didn’t want her to know that
I was a virgin, okay?
MERRY just stares at him.
PIPPIN
Excuse me for being a virgin, I’m sorry...
ARWEN laughs.
ARWEN
Silly little halfling... Why didn’t you want me to know you were a virgin?
PIPPIN
Because it’s personal business, it’s my personal, private business.
MERRY
Well Pippin, it doesn’t sound like you’re doing any business...
ARWEN
I think it’s okay for a hobbit to be a virgin...
MERRY looks surprised.
PIPPIN
You do?
ARWEN smiles and nods.
MERRY looks disappointed and amused at the same time. He gathers up
his backpack and walks away from the fire into darkness.
MERRY
I’m tired of hanging around here with you dildos. I’m having fifth breakfast by myself.
FADE TO BLACK
69
everything i do
i do for you
70
HAIKU (2004-2005)
sky has had enough
sorrow, pinches its eyes tight,
showers earth with tears.
the black hole
on your side of the bed
sucks
teenager watches
television as sun sets
salmon belly pink.
beads of rain
on greyhound windows
headphones weep
i get so lonely
sometimes i want to kill
everyone in the world.
this plump orange begs
for the thrust of my thumb
into its navel
taxi driver smells
of hot curry and incense.
i say, “take me home.”
she smells of sweat and
skin, of dirt and grass and wind,
she smells of the earth.
summer rain
a thousand tiny hands
applauding themselves
ache in my chest.
she thinks it’s love.
i think it’s cancer.
the faint ghost
of mississippi
haunts her voice
we drift through each other
two lonely ghosts haunting the
same cold apartment.
man stuck in traffic
has heated argument with
memory of ex-lover
warm sister girl
slender petals pressed flat
between flannel sheets
woman presses ear
to hotel room wall
palm between breasts
she asked, “how long will
you love me?” i said, “how long
is a piece of string?”
beauty’s in the arms of
the beholder, and i be holding
her all night long.
i love you in god’s way,
which means i ignore you and
never return your calls.
woman on airplane
presses nose to window.
man on bus looks up.
the days huff and sigh
but the years
blink
71
72
big poppa e is the stage name of r. eirik ott, a
performance poet who lives in austin, texas,
with his two seven-year-old tuxedo kitties aretha
and thelonious. he was born on may 11, 1967, in
memorial hospital in bakersfield, ca. he is 37 years
old as of this writing, although he will be 38 soon.
he is a taurus. his blood type is a+, his eyes are
brown, and his hair is dark brown. he is 65 inches
tall, and he weighs around 170 pounds. bpe has
been reading poetry in front of live audiences since
early 1992 and slammed for the very first time at the
taos poetry circus in new mexico in 1996. he was a
member of the ‘99 san francisco poetry slam team,
co-champions with san jose of the ‘99 national
poetry slam in chicago and the only undefeated
team that year out of 48. bpe has been on four other
teams -- ‘98 san francisco; ‘00 chico; ‘02 austin;
‘04 san antonio -- and has officially retired from
team competition, although he plans on hosting and
giving workshops at national poetry slams for the
rest of his life. bpe has been featured on the second
and fifth seasons of hbo’s “def poetry,” on bet’s “the
way we do it” comedy/variety series, and was even
seen on cbs’ “60 minutes” for about three seconds.
bpe was also featured in a mini-documentary aired
on the voice of america network in europe and the
dutch movie “p.o.v.,” although he has never seen
the latter since it was never released in the united
states (but he was featured on the website for a
time.) bpe was once a journalism major at chico
state university in northern california and was
even offered a job as the assistant entertainment
editor for the largest newspaper in nevada, but he
gave all that up to be a poet. since then, he has
worked temp jobs in between tours, including the
following: xbox customer support; receptionist at a
medical equipment company; front desk security at
a power supply company; salesperson at a spenser
gifts in a mall; and the overnight copy guy at a
kinko’s. he is currently working in a call center
doing sales support for apple computer; in fact, he
set this entire chapbook up at work while getting
paid $11 an hour and listening to james brown’s
greatest hits. bpe’s five favorite cds in the last six
month have been: joanna newsom’s “milk-eyed
mender;” iron & wine’s “our endless numbered
days;” fiona apple’s “extraordinary machine;”
beck’s “mutations;” and vetiver’s “vetiver.” he is
the author of: five chapbooks (“exploding hearts,”
“missing,” “the wussy boy manifesto,” “big poppa
e’s magic poetry,” and “come destroy me”); two
chapbooks of haiku (“365haiku: a year of online
haiku,” and “365haiku: another year of online
haiku”); two cds (“wussy boy!” and “b-sides”);
a dvd (“couches across america”); and 11 issues
of his zine series “the wussy boy chronicles.” for
more information, check out his website (www.
bigpoppae.com) or his online journal (www.
livejournal.com/users/poetryslam). peace out. bpe.
73
PROPERS high school forensics kids have been covering work from poetry slammers for several
years, and when school’s in session, i get several requests from high school and college kids each
month asking for permission to perform my stuff at regional and national speech competitions. i
wrote this piece at the request of a room full of high school speech kids at a big conference in west
texas during my spring 2004 tour. they demanded i write a poem for them, and 20 minutes later, i
performed this piece in front of 300+ kids. i ended up performing it for the hbo “def poetry” taping
in new york city in the spring of 2005, too. MISSION STATEMENT a college student i met while
performing at texas a&m university in fall 2004 emailed me and asked me who i was, meaning,
like, who i was in a deep sort of meaningful way. i thought about it for a bit, then i wrote this and
sent it to her. it pretty much captures the way i feel about what i do. painfully beautiful. achingly
lovely. MUSCLEMAN i never know where poems come from; i’m just glad when they come. i
greeted this one with open arms while pedaling my “peewee’s big adventure” bike down the long
slow slope of lamar in austin, and by the time i got to the end of the hill and parked in front of
whole foods, the opening lines were done and the outline for the rest had been laid out in my head.
that night, i put the first version on my livejournal. it’s been a crowd-pleaser for all the bad puns,
especially the one about pumping irony, which, really, is deliciously bad. CLOSER TO THE
HEART the first 45s i ever got my hands one were loaned to me by my best friend in my freshman
year of high school, and one of them was the single for “tom sawyer” with “red barchetta” as the
b-side. i can’t honestly say listening to that 45 changed my life, but it sure did make me a huge fan
of the band. they were, in fact, my very first god band, following in rapid succession by pink floyd,
led zeppelin, the police, u2, and foetus. i bought everything rush ever did, and i still have everything
they did up to “exit... stage left.” after that, they started to suck, and i didn’t have the heart to watch
something so dear die such an unworthy and drawn-out death. OH! CANADIAN FEDEX LADY!
this pretty much actually happened the way it’s implied. i was working the phones at apple
computer and was completely taken with the cute voice of the canadian fedex lady who was
helping me track an order, and we were openly flirting, and i actually did leave my customer on
hold long enough to get the basic idea of this piece in my journal so i could finish it later. what
cracks me up is the idea of flirting with a cute voice... the idea is so silly! plus i really like the
stilted references to canada, as if the speaker really doesn’t know all that much about canada at all,
yet is still trying his best to impress this canadian crush. NAPOLEON i am really suprised to see
this piece again, having dismissed it as a failed poem over a year ago. i just never really got along
with this piece, even though audiences tended to like it okay. it never really gelled with me, so i
put it away and swore to never perform it again, especially since it had been the second attempt at
writing this piece. then, a few weeks ago, i happened upon it while looking for something to read
at the san antonio slam, and it wasn’t all that bad, so i made some quick edits, added some new
lines, and viola! i got the highest score of the night! i did it again the next night at the austin slam,
and i practically got a standing ovation. so weird... i had given up on this poem, but it wouldn’t go
away. EMO LOVE SONG IN THE KEY OF 9-3/4 yeah, i’m kind of a freak for some harry potter,
SCARS i know exactly when i got here to austin. it was march 7, 2002, and it was just after 7 p.m.
on a wednesday. i know this because the austin slam was that night, and i rolled in just as the signup list was being distributed. on march 13, 2002, i was in the slam master’s living room when
hilary thomas walked in. it was just after noon. right then and there, i decided to turn my visit to
austin into a relocation. this poem is the last poem i ever wrote about hilary. i scribbled it into my
journal just before the very last gig of our summer ‘93 tour. the summer was in shambles, as was
our broken relationship, and i read this poem at our very last gig of the tour in worcester, ma. she
hated it, but by that time, i could’ve shit gold bricks and she would’ve hated it. i think it’s pretty
accurate. TIGERLILY i met a girl here in austin in fall of 2004, a fragile drama girl addicted to
meth and anorexia who was trying very hard to leave both behind and failing. she was trouble, i
knew it the moment i laid eyes on her, but that didn’t stop us from spending time together for a few
months. she was born on the same day i was. i wrote this about her just a few weeks after we’d
met, and she cried. she said i was the only person who had ever gotten it right. in the end, she was
way too dramatic, and we stopped hanging out, but this poem remains. I WANT TO HOLD YOU
i am still working on this poem as i’m putting this chapbook together, so the form it takes in the
end might be different from what it is now. anyway, i wrote the very beginning lines right after i
met the inspiration for “tigerlily,” and i’ve been adding to it ever since, tacking on bits and pieces
of haiku i’ve written along the way. i’ve always wanted to write an erotic poem that didn’t suck,
and i’m still trying. MMM THE DARKNESS i have no idea where this poem came from or when
i wrote it. i found it on a scrap of paper and typed it into my computer for safekeeping. i dimly
remember it being about some girl, but i can’t remember who or where. i just guessed on the date.
i wasn’t going to include it, but i thought the mystery of it was kinda intriguing, so what the hell.
CATS i love my kitties, but i don’t, like “love” my kitties, you know? unfortunately, this poem is
being referred to as the “cat blowjob poem.” great. that’s all i need, people thinking i get oral
pleasure from my kitties. the narrator in this piece is obviously the one with the problem, not the
girl he’s talking about. i don’t think i’d want a girlfriend who was just like my cats, but i sure do
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wish my cats could talk. i wrote this sometime in the fall of 2004. THE BITTER COUPLE this is
one i wrote about hilary and me sometime toward the end of our relationship, right before we went
on tour together, so it must’ve been the spring of 2003. that relationship was marked with clenched
fists and teeth pressed so tightly together that windows would crack as we passed them. i could
never figure out why she was so bitter all the time. in the end, i was so glad to be done with it, to
be happy again. TRAIN STATION another one about hilary and me, this taken from the scene in
the movie where she’s made the decision to leave a month into our three-month tour, and i’ve
driven her to the train station in chicago, and we are holding each other for what we know to be
the last time, because the next time we see each other, everything will be different. and it was. this
was from the summer of 2003. SOMEONE i tried once to write a performance poem in the form
of a personal ad, but i kinda messed it all up. it was not nearly as effective as it could’ve been, so
i put the idea away. in the winter of 2003, i decided to try it again, this time putting the whole thing
online as an actual personal ad to see if it garnered any response. well, it did. whoo boy... but that’s
a different story. this piece is the response to “what i am looking for.” BIRTH CONTROL i was
given the name of this piece in fall of 2004 by fellow austinite poet matthew john conley, who said
if i continued to read this poem in public, i would never again get laid. it’s not necessarily about
me, but i sure did borrow a lot from my experiences. SKINNY WHITE GIRLS this is not really
even a poem, more a snippet found on a scrap of paper. i have no memory of writing it, but i might
expand on it someday and make it a real performance piece. right now, it’s just a sketch. GAY
PEOPLE i think the whole dialogue on gay marriage is so ridiculous and stupid, so i decided to
make a speech that was as over the top stupid as i think the whole thing is. i wish people could just
leave one another alone and let each other leave the lives that fit best without feeling the need to
meddle and pass judgement. i will be so glad when the terms “gay marriage” and “interracial
marriage” are replaced by the simple term “marriage.” OPEN LETTER the members of the poetry
slam community keep in contact with each other via the internet, including a list serve, and a
straight white american male poet who shall go nameless posted a message in spring of 1994
stating how he felt discriminated against since he could never, ahem, “play the race card.”
whatever, dude. this was my response. DEAD HORSES so many slams come down to people
abandoning the idea of poetry and simply standing there one after the other -- “i was molested” vs.
“i was raped” vs. “i was discriminated against” vs. “i’m gay” -- and then the judges have to
somehow assign scores to these ideas rather than the poems used to communicate and explore
these ideas, ranking one person’s plight as better or worse than another’s rather than the wordplay
and imagery and poetry used to share that plight. i truly believe poems about these things need to
be written, but if they are reduced to mere applause points or shocking images used to guilt or
bludgeon an audience into high scores, then i truly believe more damage than good gets done.
RAGE this is really old. i was still in the navy when i wrote this one. i had never been to a poetry
reading in my life, and i had never really studied or read poetry outside of what i did in my senior
year english class in high school, so i have no idea where this came from. LIGHTHOUSE while i
was in the navy, i worked at night and took a creative writing class at the local community college
during the day. this poem and the next three came out of that class. i remember the teacher saying
i was trying too hard. i like the first two lines. MMM MMM PRO PATRIA it’s got thirteen lines in
the first stanza! and thirteen lines in the second stanza! just like the american flag! get it? good
lord. anyway, this one was obviously influence by wilfred owen. WHYM when i wrote this poem,
i thought i was the total shit, man, i thought i was really on to something with this writing stuff.
yeah, i walked with a bounce in my step for a bit knowing that i had written this poem. i’d feel
better about it had i written it at 13 and not 21 or 22. LYCANTHROPY so goth. the title is, of
course, the fictional disease that leads one to transform into a werewolf by the light of the moon.
STEEPLE-STABBED AND HELL-BOUND this was the result of taking a creative writing class
in something like fall of ‘99, and i think it just basically sucks my butthole. i offer it here so you
can mock it. DISILLUSION CURRY this actually, really happened. this girl really did exist, and
she really did have a pepsi logo tattooed on her arm. i think i’ll get a nike swoosh across my
forehead. THE GLITTER GIRL FIASCO to be honest, i’m not even sure this really happened
anymore. it’s become like some myth or legend in the telling, and now i can’t really remember if
it really happened or if i just made it all up. all my memories are of telling this story, and nothing
remains of the actual event. THE BETTER MAKER-OUTER this pretty much happened the way
it’s told, believe it or not, except i only made out with missy. DEATH WISH this was a column i
published in the chico state university student newspaper “the orion,” but i’ve read it a couple of
times at slams to pretty good reaction, so i’ve included here in case i ever want to read it again. i
am terrifically afraid of death, and if i could choose to never die, i would make that choice. i really
need to get over that fear, but i have no idea how. THE LORD OF THE BREAKFAST CLUB #1
AND #2 i have no idea from whence these came, but they cracked me up. HAIKU in the fall of
1992, i resolved to write a haiku every day for a year, and i nearly did it, falling short by a few
weeks. i started up another year of haiku in sept. of 2004. here are a few of my favorites. most of
them are actually closer to senryu than haiku, but you knew that. be good. be warm.
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BLURBS
Nominated to the The Utne Reader “Best of the Alternative
Press Awards 2000” for The Wussy Boy Chronicles.
“R. Eirik Ott is, without hype or exaggeration,
one of today’s best creators of underground literature.”
Doug Holland, Editor
A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press
“Exuberantly defiant.”
The New York Times
“Big Poppa E steps to the mike ... energy is cranked so high ... drunk on adrenaline ...
all bluster and bombast .. The audience leaps up, clapping hand, snapping fingers,
and stomping feet ... Call it revenge of the Wussy Boys.”
The Washington Post
“Eirik Ott is the leader of the new Wussy Boy movement ... spreading not just
through the esoteric realm of slam poets, but edging across the globe.”
The Los Angeles Times
“Eirik Ott is a guy who has turned one of his artistic personas,
Wussy Boy, into an icon for effeminate males.”
Ms. Magazine
“Championed by a hip-hop poet and catching fire across North America,
a new male ideal has risen up and is demanding respect: Wussy Boy.”
The Ottowa Citizen (Canada)
“Wussy Boys [are] a growing breed who never felt a part of the testosteronefuelled, hard-drinking concept of manhood. Eirik Ott is their outspoken
leader, a 33-year-old poet who has “outed” himself as a Wuss, and
discovered a nation of men joining his fight for Wussy Pride.”
London Daily Express (UK)
“Inspiring men from across the country.”
The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
“A spoken word maestro.”
The San Jose Mercury News
“Eirik Ott is pound for pound the funniest poet in the slam.”
Austin Chronicle (TX)
“A hell of a performer, running on boundless energy
and near-perfect comic timing.”
OC Weekly (Orange Country, CA)
“One of the leaders in the hottest thing to hit poetry
since Beat poet Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl.’”
The Daily Oklahoman (OKC, OK)
“Big Poppa E’s words are so eloquent, so modern, so witty, funny,
honest, angry, legitimate, motivating, sensual, wrenching, wise, naive ...
just so very, very right on -- he’s amazing.”
The Colorado Springs Independent
“Big Poppa E is like a tongue-twisting Napoleon of open-aired emotion, sexual libido
and in-your-face self-consciousness -- a suburban Woody Allen hopped up at the mall..”
The Chico (CA)76News & Review