Love is a butcher, a pandemic, a tsunami that preys on orchards and sleep, a restless vein that throbs in traffic, a relentless swallow that weeps on wires, that considers a wingless life, untethered or lost or desecrated, meatless on the inside, alone, but safe from the butcher and his giggling, gurgling blade.
Listening to music about fools in love; dancing without worrying about matching the beat; humming along because there is no shame in not knowing the words; glancing out the window at a blue sky; the mimosa flowers waving from the neighbor’s yard; writing poetry about the potential of the world which humanity does not deserve.
Our only noble purpose as a species is to adore the raw beauty of our earth.
Perhaps our role is that of an audience. We were never meant to participate in the play, we were meant to enjoy it, appreciate it, applaud all its hard work to become something sustainable for a species as miserable as humankind who has war and money and all the small chaos we insisted on inventing.
We take for granted the things that we are not credited. We act unimpressed at the pure magic that is this existence –
Perhaps if we slow down, if we watch and listen and sit very still, we can enjoy the show which has been created for our pleasure.
Katrina Kaye is a writer and educator seeking an audience for her ever-growing surplus of poetic meanderings. She hoards (much like a typical dragon) her previous published writings, links to publications, and additional information on her website: ironandsulfur.com. Check out her latest chapbook, no longer water, available from Echobird Press! She is grateful to anyone who reads her work and in awe of those willing to share it.
we used talk of the inaudible noise sometimes, the unseen, her and i as opposed to engaging the deafening silence that she hated about the distances, outside, herself; in a book and me. she thought about dying; a lot, common among obsessives and bugs and attentive drunks, locked in amber stasis, unchanged, for millions of years fossilized in crystalline despair, stumbling forward, back again unnoticed through preoccupied centuries in search of a lost, off course, perhaps, dead or drunk and already gone astray tomorrow.
“it must be here.” “are you sure?” “no.” “maybe we should go back.” “but it can’t be there.” “why not? it’s today.” “you mean in the now?” “yeah… we’ll just kill time, kick the can, like there is no tomorrow.” “and if by tonight, we still can’t find a shred of evidence or reason for its existence?” “well, then we wait.” “on what?” “i don’t know… the rank of urgency, the delicate aroma of anticipation, or perhaps the warmth of expectancy? we’ll follow, whichever scent comes first until we find it.” “hope?” “yeah… hope.” “i registered for classes in the fall.” “really… that’s good.” “i’m done drinking.” “okay.” “i’m going back to school and i want you to write.” “okay.” “i want a baby.” “okay. do you want a ring?” “no… i want a stone that will never be cast in my direction.” “you’ve got it love and i will kill any man that touches it.” “i love you Botched Resignation.” “i love you too.”
in this time of great social upheaval, a looming economic catastrophe and a civilization, along with all traces of humanity, teetering on the brink of extinction, comes this ill-mannered knucklehead, Gerard Padron, an american poet, on the ground, who writes under the pseudonym Botched Resignation. like many of the oxymoronic, idiosyncratic writers of his day, he is a lover of women, hero to children and champion of the poor. Botched Resignation is everything that is disdainfully fashionable. just ask him. he drinks heavily when he can and can’t dance. as to the many things which have been said about his personage, one cannot expect everybody to be as bright, clever, and optimistic, as they are self-assured and talented.
from the hypocritical top down, the collusive heads of every department on the globe, have insisted that everything we do, must be… from this point forward.., state of the art… fuck’em… it is not as though Botched Resignation, has not sent notice. the village idiot, elevated a tremendous fool, Botched Resignation is The Venomous Dog of the House of Padron / High Chancellor of the Witless, the Ardent and the Tawdry, who that on more than one occasion, has been mistaken for Jesus, and declared a much smarter man by more than just a few staggering drunks.
an inebriated rogue, inspecting from head to foot, an intoxicated, duplicitous, secular pride, he is his own worst enemy. on the field of poetic contention, Botched Resignation has no rival, no job, no money and no prospects. none. he is the point and shaft of an elegiac spear, as well as the archetype who wields it. however, odds are, up against it he can never hope to win and doesn’t give a damn.
i remember we were parked with the doors closed and the windows only a little cracked the engine running, defroster on so we could see in the middle of a massive sugar storm pouring pouring pouring all over the Sweet Sweets World while we watched the wide and beautiful River of Iced Tea flowing and the ice cubes in it bobbing and melting on their long individual ways to New Orleans and the Everlasting Sea— except we weren’t watching the river so much— yes, the sugar poured and that stopped us where we were, but my left hand was in your underwear, Sweet World working the wet between your wide open thighs with three fingers massaging your clit with my thumb while your right hand was wrapped around my cock your thumb working the bulging head of it going up and down and faster n faster our foreheads together, our breathing coming harder n harder n we didn’t really know yet what we were doing and it was humid and steamy and sticky and slick n
so very, very Sweet Sweet & Stepping first tentative feet on The All New Moony-Tidal Forces In Our Genitalia— as we did, once upon a tide, around the age of the drivers license... at / sweet / 16 / when the sugar flowed o’er us like the Genesis flood
“David Earl Williams” has been his alias since birth and he’s not changing it. To be sure, you’d have to ask his mother and grandmothers to know the truth. But you can’t ask them— they’re sleeping now with the Hopewell and the Adena who want their land back from the Cherokee and the Shawnee once they’ve head-tripped it back from the, mostly, but not exclusively, European rejects who are sitting on it now. All that can be said about the alias for sure is that it’s a little like Mike Fink, King of the River Pirates— it’s fluid— half water snake, half beaver, half bear, half alligator, half Blevins, half Fyffe, maybe, half Williams, maybe a little bit McCoy, (yes, those McCoys… and Bad John Phillips), if you can believe the 2nd cousins thrice removed— and probably, you can’t… ) Anyway, his I. D. is just like everybody else’s— it’s being made up daily, cut like a suit to fit the dummy wearing it— or at least it is until somebody cries, bullshit— that doesn’t belong to you— you narcissist!— and makes it stick.— But until then, “David Earl Williams”, he’s just like you, Dear Reader— one of a kind, and a representative of millions, the vessel of all their grievances and glories, la di da, like he came this way, quality stamped and assured, straight from a furious little factory somewhere down around his mother’s pelvis, billowing a camouflaging chimera of self-protective smoke into the always immanent abyss.
Brother Merritt (AKA Friday’s Storm) at The 10th & “Final” Gonzofest Standing in front of “Obey Giant” by Shepard Fairey High Horse Bar in Louisville, KY, 2023
Merritt Waldon is a 50-year-old poet/artist who has been published in a wide variety of magazines/journals, and has four books published. He has devoted his entire life & being to Poetry. He lives in Austin Indiana.
