Doug Draime

            Homeless Sellout With A PO Box


            The odds were

            against me, maybe

            100 to 1

            that theyıd accept

            any of the poems

            I sent.  Then one day

            in my PO Box

            a check for $25 and a note

            saying they were

            going to publish

            one.  The worst

            one I submitted.  But then,

            what the hell

            do I know

            about poetry?  I still think

            Rod Mc Kuen

            is a better poet than

            John Ashbery.  And Bob Dylan

            has said more in one song than

            William Carlos Williams said

            in his entire

            writing career.  So, they were

            publishing one of my poems,

            one I didnıt

            like much,

            in their corporate magazine ...

            with their large board of directors.

            Well, I cashed their check, bought the

            first real meal Iıd had

            in several days

            and sent them some more crap.

       


       The True Story Of Noah


        Several thousand years after the flood,

        Noah parked the ark in the New York

        harbor, got off to get a chili dog

        at Nathan's

        on Coney Island, took a cruise on the

        Staten Island Ferry, and won 40 thousand

        dollars in Atlantic City at the crap table. His wife. his sons, and

        his sonıs wives were all still dead asleep

        on the ark. Noah had drugged them with massive doses of

        Pamelor, Vicodin, and Effexor, so he could

        get a little R&R, alone, without the

        demands of domesticity. Everything was

        beginning to annoy and outrage him on the ark. The daily

        rut of keeping all the animals fed

        and clean, and all the shit mopped up

        was a 24/7 job in itself; they had to do it in

        in 8 hour shifts. The constant bickering between the women

        was becoming unbearable. And, for the last

        couple hundred years, his sons had developed

        the bizarre habit of walking in on Noah and his wife, Mrs. Noah, when

        they were drunk and fucking, which had caused

        his wife not to get drunk, and fuck

        him, she just shut him off. Noah stayed away

        from the ark for several weeks, going from

        party to party at nights,

        and playing the stock market during the days.  He came back

        to the ark a rich and satisfied man, only to be

        appalled by the fact that no one had made the slightest  effort to clean

        up the animal shit. He knew what had to be done, and

        threw himself right into it. When he was finished, there

        was not a hint, a spot,  a trace,  or a whisper of

        creature doo-doo. One clean ark, he determined! Then he drugged

        them all again, fucked his sleeping wife, rented a car and drove to

        Hollywood, where

        he is to this day contemplating that voice that

        was booming from the sky thousands of years ago.



            Friends Of The Ex


            When I meet them

            I see that

            she has filled them

            with her point of view.

            They stare and pout

            at me from the edge

            of their hunches,

            with absolute disgust.

            One got so bold as to

            call me from 300 miles away,

            to tell me what a bum

            and piece of slime

            I am. I listened for a few moments,

            trying to reason

            with her, but finally I just hang up.

            I sometimes

            I want to  hate them in return,

            but I donıt even hate the ex.

            Though, I am strangely

            intimidated and

            baffled by her continual,

            bizarre rage

            She has become like some crazy person

            I donıt care to know, like one of the

            homeless,

            a complete stranger,

            screaming obscenities

            at me

            walking on the other

            side of the street.

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