Shane Allison

four poems

He’s Lost His Mind in Fayetteville, North Carolina

And the bus driver refuses to stop to help him look for it
He’s sure he had it while waiting in the lobby of the Travel Center
Now he’s frantic, searching like a private detective
Beneath seats, above the leopard-print compartments,
Under backpacks, purses & carry on cases.
But there’s no sign of his mind.

Look and see if you sittin’ on it, says his Mama.
I hope he finds it fast cuz
He’s leaking common sense all over me.
This never would have happened
If he hadn’t have been fighting with his sister

Over headphones, a CD player.
What’s the problem, what’s wrong with you?
James, the bus driver yells.
That guy done lost his ever-loving mind
And been looking everywhere for it.

Here it is, the lady in the back yells.
It was rolling around in the aisle
Like an empty soda can,
Like the half full baby bottle,
The kid in seat 34 been screaming for since
Savannah Georgia.

George Costanza Doesn’t Love Me

You left me with a lap of microwave popcorn
and a 2-hour series finale urge to urinate.
I stare at your bald head & hairy back
wishing I was your shirt 100% cotton;
the lemon yellow stains beneath the pits
of your arms to go with the toupee-
sales ticket still attached from
Susie’s Hair Salon & Tanning.
Excuse me George, but can I have your autograph,
Why don’t you join me and my parents for pork chops & peas?
We’re having Fig Newtons for desert?
Take me to one of your movie premieres.
Introduce me to your wife, kids seven & nine.
I faithfully tune in to 180
episodes of you undressing every blond with your eyes.
You prove your love with heart shaped boxes of chocolates.
Shove 12 dozen roses in my face.
The thorns catch on my eyelids.
Where were you?
I kept calling. Left message after message
Did you receive my letters?
I lingered at the front gate of your mansion
waiting in a Chevy Nova
as your wife slept peacefully
in her cucumber face mask-
as your children drifted
in sugar plum dreams.
Waited for you in a window seat
of Melba’s Pit Bar-B-Cue
as you walked through the door
in your red satin pajamas.
You look different without your glasses,
thinner in the blue bath
robe I bought you for Christmas
when we feasted on store-bought turkey.
I basted your body with giblet gravy on the floor
under the kitchen table while your wife
took the kids to her mother’s,
when you pretended to be sick.
As you heard her at the front French doors,
the click-clack of heels
on the finest marble flown in from
Italy, you tossed me my shirt and shoes
urging me to exit from the servant entrance.
You shoved me in the bathroom of green aftershave,
clear sticks of under arm deodorant,
trash cans stuffed with maxi-pads
and glow in the dark band-aids.
I fuss with my shirt stained with your star-studded semen.
Tuck underwear in the back pocket of my acid washed
jeans and sprint to my car parked behind your
forest green BMW you bought after box office
blockbuster success of Pretty Woman.
You don’t love me George Costanza.
You’re ashamed to be seen with a fairy
at the Emmy’s.
But you adore me when I’m ass naked
in a hotel room of Red Roof Inn-
when my mouth is gagged with leather
and wrists are bound
by handcuffs you borrowed
off the set of Law and Order.
You tell me I’m the one you love
as your wife’s away at another fundraiser
and we lie together on your polar bear rug.
A bowl of uncooked kernels positioned between
our naked bodies.
According to you, I’m the only man you will ever love.

Broken Record Rejection Letter

Thank you
Thank you for submitting your work
We thank you for submitting your work
We just want to thank you for submitting your work
For submitting your work we thank you
Thank you
Thank you for submitting your work
For submitting your work, you, your work,
We thank you but we
But we are
But we are unable
We are unable to use
We are unable
Unable
We are unable
Unable we are unable
We are unable to use it at this time
To use it
To use it
it to use it
We are unable to use it at this time
Unable to unabally use it at this time
Unabally unable to use your work at this time
Time, this time
This time
This particular time
This moment in time
In time this time
This particular moment in time
At this time
At this particular moment in time
We are unable to use your work
At this particular moment in time
We are unable to use it
It being being it it being your poems
It being your poems we are unabally unable
To use at this particular moment in this particular time
But we are grateful
Yes, we are grateful
We are so very grateful
Grateful we are
We cannot express how grateful we are
We cannot express enough how grateful we are
Wish you could be here to see the grateful expressed expressions on our faces
Wish you could see how so very grateful we are
So very grateful that you let us consider your work.
We are so grateful, we couldn’t be any grateful.
No one could be gratefuller
We don’t know anyone who is as gratefully grateful as we are at this moment
That you allowed us, us to read your work
Us, this magazine, this magazine to read your work
It wasn’t bad, your work
It wasn’t you know
We want you to know that
We want you to know that it wasn’t bad
Your work it wasn’t bad your work
It wasn’t bad bad is what it was not
It was not bad
But it wasn’t for us
Us it wasn’t for us
Us it wasn’t for
It just was not for us
We liked it,
We liked it a lot
We really liked it; we thought your shit was hot
It was hot
We thought it was hot a lot
Alotta hot
We thought it was so hot, just not for us
It wasn’t bad, it was hot, just wasn’t for us
Just not was not for us
Just not wasn’t not for us
But thanks
Thanks for the opportunity
Thanks we thanks you for the opportunity
Opportunity we thanks you for the opportunity
To read it it to read it
We regret
We really regret
We so do really regret to report
That we can’t use it
Unable to
Sorry we are unable to use your work at this time
It doesn’t fit
It just doesn’t fit our present needs
Our needs
It doesn’t fit our present needs
It doesn’t fit our needs
Our needs
Our needy needs
Our needy needs it doesn’t fit
Our needy need need needs it doesn’t fit
It’s our needs
And your needs don’t fit our needs
Fit
They don’t fit
Your needs just don’t fit our needing needs
You and your manuscript,
Which wasn’t bad, which was hot,
Just does not fit our needs
Our needs are the only needs that matter
It’s about… about… our needs
Our mattered needs
That is what is more important
Our important mattered needs
Our mattering needs
Our needs are what are important
And that’s all that matters
Important is that our needs, our mattered needs
Are met
We want our needy need mattered needs to be met
And your work did not meet our mattered needed needs
That’s it
That’s just all it is to it
Your work did not meet our mattering mattered needs
It’s all about needs.
Sorry you didn’t meet our most important needs
Sorry
We’re sorry
We are so sorry
Sorry we are so sorry sorry
If we were any sorrier, we would have to be sorry first
We cannot express
Let us just say that we can’t express how sorry we are
Sorry you couldn’t meet our present needs
We can’t accept it
We are not accepting it
Sorry but we cannot accept it
Unfortunately we are not accepting it
Sad to say
So sad to say
So sorry and sad to say that we are not accepting it
So sadly sorry
So sorely sorrily sad to say that we cannot accept it
this is unfortunate
This is so unfortunate
It’s so unfortunately unfortunate
We can’t say how sadly unfortunately unfortunate
This all is.
Sadly sorry sadly unfortunate
Unfortunate for you
But not for us
So unfortunately unfortunate for you, but not for us
But for you this is unfortunate for
Poor you
Poor poor you
Poor poet
Poor poor poet you
You poor poor poet
Poor poor unfortunate poet you
Poor unfortunately unfortunate poet you
Poor unacceptable unfortunately unfortunate poet you
But thanks
Thanks for thinking of us
Thanks anyways for thinking of us
We thank you for thinking of us
Anyways thanks
Your work wasn’t right
It wasn’t right for our needful needs
But thanks
It couldn’t be used
It just could not be used
But thanks anyways
Best of luck
But best of luck
Best of luck though
But best of luck placing it elsewhere
Good luck best of luck
Placing it elsewhere best of luck
Best of luck placing the work elsewhere
Best of luck and we thank you

Bill Confesses His Love for Monica to Hillary

Recently I saw a picture of Bill & Hillary Clinton
on the cover of a birthday card in Barnes and Noble.
I made a mental note to myself to go back and buy
at least four of those cards for the birthdays of friends.

They look like they were born on a farm.
In seeing Hillary now on TV,
on CNN, that child has had some
work done.

Bill seems unsure about something:
Looking like he forgot to wash his hands.
I wonder if he ever imagined then
what has happened now:
that he would be president of the United States
or remain a manager at some gas mart in Arkansas?
The White House is a long way from that first apartment
during college with no heat or air-conditioning & roaches
floating dead in a broken toilet of stale piss.
Life for him was a gourmet
peanut butter & jelly sandwich
until Monica came along & set his ass straight.
Explaining that she didn’t get this far on grades alone.
She is no amateur when it comes down to oral sex.
I keep fantasizing of this round,
red ring from her lipstick, left at the base of Bill’s cock
& he knows this & gets off on it.
The thought of Monica Lewinski’s Maybellene
moisture lips’ marking his penis puts a smile
on his American face.

Does Hill know what’s going on between those two?
She here’s Bill sneaking in with the help of
secret service agents as she lies on her side
pretending to be asleep.
Bill clicks on the lights in the bathroom
that has been the same color
since the territorial pissings of Jimmy Carter.
He runs a hot shower, scrubs his penis
zestfully clean from lipstick, saliva.
Hillary doesn’t make a sound.
Even though she wants to cut off his
dick & stuff it in the very mouth that licked
Monica’s cunt, she refuses, pulling the presidential covers
to her chin & falls asleep.

Monica’s mother asks,
What is this white stain on your dress?
That’s just sugar from a glazed donut
I was eating in the car on my way home, she says.
Being her mother, she believes her.
Even though Newsweek and Dan Rather
says it’s semen.
Monica throws the dark blue dress
in the bathtub, grabs Woolite
& squeezes a drop the size of a dime
on the stain & scrubs, ’cause it takes more than
water & soap to get cum stains out of dark blue
dresses.
Bill uses her like a cum towel
until the shit hit the fan
about he & Monica having sexual relations
at the Red Roof Inn.
He confesses his sins at news briefs & press conferences
with a Jimmy Falwell sensitivity.
No one wants to know about Bill’s sex life
except Hollywood execs
who want to option his story off for
a made for TV movie.
Hillary better wake up & smell
the Cuban cigars.
Monica has lost weight
& is featured on the cover of Vanity Fair.
I wonder how Chelsea is handling all of this?
She slits her wrists with a carpet cutter
as she lies in her bed of stuffed animals
& a tell-all diary.