Skull Fuck Your Darlings

by Patrick Johnston

Death to a Ladies Man

Bring me the head of Leonard Cohen

So I can rip out his tongue

With all its longing

Bring me his hands

And all the useless things

They have done

Bring me his famous blue raincoat

With its rugged heroism

And poetic grace

And burn it

The Lunch is Served

Let’s cut

Not chase

Dragons

Or Mugwomps

It’s just bull

It’s just

Paranoia

Wild

Boy Sex

Junk

And more in the same vein

First read

As a teenager,

Physically in Yorkshire —

But in my head

Thought I were in’t’zone.

But it’s a load

Of bull

.

One more time

Will Tell

With feeling

Let’s dust off the bug

Powder our noses

And take aim.

Exterminator

Kimmy is loaded

Him spurt six

It’s just

a load

Of old Bull

Lee.

Nothing is true…

Pull the (Lynch) pin

Cooper to boot y’all

Logging evidence

Lodging files

In Black and White

Marlboro Reds

Red Drapes

Blue Velvet

Nitrous Oxide

Caffeine

And Nicotine Trifecta

Lost Hollywood Highways

Mulholland Meaning Erased

Headfirst

Pre-echoes

From the other place

I know the dirty beard hangs

Out

by the box car waiting

Waiting

You made me wait

For 10 minutes

Whilst a guy swept the floor

Thanks a fucking bunch

The Lynch Mob loved it

BIO: Dr. Pat Johnston is a poet and former neuroscientist. His work appears in Love and Literature, The Argyle Literary Magazine, and other journals. He writes about memory, madness, masculinity, and myth with equal measures of reverence and demolition. He lives between Australia and Southeast Asia.