METAPHOR
like a dog I sense the quake
that’s me, under the bedsprings
paws over the ears, anywhere but safe.
NOCTURNAL EMISSION
someday I’m gonna die
so I want to be remembered with elan
bells ringing from cathedrals
Chianti raining from the skies
all the art in world history on display for free
and a burial witnessed by all Hollywood
at Pere Lachaise
THE WAR ON DRUGS
after the asthma binge, I adopt a litter of alligators
cop choppers keeping the beat, leisurely airborne
deep-six hunger strikes or codes to the nukes
I’m copacetic with the local species, ask the wife
wait a sec, we’re divorced under aegis of melancholy
it’s easy to forget exactly who the enemy is here
©2022 Jay Passer All rights reserved.
Jay Passer’s work has appeared in print and online since 1988. He’s been included in numerous anthologies, is the author of 13 collections of poetry and prose, and is widely published worldwide, most recently in Don’t Submit!, Horror Sleaze Trash, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Fixator Press, and Piker Press. His newest publication, SQUIRREL, a novel, is available from Alien Buddha Press and Amazon. A lifetime factotum, Passer’s been employed as dishwasher, barista, cook, housepainter, courier, warehouseman, bookseller, soda jerk, and mortician’s apprentice. Curiously, his written work has never yielded any serious remunerative status. Jay Passer lives in San Francisco, the city of his birth, with a pantheon of imaginary cats and some very real houseplants.