PSH: Poets of the Week

Russ Kazmierczak, Jr.
karaokefanboy@hotmail.com

Bio (auto)

By day, Russ Kazmierczak, Jr. works with kids as the director of an after school program in Fullerton, California; by night, he writes poems, draws comics, and admires his action figure collection. In other words, he's a geek. As half of K.O. Comix, Russ has written and self-published five standard length comics, and this year he finally completed his first solo work, Karaoke Comics #1. Russ really enjoys attending and occasionally reading at Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug Cafe in Orange, too.

Visit Russ on the web here: http://karaokefanboy.blogspot.com/

Worm Hole

The mid-morning sidewalk is littered
with earthworms that have sizzled
in the sun.

Their dried bodies look like
macabre confetti from a party
they wanted to leave early.

Every time I see them,
one earthworm still wriggles
in a desperate dance for life.

Sometimes, I pick him up gently
and return him to the cool, tall grass.

Sometimes, I leave him
to make his own way
around the bodies of his brothers

like the rest of us.

Picking Up the Party

Lipstick smeared cigarette butts,
beer bottles, wine corks, and red plastic cups:
these are the orphans of an amazing party.

The paperclip that held the entire night together
rusts in the morning dew,
discharged and discarded like a war veteran.

Whose shoe is this?
Who didn't finish her drink?
Who missed the toilet and puked in the sink?

The sun takes its pulpit
and preaches of sin, and gluttony,
and regret, and redemption.

Somebody played "she loves me not"
with the forks and
throngs of tongs glisten in the grass,
singing "Amazing Grace."

The champagne glasses line up for Confession
and spill everything,
just in time for the rapture.

Fallout

I emerge from fallout
radioactive
bioluminescent
cutting a swath through the earth

I need a chemical shower
or I’ll be a danger
to everyone

Do I have superpowers now?
Can I fly?
Do I have the strength
of a hundred men?

I have the strength of a hundred men!
I can lift tanks over my head!
Fear me! Revere me!
I am a god among you!
The radiation hath made me so!

I feel funny
my fingertips are falling off
I’m melting
melting

quick, mop me up
put me in the freezer
in a million years
we might have a cure

J. de Salvo
torchtotem@gmail.com

Bio (auto)

J. de Salvo, known as A.J. to his friends, is a writer from Los Angeles. His poetry has been published in "Artlife", his fiction in "Collective Voice", and two of his articles have been featured on the cover of "New Angeles Monthly", the now defunct sister publication of "LA Citybeat". He now lives in the Bay Area, where he is working on compiling the first issue of his new webzine 'the Bicycle Review'.

The Gospel according to Frogs

Once a big frog made some
Tiny little frogs
And said that they were good

But pretty soon,
The big frog started reconsidering

The little frogs
Didn’t listen to the big frog
Who made a lot of rules
I mean, a lot.

Then all the little frogs,
Broke the rules

By now there were lots of frogs
Who lived for many years
And spawned profusely
As frogs will do

So the big frog started
Making bad things happen
To the little frogs
Every time they broke the rules

They kept breaking them,
And bad things kept happening
This went on for a long time,
I mean, really long.

So one of the group of frogs
Who had been keeping track
Of all this for everyone
Since way way back
And who called themselves
The chosen frogs
decided to be the ultimate rulebreaker

actually,
he decided to completely
change the rules

To throw out the whole
Rulebook, in fact

He went into the frog temple
And started smashing things
And shit

Now, he said,
It didn’t matter so much
What you did anymore
As long as you asked him
And the big frog
Who everyone previously
Forgot to mention
Were one and the same,
To forgive you

This seemed easy enough,
And it became very popular

The world might end any day,
So it didn’t really matter
What a frog did
So long as they asked to be forgiven

If they didn’t
Bad things would continue
To happen to them
Even after they died,
I mean really bad things.

At heart you are
All sinful shameful little cusses,
And you know it...
Frogs.