2 Poems by Zachary C. Bush |

PASSING THE AXE

For nearly 25 years
I have been able to feign off
The grim process of aging
I know I’ve survived a lot
All of that Cocaine, Crack,
Speed, Acid, Ecstasy, those
Multi-colored painkillers,
Whiskey, self-mutilation,
And dirty unprotected sex
Couldn’t take me away

But now…

I am really feeling Age
Coming up fierce from behind
And even more so after I heard
This story about a guy I knew
When I lived down South
No more than six months ago

This guy was having a fight
With his mother in their garage
Over her calling him crazy
Well he didn’t like it much
So he slammed an axe
Straight through her face
Just like it was a fucking 4th of July
Watermelon balanced on a tree stump

& now I know…

I’m no different from your granddaddy
Because I now have a fireside story
To share with my future grandchildren
About what the times were like
In the prime of my youth.



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Regarding Slow Solidification

The next time you reach into the freezer for
Your secret late night pint of Caramel Cone
You might spot them arrested in the far right corner
Shining like shriveled nicotine-stained fingers
Brilliant beneath the silver fluorescents streaked with green
There will be my twelve insecurities all eye-speckled
With an1882 First Edition yellow iodine kind of fade
Floating in two plastic rows of blue cube-shaped mouths



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Zachary C. Bush is 25 years old. His first full-length collection of experimental poetry, at swan decapitation, is forthcoming through Louis E. Bourgeois's VOX Press.