I never look down in a port-o-john



Disappointing, expected, me thinks you to be mall walkers, empty wallets, synthetic purchased aesthetic and ripe with dumpster ethics, so frame and hang your fucking M,C. Escher - an egalitarian armada of self driven Kias will arrive at a nondescript Kinko’s to “patronize” an American business, never shrink your image, never recognize that the ink you pay for with pennies, is worth more than gold, so go make your millions.

It’s standard campfire bullshit Kumbayas - a set of Down’s Syndrome twins sway, sing, and I’m told to just listen, cut ticker tape, award blue ribbons that I’m never given and I drown for a moment in my own Titanic-torn frown…you pinch my nose as I go blue, feign panic, pump my chest, fumble eggs in a hidden bird nest that you too wil surely abandon, dip shit from a well and drink deep, touch me again and I’ll spit in your mouth…I’ve held my last hand, so fat, so sweaty, so soft.

I quit writing, I did, conflagration and fallow fields, the skid plate slid for decades, forceful constipation and muttering, what audience did I wish to forgive, beach, run relay, entertain, red eye, glib as a lobster bib - I was fucking good then, better now - switchblade knife, hot coil glowing, nighttime, inchwormed snake, cocoon stuffed, cloudy hangnail, braked, infectious, dangerously unpolished, a fingered sore cut, the upsetting jockey forgotten in your yard, never some carved marble monument, just too roughed up.

I’m put off by the existence of thin soup lapped from plastic utensils and near homicidal considering those not starving, are vocal, are grateful, opaque and slop-satiates, ship shit lists  - I’d rather wade barefoot in hot porridge for no good reason, kill a deserving human being with my bare hands while rotary phone ringing, call the cops, dent cans, browse half-off, barrel roll half-cocked - I’ll smash sleeves of Sociable crackers, fast as you can place a wholesale order because I know they’ll be served dry, directly from the box. F*ck with me now, I don’t look down.

Port-o-john piles, peaks, cracks, crevices, deposit repeated reports, Marconi operator iceberg warnings, point north and it’s smooth sailing, no wonder Sylvia Plath put her head in an oven.

About this poem

Reflecting on the years that I could not or would not write poetry, years that passed following early and swift disillusionment I felt with the craft and standards of judgement held within it’s community as to what merits “good” work.

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Submitted by cannondaughtrey on December 12, 2022

Modified by cannondaughtrey on December 27, 2022

1:54 min read
32

Quick analysis:

Scheme X X X X X
Characters 2,244
Words 381
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

Cannon Stewart Daughtrey

Archaeologist and archivist of memories, smells, and the value of everyday people as collected and told in someone else’s stories, or in their own. more…

All Cannon Stewart Daughtrey poems | Cannon Stewart Daughtrey Books

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