341A

Time tampered not with the tepid tempers of
dearest John and his two year tremors, which
run riven and rampant between his sedentary rocks
and glories of his grandpa's stones.

-W. C. Smith

Den Isle Tone

time fisher
learned day to day
ap-pet-tite, to stroke-grow & doubt
which was ordained and which was
for the coffee ground.

-W.C.Smith

The Gratiot County Darling

It was my dear friend: the "Howl"-ed out, foulmouthed, class act jack ass,
who taught me to brave the sex shop and giggle in its face,
to laugh at hardships known as kidney stones in the urethra of life,
to fearlessly make waves in the abandoned water park in the dead of night.

One day Big Tony will help you steal Tony's giant ceramic chicken,
thanks for the summer days, the plays, your originality, the visits,
the reminders to take life seriously but also to live it.

--Dr. Pen Name
Happy Birthday, Preston!

1 Cor. 1:18

to the jack-o-lanterns hiding behind faux-pa-pillar,
to the warm october rain & the worms which wriggle
under my door & into my kitchen, happy halloween,
you crunchy-kitchen surprises; trick-or-treats, reminders
of mortality.

-W.C.Smith

Welysburgh

Welysburgh,
a home worth
driving for, when
all the treelines are
alight in glory.

-W.C. Smith

With More Passion Than Skill

If I am a poet,
if a poet at all,
with more passion than skill,
--then so be it,
some loved ones will still read it,
and my words that should be heard,
will find their way to those who need it.

--Dr. Pen Name

will-O-the-wisp 1

when will-o-the-wisp

hit-the-car and

i blink; we are so.

what is a muse

if untested by time? if not

a little back broken;

reserved for 3.a.m. 

-W.C.Smith

Things Fall Apart (And Into Place)

I've cherished old words important to my cultures or nation,
and mourned when they got lost in translation,
though I have found that even then they are not out of place,
and I trust,
whatever may be the case,
that if they don't find their homes,
they'll at least find their way.

--Dr. Pen Name

Skegoneill Drive

Tea cups pressed against the lips of a stranger,
sweetened by answered prayers of the foreign ones,
where our laughter with the family of 16,
awakens the neighbor's wee one.

All this only a mile away from a riot,
happy to make abrupt wake up calls to guffaws instead of violence,
keeping organics moments loud and helicopters quiet.

--Dr. Pen Name
For Billy, Tracy, And The Rest Of The Family

Where There's Smoke There's Fire

She wouldn't fuck with cigarettes but she'd butt in and butt out,
we'd blow smoke out our asses as we'd kiss on the mouth,
she went upward in smoke--
she wouldn't reroute.

Smoking out smoke and mirrors for the first time in years,
still, ash tray to ash tray,
we all burn out

--Dr. Pen Name

Son of a Gun

Something triggered premature tactics,
when I jumped the gun in a back alley,
and took all its money.

Initially when I targeted my victim,
I figured it was worth a shot.
Surely it could be a bang for my buck,
but guns wear bulletproof vests to save them from themselves.

--Dr. Pen Name

It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

Shit-eating grin, grim gums that bleed!
I am the subtle floss that did that deed!
Better brush up before time runs out!
Time is up! Now open your mouth!

Tongue depressor at the psychiatrist's couch!
Tongue depressor sad it don't have a house!
Tongue depressor living in a popsicle pouch!

--Dr. Pen Name

Rugs & Brooms

The rugs were beaten with brooms 'cause they were too outspoken

They made a dusty escape

From a clothesline that looks like tracks of a train

They were once tied down to too many crossroads

They're fine now, back to the wash load

I will keep your cabin safe with me

If you'll let me be

--Dr. Pen Name

retroself b4 u wreck yoself (#foreveryoung)

Buzzard, buzzard--
your circle got this square.
You rounded my L7 high school heart
and ate what was left of its head full of hair.

It took less than two to shoot through my less than three.
Just when I think you're honest you emoti-con me.
One acronym, one colon, one parenthesis.

--Dr. Pen Name

"Let Go Of My Daughter, You Black Eyed Bitch..."

--whose blank and gleaming eyes glazed with the demonic tint of onyx hopelessness
sees with transparent ease the opaque soul of time-worn fragility
and munches on the tender meat of the psyche...seasoned with sorrow

--Preston

Sleepyhead and the Bed Bug Blues

Muffled into the pillow,
talking in his sleep,
were the last words of a man before he was killed in his own dream,
just as he fell asleep on me,
just when he thought
he had nothing left to say,

--and I wouldn't listen, anyway.

--Dr. Pen Name

America the Beautiful

Our, fight-to-life society, America.

I love you, but you have taken
the tired, poor, huddled masses,
as a whore; and we are starving from your selflessness.

With little hope we throw our money to your institution, pray to politics,
the new religion, monotonized dream of fat and lazy millionaires.
For my existence, I will get a degree in ass-kissing, and end up alright.

-W.C. Smith

Unlike You

Please leave
a message after the censorship beep,
on the obscene home phone landline,
that's blocked by black bars,
like the leaf over Adam.

Restless and ready to be wrong,
sometimes we feel more than gone.

--Dr. Pen Name

Lyin

Those that stand tall as towers,
with bellies made of bricks
that are yellow as cowards,
will not follow their gut home when they should.

"Surely they are frightened!"

"Nah, just learning,"
said the Courageous Lyin.

--Dr. Pen Name

Blockhead

The ice wasn't broken with a perceptive goodbye, rather
the greeting of a ghost, who shows up to see that
he haunts through the fell, frozen impact of three month dust,
told and untold. On the music scenes and over the airways.
In the small boxes and under the oppressive nights. Regardless,
whatever he may see in me, surely,  '100 degrees of nostalgia,'
truly, 'trapped and centi-mental'.

-W.C.Smith