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Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Featuring Marc Olmsted




DRIVE-THROUGH PHARMACY


Long wait - music piped out - Lone Ranger theme, 

Bach’s spooky Toccata and Fugue - 

some Ringling Brothers circus music 

all on a repeating loop -

Red spray paint on a wall

word balloon

with a grinning mouth

I thought at first an octopus: 

FRESH OUTTA JAIL




JURY POOL SELECTION


I.

Dressed as a serial killer for the murder trial

On the transit downtown to the court house 

a knife cutting the winter dawn sky awake

“I may be butchering the name” said the clerk

to my 3 hours of sleep 

- I am not a daywalker -

Filling out the questionnaire after raising a hand sworn in


II.

Still have to come back!

I saw the defendant

(Law & Order classic thug)

& thought

“Well he’s totally fucked.”

I’d upped the ante

This time hair unwashed, not pulled back

Beat-up motorcycle boots

A Halloween Michael Myers t-shirt

& instead of Nike

It says Mike

And the curved checkmark “just do it” brand logo?

A dripping bloodly scimitar

The other prospective jurors

wouldn’t look at me

“Yes, your honor?”

Got home to the e-mail

RELEASED FROM THE PANEL





ASTRO-MAN

(For Bob Branaman)


So the artist I knew age 90 checks out -

I saw it coming 

asteroid at the back 

of the solar system -

Bob - you’ll do o.k. and you 

went with love, frankly I’m ready to join you

The dark weight of heart’s grief 

even as my kitten purrs




that dark wine

(For Andy Clausen)


what have I become

that this old age has Caliban made? 

a hoofed shambler none can save from time, the great evener


he lost his leg 

to giant poetry 

& then dragged down into 

Homer's dark wine

where poems may still be 

honored, my first thought was "folly" 

don't waste another second 

he's ten years ahead of me 

no more lies about the fame of poetry 

his death the same 

day as the 

murderer 

who got away 

with it





Marc Olmsted has appeared in City Lights Journal, New Directions in Prose & Poetry, New York QuarterlyThe Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and a variety of small presses.  He is the author of six collections of poetry, including What Use Am I a Hungry Ghost?which has an introduction by Allen Ginsberg.  Olmsted's 25 year relationship with Ginsberg is chronicled in his  Beatdom Books memoir Don't Hesitate: Knowing Allen Ginsberg 1972-1997 - Letters and Recollectionsavailable on Amazon.

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