scabrosa
trying to catch up
to the blunt-force typing
I promised myself —
my true vocation —
this data entry
that makes
nobody money
I had been curious
about the prospects
ever since
I cooked them up —
what if you had
to re-enter
the whole mess
of raw material
you had been clinging to
just to get yourself
in order, off your spot
and back in motion —
sometimes it’s hard
to be speaking the language
as it has been
agreed to —
that lingo, the shit —
sweet lucre
getting off — in, on
and around the mouth
I have worked to shed
my profanity so this —
my unvarnished vulgarity
might come shining through —
scrubbing myself
scrubbing it hard
following the waters
to be what the flow
carried away
tire on the wheel of time
I started looking
for a way out
of the life
as it had been planned
babylon automatic
more grinding than grooving
I saw an old friend,
saving me a seat
I pulled over my rig
and called it a night
the same twin twice
that thing
I have written
I will write it
a few more times
a mountain of carcasses,
one bite at a time
too much stuff
too much sense
I want you so bad
I dare not touch
catch a falling knife —
doo doot doo doo doot
doo doot doo doot
not ready
but available
unprepared
and okay with that
dude, blows
my doors off
and you wouldn’t
believe
what that let in
again again
but I get spoiled
screaming &
moaning the truth
doo doot doo doo doot
doo doot doo doot
BUCK DOWNS (www.buckdowns.com) served as Boog City’s poetry editor from 2011-2018. A native of Jones County, Miss., Downs works as a publishing consultant and writing coach for corporate clients, technology developers, and authors who need individual attention. In 2017, Furniture Press Books of Baltimore published a selected poems, Unintended Empire. For 30 years he has distributed his poems as a series of postcards and other author-published ephemera. Other poems are available on Instagram (@thesomethingfornothing), and nightly by phone—(202) 569-8076.