Six Poems

by Scott Holstad

First Street Blues

So it’s 11 pm and we’re

watching the nightly news,

when we hear an explosion

and the earth thunders

and we shake more than

we did during the quake

and shouts are heard out

in the street to the effect of

                                    get out!

                                    get away!

                                    run!

so What The Hell?

We went running outside

ourselves, but see

now

there are all kinds of

            muggings        carjackings

            drivebyes         murders

happening in our neighborhood

and the fucking police choppers

camp out constantly over our pad

but this was a serious new one.

A meth lab had blown up

just three doors down

from us and there

were six firetrucks

and twelve police cars

and hundreds of local

spectators and as they

taped off the block

with their garish yellow

police tape, we watched

the white fumes drifting

in the air, and she looked

over and said to me,

                                    ya know,

it’s pretty fucking scary

to think that ninth grade

dropouts are playing with

enough lethal chemicals

to level the entire

damn city block.

zombie sighting

light leaving grandfatherly eyes,

looks downward casting glances

cautiously, awaiting bus at 3rd &

Vermont, fedora pulled low over

wisping white hair shredded by

stale stolen breezes blowing

earth’s crust out,

walks forward,

                                                staggers

                                                really,

toward trashed out white

washed deli bones,

old man

father time

carcass

corpse

winning the (a?) race

bearing tattered worn

sign crying out to all,

“please don’t shoot”

varmints & the dancing steel toed Docs

glanced up from my book only

to see a little brown spot

moving on my cream colored

wall and upon closer inspection,

i realized it was yet another one

of my regular uninvited house

guests “visitors” and i wondered

HTH this one appeared since I

stopped up the sinks, set out traps,

man the sentry posts at the kitchen

counter of my slum/hovel shack.

i often wonder whose ancestors

they are and i think of Kafka

every time i go on a killing spree.

in fact, I admit to sometimes even

feeling a twinge of guilt, like when

i killed 42 of them just last

Saturday morning alone.

i snapped back to reality when

i noticed the brown spot making

a trek across the surface of my

cream colored wall, so i grabbed

my steel toed Doc boot on the

floor beside me while rising to

move in for the kill but i guess

it sensed my approach cause it

stopped to play dead (they seem

to think they’ll fool us but

Darwin knows better) and i

briefly hesitated before

smashing the shit

out of it and as i later

cleaned the remnants of its

guts off the wall, i thought

again of poor Gregor and

was grateful that they just

don’t get as big as that.

Right Here? Right Now? Kool.

“hold still baby,

i like to tease a little.”

we were paired off in an alley

behind a 24-hour Long Beach

Kinko’s, and it was late, very

dark and this friendly

blonde i’d just met inside

had her tongue tracing

erotic daggers around my

left nipple.

a cruiser surprised us as it

crawled by, shining a garish

light down the alley as we

jumped apart, hoping not

to draw any attention.

a minute later and my

fingers were at her zipper

frantically trying to gain

access. seconds after

i felt her wet mound,

went for the cleft as

she arched toward me.

she thrust hard several

times, grunts mixed

with pleas to not stop

and with that she

suddenly groaned,

shuddered and

settled onto my

shoulder, panting.

15 fevered reciprocal

minutes later, i shot

my load deep inside

her and after a moment,

we smiled and kissed,

then she went back

into the Kinko’s and

probably was a bit late

coming back from her

break while i went in

to finish making copies

of some new broadsides

i was about to publish.

after waving goodbye,

i went back to my place,

only realizing upon

going to bed that we’d

somehow neglected to

get each other’s names.

<High> Living <High> on Wilshire Boulevard

I used to brag about living in a 30-floor

high rise on Wilshire Boulevard out in

Los Angeles. Call me stupid, but it

turned out there were reasons I

couldn't afford to live in The Beverly

Wilshire, made famous by Julia

Roberts in Pretty Woman

                                                            AND

why I COULD afford my high rise

heading downtown past the mid-

Wilshire District.

Seems I was living in 18th Street

gang territory, something most

sane people would have advised

against. Food for some other

poems, perhaps.

But Wilshire’s a cool-cat street with

a real long drag and even longer history.

John Fante can tell you all about it.

I dug the architecture, atmosphere,

art deco Wiltern Theatre and more.

I also loved the eclectic restaurants

throughout the area, the clubs, hell

even the churches had soul and some

of those old, shuttered buildings just

had class – tell me you don’t remember

Marilyn Monroe and the Coconut Grove.

Don Johnson of Miami Vice fame

made a movie in my building.

The producers bribed me to loan

them my apartment with an iconic

balcony and noir-like view for

a week. They put me up in the

Beverly Hilton, where I slummed

it by sipping weak rum drinks at

Trader Vics and pretending

like I belonged.

The view was best from the roof,

where you could see all of L.A.

and especially the Hollywood

sign. If you couldn’t park in the

underground garage though,

you’d basically need an Uzi and

a Rottweiler to get from car

to building, but we always

claimed that was just part

of the “magic.”

Some parts of the neighborhood

have gone to hell while others

have undergone some rejuvenation.

However, I moved across the country

to Georgia, then North Carolina, but

I miss Wilshire, Koreatown, the mid-

Wilshire and Fairfax districts, and

frankly the whole damn cocky

attitude it engendered inside you.

I guess that was the end of my

“high” (rise) L.A. living.

dis/illusion re conspiracy ducks trad bombing truth insanities to the longdead unserious minded united idiot zealots of yore – the joke’s on…                                                                              -- [Another Random Cut-Up Series Creation]

God hates religious zealots  

sticking it in each other

braindead cabinet douchebags

                        <<’n>>

trad modernist twists,

they’re playing dead games 

with abstract data dumps

            <<’n>>

bioscience shock or

shadow project cubed          

                                                   SkreAmz

                        sharing hot hell son

1 notez

hypocrisy = golden rule,

Christian Nazi vampire flamers

hidden in plain sight 

             pr0b1em        1z

Commie Jesus Shames Nazis

                                            <<’n>>

Nazi Right threw Reagan out

we

were victim warriors 

make Merika Hate More

euthanizing the masses tho

learned nothing playing doctor       

wearing human skin to shock

shotgunning tequila fumes

it’s a gloryhole cum protocol

               <<’n>>

dom preppy milfs fuck harder

buTT he didn’t know what twat meant       

ya Kn0w pain just looks better on others

no genocidal suicides

god said no not the heart

an stabbed the angels in the back

                        we said

fuck disunity lust

tapes and guts and death

who are these fuckers anyway

used

to think pedos were the worst

all bullsh1t like

puke pizza and purple wine

but

demonz don’t want pitchforks

and coverz ain’t cutting it

so Orange yearned for

ordinary dead bodies

or as ordinary as

The Matrix allows brown

desert kin to be

                                        <<’n>>

now precision boobs can

rain down on brown non-

appendaged adolescents

just bL0w their disjointed

heads off so JE karbalas

can go back to tongue

fukk1ng boy balls

devouring their

steaming entrails

they ask what’s

the point of trad pussi

when married senators

can bareback boy anuzzz

while grunting

give me

2000-lb bombz

yeah mate

no

            no

distractions to this

cover here

to see

            eh

what’s a little mad MAD       

                          <<’n>>

ww3

when it saves us

from the pitchforks

after all

look what they’re

doing to Andi & Fergi

on the other side

man

the worm ate baby centaurs

Orange & Andi

gurgling fucks on all fours

so

thank

baal

Iran closed the Straits

of Vermouth and 2

carriers got waxed

power is as power does

                         <<’n>>

we ain’t going down

along with JE/Giz

Bunkers

Bioscience

Billions

                        gonna

save the Dead Soul Klass

and fuck the rest

they’re

just jizzed out cum

dumped cattle meat

anyways

                        ya dig???

BIO: Scott C. Holstad is a disabled Pulitzer & BOTN-nominated poet & author with 70+ books to his credit & work in in hundreds of magazines including the Minnesota Review, Exquisite Corpse, Long Shot, Pacific Review, Santa Clara Review, Palo Alto Review, Wormwood Review, Chiron Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, San Pedro River Review, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, The Beatnik Cowboy, Misfit, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, The Argyle, Mad Swirl, Ginosko, Libre, SYNCHRONIZED CHAOS, Horror Sleaze Trash, smols, dadakuku, Five Fleas, miniMAG & Bristol Noir. Recent publications include The Piker Press, Barbara, Flash Phantoms, The Scalar Comet, Laid to Rest, BreastMilk Magazine & Blood+Honey. His latest book, SURVIVING IMMORTALITY AGAIN, was released in 2025 by Alien Buddha Press. He holds degrees from the University of Tennessee, California State University Long Beach, UCLA & Queens University of Charlotte & currently lives in Pennsylvania.