Three Poems by Joseph Goosey

No Time To Party

        
         Time to choke
         on the waning aftermath.  

The guidelines state
                “I” must
                      mean “we”

                      if I’m to be considered 
                      worthy by the arbiters
                      of working class tragedy.  
                     
                      Holler if you hear 
                      the directions out.

                                 Fuck yr guidelines
                                
                                 & the natural order taboot!

How loathed those jams!

             Interminable as a death
                                   in which I was expected
                                   to dance.
    
                                  Could’ve been sadder.
                                 
                                  Could’ve married an Italian
                                                       who demands
                
                                   SUNDAY FAMILY TIME

Week after
week after week
after week after -

                            WHO’S THERE?

                                      What an ultimate dunce
                                      I’ve been since the start
                                      to ever even think
                                      options lived here anymore.

The Liquor Store Maidens Know Me Like A Cancer


The liquor store maidens know me like a cancer.

           Somewhere,
           one’s place is cemented.
     
                        Beneath Colorado mulch, maybe,
                                                    where it’s legal
                                                     to be at peace.

                                                    What I’ve said?
                                         Yet to be seen.

                                            Laughing all the way
                                             to the plasma bank!

                               Spent the preferred
          portion of a night
             praying to a god
             who’s no longer
         reading unsolicited
            sacrifice. In total
                                      
                                      I’m one bled doggy!

Under the magnifying heart – a carcass.

                                  Smolder me once.
                                    
            Catholic shame on me.
                                       
                       Murder me twice.
                                        
 Magnfuckingifique.

Pith Trap

        
         A pride parade
of tragic figures
            
              from Smeagol to DMX
            
     has had it worse
                 & better
          but it’s tough  
     goings & circumstances
                 got me cowered
in the uniform closet
             where we used to make out
          on the fascistic clock.

$25 a pop.

      I pop.

Instant regret
             floods the mausoleum. 

 

 

 

Joseph Goosey

Three Poems by Joseph Goosey

Top Ten Scientists Who Would Be Executed Today

Why earn a salary before graduation
when you could explode the federal reserve
board building & finally communicate
with your birth truth? Sitting here
holding an ice cube to this mouth wound
of unidentifiable origin, at least I know
what's inside: one decade
of mandatory guilt & a lifetime
of cancerous plastic compounds
courtesy of Dupont corporation - 

not only cancerous
but likely to blame for this brain
coming to you now, live
& nobody's request,
from the least lucrative of stages.

Slice New York City Open

& change your religion 

from Agnostic to O Shit 

They're Coming For Us 
From Below & Above! 
Nobody will ever care
about the panic attack 

you'll obviously have 

immediately following. 

This isn't The Sopranos.
We don't get that brand 

of public compassion.
We get lemon slices 
milked onto bland 
afternoons at best 

or a no knock warrant 

served at second. 

E.E. Cummings Was A Huckster McCarthyite

& that’s fine. Nothing new.
We’re all occasionally awful.
I’ve got my share of rotting thoughts like
E.E. Cummings was a total bigot fuckboi.
& that’s not fine.
People evolve
but E.E. Cummings chose elsewhere
& tricked whatever middle school you attended
into peddling his brand
of individualist trash.
Snakeoil trash as companion piece
to Atlas  F’n Shrugged. I mean
Just. No. Now those foundations flourish
even more than then
& nothing screams unique
like being the worst.

 

Joseph Goosey