Modern poetry collection by the contemporary Cleveland poet Steven B. Smith
reading room #5 11 poems
Slave and Masturbation
An old plow hand, I play acoustic
Foreskin, hairy palms, white cane
Puberty, the fish and the fingers.
Old acids etch anew my brain.
The old wants? They still imply
Unoffered breasts, often rejected.
Original sin is condition given
So the knee bores say.
Yet dark ripples still unstill light.
Small deaths linger lightly on sheets
No longer washed nor nightly scented
With reason wrinkled, or raw.
Such cunning, these beasts
By pruning heaven
They've stilled the old wild yeasts
Yet in breeding unleavened
Seed such sheetings of grief
Shat out uneven
O'er poor human waste
That all dogs believing
Rise lonely and weak
These acids know weakness
No mercy for grief
Or inherent meekness
Unheeded beneath
These semen stained sheets
Keeps meat on its knees
And power unaided
Or tree on the leaf
And tragic the shaman
The promised land of milk and honey
Hides the men of scars and shame
Who came they say to slay their dragon
Yet slayed to stay the same
Sleep creeps like Jason's wool
Down shelf enchanted eyes
Devolved from Mammon's muse
These self selected wise
Inside their phantom rooms
In fairy tale castles
Devoid of viable dooms
As integrated assholes
They sway
Illusion's lies
Our Public Servants
or
The needle men
the wee within
hides hollow
shadows small
Such slime
and sin
and grime
they grin
Much mock the moral mall
In greed they grip
the public tit
Lick all
the wrong behinds
The useless twits
with inbred wits
use farts
to fuel their minds
Call down rehearsed
their red tape curse
in girth
of unknown tome
Whine
why alone
Mime
no known tones
But worse
they ALL tell lies
