Love in P-land America (OVER SIXTEEN)

Love in Pisser-Land America

2-27-05

Swish around the sun
with a background of pin-prick stars, like cacti,
all keeping their secrets.

I don’t think that this place is natural
in a gas-station bathroom, with ultra-still
marijuana-smoke rings, floating like
mother-fucking flying saucers.
I don’t know how I got here,
‘cause for the last six months, I
ain’t kept a journal, and so this part is a blur,
and I guess that that means that I’m mostly dead,
laughing to myself and solving my problems
like ashes into the wind
while sitting on a holy bathroom shitter
in America’s obscene industrial orange
3 AM trucker night.
I don’t think it’s natural.

I don’t think I’m ready
to fall face-first into this next minute,
when we drive away with the heavy expectation
of screwing each other, b/c I’m full of
horny vibro-bunnies, and you just want a nice,
strong guy. Guess that’s me
at 3:45 AM, and I’m all ultra-alive
with a double espresso in my veins and John Fogarty
with the CCR crew tearing my mind to fucking shreds,
I don’t think I’m ready.

And if I said to you,
“let’s just sit and get holy”
, would I sound insane?
Could you follow my lead into the forest,
where I should know the names of everything
but am embarrasingly wordless?
so I’ll laugh with you, and we’ll see
the squirrels try to sleep, with tranquility
stolen by sensory pollution, oh, it’s our sound.
And would that be heaven?

Yet I open my mouth, and all that comes out
is ganja-drenched actor words that I don’t mean,
and all you do is completely-sane
actress-dances, like a ballerina from Hell
and I laugh coarsely and I grab her, then for a second
something good overcomes me, light a light from fallen Heaven,
and I slide down something that’s an amphetamine
and hope that maybe it’s all better now.
and w-when ThE53 w8rbz fa17 me,
where the hell does my message go?

*sigh. Well, I liked it, at least.*

The profanity made this poem ten times worse than it really is.

obviously the profanity does alienate any audience who is totally against that on purely moral grounds. But I can't show those people poetry anyway. Sigh. The battle over censorship. I used the vulgarity, methinks, to express who the character is and to make the entire thing seem vulgar, because that really built the mood like I thought it should be built. What was your complaint with the curse-words?

Nah, I don't mind vulgarity and profanity in poetry (look at my poetry and my stories). But there is a proper way that can add to the poem, and there is a way that makes it come off as an immature diatribe. You're somewhere in-between the two, and for the most part, you can omit the expletives and have a really good poem.

I think it kinda works, because it's a general complaint.

It works great. I had a lot of fun reading this poem.

I don’t think that this place is natural

I think you COULD turn it into

"I dont think this is natural"

But its your great poem and you do what you want!

I can't...quite...decide whether or not I like this. It's well-written, though, and I think the profanity fits.

This seemed more like a monologue in poetry format. I'm sorry, but what's so poetic about it? There didn't even seem to be any real reason for where you chose to start a new line.

its still poetry. To change the subject slightly I like this poem, and I think the profanity worked well with the emotion quality. well written too, I could see everything as you described it. good job.

peace
CL

it is a monologue. Shakespear had tons of those. Pardon me for not fitting into your narrow definition of poetry. Poetry is anything you want it to be. There is no real plot, so this isn't a story. And so what if my emphasis was less on pretty words and more on what I was saying? So fucking what?

however, there is no way that this is five-stars good, no way at all. Someone hurry and give it a shitty review so it's overall more accurate.

I actually liked this poem. It took me several rereadings, but I did eventually like this poem. At first it pissed me off because I thought you had cluttered it with too many words. However, after reading some other poetry here, I realized you didn't clutter it up with as many words as most poets here do. It's not the best poem, mind you, but it does have some truth in it. And though it's written very coarsely, you can definitely see some character in the characters.

My favorite line is the second time "I don't think I'm ready" is stated. When it is first stated, it rushes into a nightmarish picture of sex and then finally ends with the sigh of defeat, "I don't think I am ready."

Nightmarish, strange, and eerie, I like it nonetheless.

There are only a couple qualms I have with it. The title seems to have no relevence to the poem at all. This nightmare can take place anywhere; that's part of the poem's charm. Why do you limit the poem by limiting where this can take place? The first stanza doesn't seem to fit. The rest of the poem is long, and the first stanza is short. Why? It makes the poem awkward, and not in a good way. The next thing: do not speak in 1337. Tis annoying.

it doesnt matter at all, really if the first stanza is shorter, i think it's pretty good intro and it keeps the reader interested for the rest of the poem.

okayy. i read and reread this.
it didn't sink in the first time *blush*

i didn't like the way profanity was used,but in the end...it did fit.
i just cant quite decide whether i liked this or not.