3 Poems by Justin Hyde |

icicles in zaire

we become fertilizer
after we die.

what then
is it
we're supposed to do
while the meter's
still running?

i think about this
constantly

until the
kill switch
shorts out:

then i have
sixteen shots of black velvet
and go native
like rousseau.

usually wake up
without a shirt
behind the laundry mat
on hickman:

abacus
in my veins:

headful of
aristotle:

hung over
and blunted enough
to start all
over again.


---


the failed writer of musicals

another
local neurotic
who thinks
we're friends
because i'm too nice
to walk away.

last time
i saw him
at the coffee shop
he told me
he was
working on a children's book
about a clam
with adhd.

time before that
he went on
for an hour
about
copyrighting my poems
on cd
with the government
because ringo starr's
third cousin
plagiarized one of his musicals
about homosexual dolphins
back in eighty-three.

today
he hands me
his cell-phone.

it's held together
with
duct tape.

for three minutes
i listen to a
prerecorded message
describing a pyramid scheme
involving the sale of
nebulous
"benefits."

it's really gonna
free me up
financially,
he says
as i
hand him the phone.

so what
you get a percentage
off each sale
and a commission
for every new agent
you sign up?
i ask
trying to get
to the ass end
of the con.

it's not so much
product driven
but value added...
he goes on
wild eyed
sputtering complete
nonsense.

he's too stupid
to realize
it's a
ponzi scheme.

i think
the truly
humane thing to do
would be
kicking him in the ass

but no

i tell him
go ahead
and put me down
for the
free dvd.

---

the secret is to believe your own bullshit

i don't believe in alcoholism
as a disease
failing of character
or otherwise.

i get blitzed
because i choose to get blitzed.

i choose to get blitzed
in order to fortify myself
against the symmetry
of white paint
and lawn flamingos:

because 2&2
always equals
4.

i get smashed
on a regular basis
in reverence to
plane crashes
and stillborn babies

dig?