This is Michigan, Motherfucker

This is your ass in the snow
wet and cold

This is you
out on the line
looking for work
on a frozen bench

These are your stiff fingers
smoking a Basic menthol
rock hard and seared with yellow

This is you
tearing down factories
pissing in the river
smoking cement blunts
and sticking your finger up
straight to the heavens
motherfucker

This is your television
telling you things will be okay
in a couple of years
but definitely not next year
because
next year’s gonna be even worse

This is Michigan, motherfucker

- shawn r. misener

The Church of The Whooshay

cue:
Kenny G
Songbird

read slowly:

(The pinnacle of our society:
the supermarket)

we all come together
over toothpaste
woks
and reduced-price DVDs

we all walk the walk
of the fluorescent aisles

we all talk the talk
of green
plastic
and food stamps

we pray as one
over the checkout lane
hands reaching for wallets

we go to one
that’s the same as
the next one
and the next one

we are held together
by the mystical power
of purchase

we are ushered in
by the invisible hand
of the Whooshay

we pray to him
and load our carts
to our favorite songs
quietly piped in

- shawn r. misener

"Who's Gonna Fuck You When You're Dead?"

is certainly the best thing I’ve overheard
so I can’t take credit for it
but I can relay the splendor to you
and we can both laugh and chuckle

the couple was gone down the street
before I could react
they were incredibly fast walkers
for being so grey and poorly dressed

but what the man said
in that moment
has stuck with me for ten years
and by now the guy is a wise sage
in the rolodex of my memories

- shawn r. misener

Figures

The way it happened was
I sat there at the laptop
cranking out words
and I heard a beeping
getting louder
a steady emerging BING!

and then the world faded into
a doctor smiling above me
a sanitized plastic smell
and fluorescents

I asked her what happened
and she smiled back
and said they weren’t sure
but they know I had
lost consciousness
and slammed my head
on the keyboard

was the poem still on there?
I asked
feeling for the first time
the gold rush in my veins
of high grade painkillers

I’m not sure
she said
grimacing sympathetically

damn I hope it’s still there
I said
‘cause it was the best thing
I’ve written in years

well whatever it was
she said
it knocked you straight out

really?
I asked

well
it’s the best diagnosis we have
she explained
smiling

- shawn r. misener

flakes

The man asked the poet
why do you write poetry?

The poet replied
why does your dead skin flake off?

:::

The bumblebee ascended
the hill toward the seated man

who watched as it landed on his nose.

:::

Is it live
or is it Memorex?

Is it real
or is it flashback?

:::

The sound of the truck without a muffler
bounced off the old oaks

echoing into fade
the sound dissolved

- shawn r. misener

Ina Gajiya

All you’ve got to show are those ranch kisses vacuumed on white bleached paper plates.

The pearish heads roll through the park on a saliva slip and slide. Chased morosely by red wine, she turns to you and frowns, speaking in Hausa about being tired.

Ina gajiya? she asks. Ba gajiya, you reply.

Bottles of medical hair restoration gel fall from the skies, pegging crouching women and hysterical children. You think: doing drugs in my dreams is almost better than in waking life. There’s no associated dread, no second-guessing while draped in illusion.

You decide to fly
through the jagged hole in the mountain.

- shawn r. misener

Space Race Headcase

there’s a mushroom in the houseplant
alive with dreams and yellow dust

the man in the corner of the road
asks for pastries without sugar

fully clothed,
the model strives for repentance
which she may never locate

who sold us this fantasy?

the mushroom said the nation was lost
to outer space
and the space race headcase

violet smoke rolls across the water
coated with oil
sandwiched between two yellow curbs

- shawn r. misener

St. Jude's Valve

I woke up to find tubes stuffed into me
through new holes in my arms and chest

little blue machines sucked pink goo
from underneath my ribcage

beeping everywhere

an old man next to me
confused and tangled in his own tubes and wires

death nearby
I did the morphine dance with him
in his ghetto yellow hoody

a ticking in my chest
sectioning off the moments

I waited for more painkillers

- shawn r. misener