Five Poems

by mike sluchinski

“i kicked the side of my car”

i kicked the side of my car

and the rust dropped off in the

parking lot and there was a small

hole not a big one and i patched it

with a small piece of cardboard

i put it back behind the rust and metal

and the green paint there was a brown

cardboard bandage that you could see

and i took out some primer some good

thick black primer and sprayed it down

and you can’t see the cardboard anymore

and it lasted almost a year and then i did

it again and you’re sitting there reading

this saying that’s no way to fix rust or

a hole in an old car and you’re right you’re

so damn right but imagine right imagine

what the cardboard and primer have

done to the country and who the hell

even bothers to watch them and keep

them honest anymore and it’s a place

that looks like a cardboard box or

a future smeared over with black goop

the primer only lasts so long

“corso’s distant kings”

and a sandman rug and

a new crop row to hoe

of jeffs and janes

drinking water from trevi

and pissing outside the moonlight lines

they told you

the communists and the

can’t doers took

your future and afraid to stand

said live less and

with less for someone else

why doesn’t your generation

pay for anything

those guys next door are

eating you

you whole and

eating your lunch

and there’s someone

online with their hand

out and another one

in your pocket and

and took your future

and condemned a will and a

way spurned acorns and

squirrel friends and diamonds too

from that old play

that salesman’s book or

loman the loser

and told you and

and you ate it

you ate it up

chocolate pie and share and

share alike that

other country

passed you by

ate you up ate your

naked lunch

tiger burning at night you

know who

and the beats laugh

at your broke virtual

generation

distant kings hover and

corso makes the sign of the cross

“blank page breathless”

time and time moving

spent and spending it

with the fear the fear

and we are and they say

we’re emotional and our feelings

our feelings so important and

again and again over and return

over and over even after the cancer

came and went and said goodbye to

that baggage car of bundled worry too

afraid of what it might do you too and anyone

would but being more than that and feelings come

and go because feelings come and go and so does

the fear and knowing that we’re more than a pinprick

and a sick day and strong enough to move along and those

feelings going to change can change can go are gone control

the fear is not a bad thing control the pulse quickening the want

to run away from it all and god gave powers to think control estimate

every day we have the power

power to choose to feel

to feel fear or

push the fear

aside our

choice

own

it

“barrels and seashores (or andaman sea monsoon nights)”

barrels and seashores

can’t contain it

i put a flag down on my

memory night

those bad dreams

those hard diamonds

we like to sweat out

covers hardly intact

sheets blazed and creased

summer fans playing

catch up in the dark

following blade on blade

and the star wind

dressed my forehead

and outside windows rice paddies

whispered by and

crept out around

the small room

the water in the fields

and drops and

tears over my forehead

waiting for

morning and another

day of the monsoon

“new border walls and bedposts”

sleeping in a

colonial bed

and posts rock past and passed

a long look up stare more like

high up

and no pants

and no clothes under the

covers just

bare me and the

bed left alone along an edge

soft a bit and a mattress so white

with a pile of paper ledgers

and maps and

cutting them out and

cutting them up and

the puzzled and puzzle maker of

word and place like swift

current moose jaw new amsterdam

and old churches

turned into bingo halls

and flutes playing

cedar waxwing songs

and smiles too closed

beaks and all and nothing

shakes the bed posts

and won’t put any clothes

on for a new land

new country republic of

bed sheets and brambles and fresh

orange juice the

smell of toast and new paper newspaper

ink and white sheets

and breakfast in bed

for all of us

BIO: mike sluchinski is a recent pushcart prize nominee and adds dadaist, ekphrastic, stream of consciousness, and pop art elements to his punk and post punk collages, poetry, fiction, and non. he’s grateful to be part of dublin poetry walk '24 & '26, superfan/dear easy mac, FLARE: flagler review, scifaikuest, tulane review, mantis, failed haiku, inlandia journal, kaleidotrope, eternal haunted summer, the wave (kelp), the literary review of canada, the coachella review, welter, poemeleon, lit shark, proud to be vols. 13 & 14, the ekphrastic review, meow meow pow pow, kelp journal, the fib review, south florida poetry journal (soflopojo), freefall, pulpmag, in parentheses, and more coming!​