Featuring Richard LeDue

Nice and Tidy

Minutes crawling by like ants,

who probably believe the bottom of your foot

is the devil and your kid's cookie crumbs

god, but eventually the floors will be barren,

well swept and clean enough

to fool the world

into thinking you never made a mess,

or maybe barely even existed.

The Writer's Dream

The truest gamble is getting out of bed

each morning, taking part in the slow death race

we call rush hour, only to find the finish line

is always changing,

until defeat arrives like fresh sheets

on a hospital bed,

but there are ways to win,

like refusing the surrender a Saturday night

to silence and allowing a dead singer

life again in between whisky coloured wagers

that are the safest bets

or chasing the writer's dream,

while others sleepwalk through Netflix,

sensible bed times, keeping track of fibre

in their diets, worrying about blue chip stocks,

succeeding at a job that will kick them

to retirement like they're a half deflated football

doomed to to a thrift store afterlife.

Art Among CGI Explosions

Hundreds of millions of dollars baptize

another Hollywood movie,

while I shortchange myself by being

on hold for an hour,

comparing tenants insurance

to save a couple of hundred of dollars,

and the hold music started to remind of death

breathing hard on the end of an unlisted number,

so I hung up.

My failure small next to a brilliant director,

who was important enough to sell out,

to talk of art among CGI explosions

as I lie in bed, blue as a grey sky,

knowing my own story

wouldn't even warrant practical effects.

Neither Sacred Nor Sacrilegious

Had a good night yesterday,

wrote three poems,

however, tonight I had an invasion of bugs,

tiny ones all over my kitchen floor.

They were small as worries

we forget years later,

yet as I squashed them,

I felt defeated

because I had surrendered my inspiration

to creatures who probably believe crumbs

god's favour and my hands heavenly wrath,

only to leave me in my own purgatory

searching for words, neither sacred nor sacrilegious,

but the closest I'll ever get to salvation.

Not Much of a Memory

Over twenty years ago,

we went to this party up the road

from my friend's house,

which was down the road from a cemetery,

and I drank enough beer

to safely say I don't remember being there,

but I never forgot the walk back at 5 AM.

My friend and I coated in dawn's light

like we were two drunk angels,

only to know for sure now

that I have no idea what we talked about

or why went at all.

The Beauty of It All

Crows atop of telephone lines

watch like angels who chose to leave heaven

and my fingers hide in pockets,

as if they were earthworms

waiting for the preacher's voice.

The twilight sky a rose always

just out of touch.

The beauty of it all a spiritual experience

akin to a heart attack kicking you

out of your body, only to hear your doctor

complain about his golf swing

before you meet dead relatives

who liven up brain death enough

to give you another twenty or thirty years,

wondering why dying felt so good

or if your doctor ever figured out his long game.

Richard LeDue lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He has published both online and in print. He is the author of ten books of poetry. His latest book, 'Sometimes, It Isn't Much' was released by Alien Buddha Books in February 2024.

Find more of Richard's work on Bold Monkey here: 

Submissions to Bullshit Lit's Second Anthology close soon

 

Submissions to the Anthology close in 2-3 days. Their standards of bullshit are very high. Haha! My submission below reeks of it but fell short of their mark:

A Shithouse Narrative

 

‘The most beautiful flowers grow out of shit but it is shit alone that helps us create’. 

Celine

 

This is a poem about shit/ is shit- 

you be the judge.

 

1

The Greater One Horned Rhinoceros 

produces about 25 kilos of dung per day

they are the ultimate loners-

while foraging in the wild

they use their keen sense of smell to sniff

out the freshness of droppings of their own species- 

only to head the other way.

 

2

At Sutherland Railway station on platform 3

face the eastern wall under the bridge-

if you look closely

you will find the collected excrement

of several generations of pigeons-

layered in waves of muck

4 by 2 metres in size.

 

3

The great late Canadian poet Al Purdy 

was fascinated by shit-

he wrote about it often in his work.

In ‘When I Sat Down to Play the Piano’

he describes how Eskimo dogs had a wild

appetite for human excrement. In another masterpiece,

‘Death by Numbers’ fearing the approach 

of death, he describes

how he daily inspected his faeces 

for traces of blood.

 

4

In Kejimkujik National Park in B.C.

there is a warning sign in a hemlock forest which reads:

‘A free standing tarp is recommended

to avoid falling frass (larval faeces) from

the Pale-Winged Grey Moth’.

 

5

When my eldest son Abel was 2

I took off his nappy

to air his bum out in front of the TV.

When I returned from the kitchen

he was smearing the boob tube with poo.

Was this a pubescent act of anarchy, or simply,

a natural disdain for mass consumerism  ?

 

6

In Swift’s satirical ‘Academy of Lagado’

a visiting surgeon describes at length 

how human excrement is analysed in detail 

at the academy to determine the original 

composition of the food consumed as a means 

of detecting anti-government conspirators.

 

7

During the 14^thCentury

the bubonic plague

was seen by some scholars as resulting

from a sort of ‘cosmic constipation’-

the breathing in of some foul fumes

wafting up from deep inside

the bowels of the earth.

 

 

Dear Reader 

 

You can probably surmise from the above anecdotes

that I have collected dozens of other equally ass-kicking ones.

 

You may also be wondering why I have this obsessive fascination with crap,

and deep down, what the shit I hope to achieve?

 

I don’t really know. Honest.

 

Perhaps I am attempting to explore excrement as an emblem 

for human endeavour. As a kind of a universal and personalising 

force which solidifies the artistic process…

 

Sorry reader, what it you say? 

 

OK yeah, I admit it: I’m full of it!

In contrast, Red Focks the editor of Alien Buddha Press had no qualms about accepting this previously rejected masterpiece for The Alien Buddha Gets Rejected Part 2 (February 2023). True story:

Bathurst After lunch

 

We check out

the Visitor’s Centre

to see if there is

a winery nearby.

 

On the way out

I head to the Gents

for a quick piss.

 

Opening a cubicle

the toilet bowl

is a mass of

shit & blood

 

as if the bloke

has blown a gasket.

 

He must have been in

too big an emergency

 

to actually turn around

& flush the goddamn toilet!

Then again Red rejected  this tongue-in-cheek satirical work I believed in:

This One Is For Free

 

Most readers,

consumers 

want everything

for free

these days.

 

Newspapers & magazines

are massively shredding

staff. Others have folded. 

Independent presses are drying up.

 

Most things are available now online

with the click of a mouse.

 

I tell you dear reader the best 

I can offer you now is this humble poem.

 

There may not be very much to it

in substance 

style

or effort-

 

but you get what you fucking pay for

you cheap prick! 

Featuring Alan Catlin

 

The following poems have been chosen from Alan Catlin’s recent poetry collection The Road To Perdition (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) 102 pages.

 

American History X

 

“You’re the cocaine on the mirror.

The badly cut cocaine.”  Zadie Smith

 

He was the self-proclaimed

president of the United States

of the Stupid.  Alt-Right Fight

Club pioneer made famous/

gone viral, for punching out 

a 95 pound woman with a

Love Trumps Hate sign.

Directed the dragging of a black

man to a parking garage to be

beaten by cowards with face masks.

All the better not to see you.

Not to provide that all important

positive ID.

Has tattooed 88 on the backs of

both hands, numbers that represent

the letter H as in the phrase

Heil Hitler.

Exhorts others to Join or Die at

rallies in places like Charlottesville.

Buys a brace of tiki lights for hate

parades around statues of traitors

and riot shields for get-togethers

after rallies where things often are

wet and wild and totally out of

control.  

Is Extreme everything: right wing,

radicalized, white hood wearing 

and proud of it.

Brings guns to a peace rally in case

Grannies Against the War go rogue

and attack: “The only good gray panther

is a dead one.”

Thinks the Four Horsemen of

the Apocalypse are: Robert Lee, Jeff Davis,

Stonewall Jackson and Bedford Forrest.

Says the Civil War has just begun.

May even have been the guy who

fired the first shot.

 

 

 

 

Blood of the Poet

 

She fancied herself as a model

for timeless works of Art by masters

such as Reubens and Renoir but,

in real life, was someone you might

find in a painting by Francis Bacon, 

Lucian Freud, or Egon Schiele.

Chain smoked some hard to find,

off-brand, sub-continent cigarette

that permanently stained her fingers

and lips, smokes that tasted like what 

was left in an ashtray the night after 

the day before, everything spilled or 

totally spoiled.  Collected men the way

social strivers or con men bought

other people’s diplomas, trophies, 

awards and claimed they were their own.

Owed more money than a rich uncle,

had there been one, could ever have

left behind: despite having nothing,

she always expected the best.  Saw

the future as lush and limitless as if she 

where viewing the world from a balcony 

overlooking a forest instead from where 

she was actually at: in some uptown 

ghetto, in a flophouse, where even the

fire escapes led nowhere. Smelled roses

when other people detected leaking gas.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                              Ballad of the Sad Café

 

A bar before noon is a terrible place.

The plug pulled neon beer signs, cracks

in the night where the dark gets through. 

The stench of the tap drains where the yeast

ferments, the slime and the bacteria cultures

grow. The backed up drains of the spill sinks,

the lingering scent of bad hops, dampness

leaking from every building pore, the odor of

sweat, stale cigarettes, ash cans and rotten

fruit.  The broken glass and everything

stuck to the blackened floor where the beer

pitchers tipped and fell, the drink trays dropped,

blood splattered and vomit stained.

The click of the sound-turned-down juke box

cycling the selections for a song.

Hair of the dog breakfast: shit sandwiches

and dry heaves, stopping the shakes with

shots inhaled through half straws, powdered

speed floaters on top to kick start all the stalled 

body parts, a brain pan sucked dry of life. 

A day like any other day.

The sun rises or it doesn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

                                               The Road to Perdition

 

The dining room floor of the truck-

stop looked like a waiting room

for an advanced placement in a hall

of the dead.  And maybe it was.

 

The Hound stopped outside twice

a day, once coming, and once going,

dispensing people for rest breaks,

burned coffee, and stale white bread

sandwiches made with cold cuts so

far past a sell but date even the mold

had begun to die.  No one ever made

eye contact coming to and from the

leaky pipe, no flush toilets, or at

the counter, pitted, cigarette end burned

Formica counter. Not the dead eyed waitress

or the resurrected from the out-back-

behind-the-shed fry cook, who gave new

meaning to working the graveyard shift 

no matter what time of day it was.

 

After extended piss breaks, drivers

chain smoked Pall Mall longs, popped 

Dexedrine like Tic Tacs and bought spiked

six packs of under the counter Sprite

laced with Vodka, for all the red eyed trips

to come, fueling the internal combustion

machine of their bodies for that long,

flat, straight two lane ride due West, 

into the sun.

 

 

 

 

                                               Never Let Me Go

 

“I must be dead for there is nothing but blue

snow and the furious silence of a gunshot.

Two birds crash blindly against the glass

surface of a lake. I’m cold, religiously cold.”

            Will Christopher Baer, Kiss Me, Judas

 

Shown the way to the last whiskey bar

Date rape drug introduced into House

Special Ice Nine Cocktail

Waking up in a new dimension of hung over

 

Naked

Packed in ice

One kidney short of a pair.

 

“DON’T WORRY,” a voice says,

“YOU REALLY ONLY NEED ONE.”

 

Stockpiled transplant coolers

White exterior with a red cross on all four sides 

Years of scalpel work tutored by the best

Dismissed for dereliction of duty

For consuming too many forbidden beverages

while on call

then showing up for emergency work

One slip and your done

There are no second chances during surgery

 

Still the fastest man on the block

with a knife when relatively sober

Neat and clean

Precise

 

Now a cutter on the underground circuit

Off the books

Cash in hand

Best job he ever had

Doesn’t dare think about fucking up

The guys who pay give dying the slow death

new meaning

Torment and torture what they do best

Some day he might retire  

If he lives long enough

Buy the Alan Catlin’s book ‘The Road To Perdition’ here:   https://www.amazon.com/Road-Perdition-Alan-Catlin/dp/B08XLLF2GP/ref=sr_1_2?crid=37783NYLDTTUT&dchild=1&keywords=alan+catlin&qid=1618507259&s=books&sprefix=alan+cat%2Caps%2C160&sr=1-2

Empty Glass Musings

 

Locals in Wollongong often ask me whether the cover of my collection of short stories The Empty Glass (Alien Buddha Press, 2020) by Pam'la was inspired by the nearby magnificent Bulli Heritage Hotel (1889): 

No, I tell them- although it could have been any of thousands of similarly built pubs across Australia, it was actually based on the Railway Hotel (1879) in Grenfell, New South Wales, which we visited in 2019. Grenfell is the spiritual home and birthplace of the vagabond, drunken literary Australian writer Henry Lawson (1867-1922) whose presence can be found throughout the town. In the book, I try to contemporise some of his wayward, larrikin spirit.

In Alien Buddha Press 21 I briefly explain the processes in creating The Empty Glass:

Between 2011 and 2015 I wrote about 50 short stories narrated by a young bar worker and aspiring poet Toby Mulheron. Most were written quickly and were initially intended to be segments of a loosely strung together Künstlerroman, about Toby’s artistic coming of age. The stories are set in Australian pubs and clubs and many originated from tales people in the industry had told me over many years. They are intended to provide social commentary on our drinking culture but also to ridicule it. 

 

I was experiencing difficulty putting the stories together in novel form. A key moment in propelling the book forward was when I came across Jim Hayne’s Best Australian Drinking Stories first in a podcast on ABC Radio & later in hard copy form in the local library. I wrote a review of the anthology on my blog Bold Monkey: 

https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2019/12/book-review-jim-haynes-best-australian.html

I found some of Hayne’s compilation highly entertaining but overall, the material was bland, highly unrealistic and terribly dated. Many of the stories nostalgically put on a pedestal the notion of the 6 O’Clock Swill, where pub goers would drink furiously before 6 pm, because by law, pubs had to shut by this time. This historical anachronism was abolished in New South Wales in 1955 and 1966 in Victoria. 

Hayne’s anthology is tame, feel-good stuff. No drunks losing the plot, no cuss words, no hint of uncontrolled gambling or drinking addictions, no sporting heroes stuffing up and certainly no sniff of domestic violence. I reckoned the stuff I was writing about pubs had its limitations but was far more honest, contemporary and interesting. I shot some stories Red’s way. 

In an edit of my manuscript for The Empty Glass, I reduced my short story count from 50 to 23. In starting the collection, I opted with short humorous stories and anecdotes. To get the reader in. And as the collection progressed, the tone would get increasingly darker. 

In terms of style, my primary aim is to create clear, graphic images in the head of the reader. I include heavy use of Australian dialogue to allow the reader to imagine they are flies on a pub wall. The narrator often speaks directly to the reader and uses detailed insider anecdotes of working in a pub or club to enhance the credibility of the storylines. 

In putting together the book I built on the tradition of the classic Aussie larrikin yarn with the Church of Bukowski. I was influenced by many texts; in particular by Kenneth Cook’s Wake in Fright (1961) and David Ireland’s The Glass Canoe (1976). 

I was greatly impressed by how these Australian writers were able to combine sparse, working class language with moments of great lyricism. 

I initially tested a few of my stories through small alternative hard-copy presses to see if they were publishable. You will find a few of the stories in publications, such as The Asylum Floor, Rust Belt Review and Alien Buddha Zine.

More recently, my story ‘Black Betty’ featured in Last Call Chinaski!: A Homage to 70 Years of Bukowski’s Influence on Culture & Writing (Lummox Press, 2020): https://www.lummoxpress.com/lc/ Set in King’s Cross, the story is an Aussie appropriation of one of Bukowki’s most famous narratives ‘The Fuck Machine’. 

Despite the crudity and sensationalism represented in The Empty Glass, I reckon there is also a literary quality which shapes the events and helps to uplift the book. I was horrified but also fascinated by what I saw in the pub & club industries- the gambling, the excessive levels of drinking, the ensuing violence, the misogyny, the lip-service to environmentalism- just to name a few targets. 

In creating these short stories, I worked on the transitions in many stories to add complexity and unpredictability as to how they were to unravel. The ‘Albino Bandicoot’, ‘Dizzy’s Family Hotel & Restaurant’ and ‘The Tips Jar’ are probably the best examples of this experimentation. The language may offend some readers. My response is that I’m merely recording how people talk in a work place which can be hostile, particularly when some fools have had far too much to drink. 

Buy the book here on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1704329604/ref=cbw_direct_from_1

Read some blurbs about the book: https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2020/02/new-release-george-anderson-empty-glass.html