NPM.6 - The Question VIDEO

...
so my friend, the ever talented and enthusiastic Evan McNary, asked me to recite my poem "Cornields" (my "twinkie piece" as spoken-word genius and indie-multimedia art guru/mogul Vince Kadlubek playfully calls it) for a video recently.

Evan was in charge of the lighting and camera and sound and scenery AND he edited the whole thing, so while the words are mine, this result is just as much his. i'm damn proud to have been involved for my half. i really love this thing and hope to do more work of this kind with him in the future. FUN FACT: that's actually water in the beer can!

hope you like it. thanks.
-andy

NPM.5 - Skeletonpaste

i threw up the barium the first time
they said it would be "chalky"
it was way worse
blue-white deathvomit like
drinking skeletons ground into powder and watered with
weak piss or
somebody whose family's just been murdered
cried into the bucket for 13 years

all over
the hospital gown, the squeaky shiny scuffed-up tile floor
the clean metal and expensive plastic
i couldn't get it out of me fast enough
praying for anaphylaxis
then i just had to drink more
and lie back down

been losing weight
didn't tell anyone there were some days
where i just didn't eat
was blood in the toilet and seizing awful cramps
in my gut
my stomach
felt like a teakettle with nothing in it
sitting on a burner on high
no longer whistling
unshrieking
didn't mention
i hated everything, everyone, everyday
even when they asked if maybe
it was all in my head
it wasn't
it was in my gut
my stomach

where the barium sulfate went

i didn't throw up the second time
but i spent the next rest of my life
wishing i had

NPM.4 - The Only Babysitter Left

oh, i get it
as long as there's a miser sun standing sentry
we shouldn't let our question marks hang out
up on the roof, making all that noise
too scared of the crackdown
i get it
you're content to let the Flood raise your children
let these Earthquakes teach them what numbers do
while Forest Fires inform them of the relationship
between duty and consequence
i get it
there's a Sickness coming
and your kids are gonna have to cough and
bleed and vomit through it
just like every other sad fuck
let the Tornadoes run them in laps
burning off every birthday cake
i get it
make the check out to the End of Days
she's the only babysitter left on a Friday night.


...
so yeah. i straight-up dropped the ball on this National Poetry Month challenge.
gonna try and make up for it.
-andy

NPM.3 - Late Grandfathers, Not Gone

Choose Mom's laughing Buddha on a boat with a warlock's medallion
or Dad's rail-thin Grimace with fists
and a flask, but
Both loved to dance and
both lived in houses they'd rather been
forever running from because
they were Men, goddammit, and that's
what Men did.

The fat man and the skinny guy
sunburnt as fallow farmland
and beached beaches
and all the small sin swept into
a great big pile under
God's hateful, glaring eye
and then buried with family in some
Midwestern backyard
or scattered like fish food over
warm Mexican seawater.

Gone from sight, brushed to the far dark
corners or under the rug but
talked about often, usually with booze
Toasted often
we get toasted and toast them and
talk about them often.

Carl the Methodist.
Jack the Presbyterian or Catholic or What-Have-You
Two Major-League All-Time Drinkers
Two Faithful Terriers,
dead as fuck and
long in the ground / short in the water
by the time i started making memories.
The Mean Man a blur and the
Meaner i never met.

All the same, i know them
i know them well
i know them from night terrors and whirlwind
neverending benders and tasting
my own salty metal blood
and sailing and fishing and driving and fighting
and fucking and running through the corn and riding horses
and cutting a billion goddamn rugs into sample scraps
for happier couples.
I know them from Iowa and California
and Scotland and the Mississippi and Spirit Lake and Cortez.

I know them from every bullshit gauntlet
tossed at my feet that i
kicked dirt on instead of running from
because I'm a Man, Goddammit.


...
this one's kinda long, i guess. but i think it's the best thing i've written in months. maybe i'm finally getting used to writing while stone sober.
-andy

NPM.2 - Saturnalia Princeps

We used to trade places with them others yesterday
at least til we woke up the next mornin for work
Used to wear their crowns and call the shots and
roll em like dice in their own shit for a change
For laughs

See, the idea was that we'd fuck up the public works
and all our own complaints
And we kinda did
but the setup there is that
the first day anyone gets the sceptre in their hand
all they feel like doing is partying
So we did

We raided their liquor cabinets to
see what the top shelf tastes like
We rolled filthy in their pristine beds
We ate the meat we raised and
Butchered and
Cleaned and
Carved and
Cured for them and
We got all into their
Little Black Books and Little Black Dresses and
We forgot what it felt like after a few months.

Some dick actually had the balls to call this "Misrule."
The shoe don't fit the other foot.
We lived like Kings but it was just a joke
and most mornings we still can't hear ourselves laughing.

The crown musta gone right over our heads.


...
So I guess I inadvertently played a date-appropriate prank on y'all yesterday. Only one post. Whoops. This is the first piece written and posted via my phone. TECHNOLOGY!!!
-andy

NPM.1 - Fish Story

bone thugs
poets, fools
words are idiotic
fuck-ups are beautiful
i'm telling you, tonight i saw a guy get into a Hummer
like it was nothing
like he wasn't going to war
like he wasn't being ripped open and eaten alive
it was nothing
just a Vaudevillian relic
and the girls in the chorus line wear
their girdles and rape fantasies
like we've all gotta smile
sooner or later
and the funnymen wave bamboo canes under straw hats
in front of shoepolish masks
like here comes your fuckin' punchline, suckers.
The joke ain't on anybody
if the banana peel's in the trashcan
Bigfoot plays it straight
Nessie's the foil
but they're both tapdancing on the far end
of that bridge you mean to buy
just as soon as
your horn comes outta hock
your house gets refinanced
or Christ smiles on your student loans
all you got in your wallet
is neverending war and
reality television assholes handing out
voter receipts.
it's halfway to Resurrection
the darkest part of the forest
and there's nothing left for
the poison ivy and parasites
but snake oil
and your grandmother's blood.
Now who's the dummy, pal?


...
so it's National Poetry Month and seeing as such, i'm gonna make it my mission to write a new poem and post it here every day. for the entire month of April. today, however, i'm gonna inaugurate the thing with two new ones. this is the first.
-andy