Bradley Mason Hamlin

CHUCK BERRY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Some
times
they come
over
maybe
they’re babbling
about
Charles Bukowski
or
the New York Yankees
so I
turn up Chuck
Berry
and drink
a little faster
and
sometimes
they hear
but
sometimes
they don’t listen
cuz
they is tone
deaf
dumb deaf
or just
too drunk
to know better
than to
bandwagon chatter
but
when they
get
kicked out
it’s not
because
they didn’t have
a good time.

HANGTOWN POEM NO. 1

and when I heard
you were
in the county Hangtown
jail
I almost felt
relieved
sort of like when
Mom died
an end of sorts
to the madness
that was
and maybe
I
thought
yours
is
only now
coming to light.

YOU NEVER DRINK ALONE

you see their
faces
hovering,
fading,
sometimes popping in
and out
of the dark
hooded
figures moving
slowly
toward you
sometimes
it drives you mad
but mostly, I
just
go get another drink.

angry rock and whispering sand

I’m
standing
in the
California desert
naked and
the wind’s kicking up
vicious tiny rocks
brutal
tearing into me
like a mummy’s curse
the skin rips
the blood spider-webs
into rocky strands of red mud
and through it all
I hear a voice
calling me
but hard to understand
against the storm
and I move
toward
the inconceivable
the uncontrolled
the unknown
I have no magic wand
no time machine
or flying saucer
only a skeleton
moving
forward,
while
letting go
of everything else.

THE ART OF CUNT

My
neighbor
just bought
a
local piece
of
art
for 1500 bucks
but
said
she
expects
a
free copy
of
my next publication

How
about
laying out
1500 frog skins, baby
and I’ll give you
a lifetime
subscription
to all
the crap
I write

She laughs …

her
laugh
saying
“but
this is real art”

real
because
the artist
has spent more time
energy
enthusiasm
and entrepreneurial
ass sucking
on
self promotion
rather
than the art
itself

while
the real artists
are living
in someone’s basement
and have
no fucking idea
how to get
their paintings on walls
their books
in print
or their music
inside
your ear canals

fuck Rembrandt
fuck Shakespeare
fuck Mozart
fuck Charles Dickens
in the ass
Van Gogh, Brahms,
and Basquiat

the greatest artists
you have never seen
the greatest artists
you have never heard
the greatest artists
you have never read.

CATTLE CALL

John Waters said
that the reason Americans
are depressed
is that we all secretly
wish
we were in show business

That’s why psychiatrists
don’t talk
and just hand out pills
because
they too,
the head shrinkers,
want to be in show business

and as I’m traveling down
Florin road in Sacramento,
California
instead of Rodeo Drive
in Beverly Hills …

I realize he’s correct
and this
is just
another sad audition.