1 of 1000

while you sing of
love I lean back
and spread
the fat of my belly
flat
and laugh

how the hell would
I ever be able to
write 20 poems
much less
1000

so I guess I will
listen to flutes
and lutes and the
giggling of a girl
over a looped beat
and pound them
out 1 by 1

can the muse ever stay
when sober
I wonder
if she was here all
along
whispering in my ear
as I downed the one thing
that silenced her

too deep?

oh well, suck it..

1 down

999 to go

-Lewis Applequist Feb 23rd 2011

almost, no, not quite

my mind is embalmed in
a never relenting
haze of half-assery
and to-do lists
never to be ‘do’d’

why torment myself
over this shit
something I care so
little about now seems
to fucking consume me

setting goals is one
thing
lifting a finger to achieve
them is
something
else

ah balls!
why bother
why muse?
why the torture
the thoughts of
escaping

a life full of
almosts

almost a marine
almost a pilot
almost a ccna
almost a poet
almost

done

-lewis applequist april 4th 2011

programmed I love you’s

we are living programmed
lives
full of
programmed ‘I love you’s’
and programmed
lies

and the beat they keep
us stepping to
keeps increasing in
tempo
until our slow beautiful waltz
has become an ugly
jerking spasmatic race
to the carrot

the carrot..
there is never a carrot
at the end of the
day
it’s an illusory point
used to illustate
a meaning

if I said here
fart
would you believe it
was already programmed
for me to write
it just like
I myself had thought
of the idea

look at the clues,
the movies,
the books,
the poems,
they are all pointing to the moon

and here you are
staring at the finger
like a purple assed baboon

drunk on PBR
and high on television
licking leather heeled
boots
swallowing it all and
asking for more

swine..
I fucking
hate
you
all

RED PILLS WAKE UP!

Blue pills, well,
there are no blue pills,
that would make no sense,
pills.. for what?

obey

-Lewis Applequist Feb 23rd, 2011

what

what are you saying to me
I do not understand a word
it may sound like music but
it is only sounds coming
from a brown mouth

you point at something
in your hand and then at
a sign on the wall
and then at me
then the sign
then the wall again

I must look like
a man watching a tennis
match as I follow her finger
tick, tock, tick, tock..

“no entiendo una palabra” I say
“yes, ci.. yes” she says
as if I suddenly knew what
she needed

I point to the 3rd floor
and walk off
I don’t have time for this
you have your ticket baby
and your ticket, baby

welcome to America
your dream come true
“oh maravilloso estados unidos
no te preocupes más,
todo para usted es libre”

while my insurance is through
the roof, please pardon my lack
of patience lady, but I got
places to be, dollars to make

cute kid though,
name him
Grande y Bella de Anclaje

-Lewis Applequist Feb 23rd, 2011

my ‘toe’ are killing me

This guy's toe is fucked.. as is his head..

I sit with aching
feet well
((and pounding head))
it’s not so much my
feet aching
as it is my
toe
the
fourth toe or
phalanx
if x-rayed i
suspect the
middle phalange
to be inflamed
if not indeed..
broken

rising from
the easy sleep
on the couch
my dreamlike shuffle
to the bedroom
i’m so tired..
i.. just.. want.. to..
sleep.
enter God,
God.. (in his tiresome
and lecherous
hate for an unbeliever)
caused the toe
to swing wide
and dovetail itself
into a less than toe
shaped slot in our
end chest

all went silent except for..
the sound one may hear
when a man nearby
has sucker punched
an engine block or a
pentecostal preacher has
a mouthful of live
rattlesnakes and feels
a sneeze coming on..

**queue the pain**

WHAT THE-FUCK-FUCK-MY-FUCKING.. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
OHHHHHHHHHHHH-MY-FUCKING-ME-FUCKING-MY-FUCK-FUCKED-FUCK
THE FUCK DID FUCK-FUCK-OH-MY-GOD-LOOK-AT-THIS
ARGHGLE-BLARGLE-AGONY-SWOONING-LOOKING-AT-THIS-GLAZE-OF-SKIN-AND-TOENAIL-MEAT..
((sniff))
..DID I JUST DO TO MY FOOT!!!

well friendo..
band-aid doesn’t make a device to cover
what (for all intents and purposes)
appears to be a
blackened, swollen ostrich tongue..

‘daddy are you ok?’
coming from the door..
it’s okay baby, i jus..
**TOE THROBS**
**eyes roll white**
..’GRRNNT-oke’ something..

my body demanding immediate horizontality
i gingerly laid myself down..
the three hundred pound bed-sheet,
crushing my toe.

new native name,
“Broken Man With Limp”
broken phalanges..

shattered dreams..

-Lewis Applequist 2011

who’m i

who’m i

i’m a lead guitarist
who’s never learned a chord
i’m the greatest carpenter
who’s never saw’n a board

i’m a custom car mechanic
who has never seen a tool
i’m the intellectual genius
with the thick tongue of a fool

i’m a sweaty screamin’ preacher
with no faith in God
i’m the junky in the alley
who’s never been on ‘the nod’

a crap poet

a fat failure

a drunk loser

a pill whore

i’ll make no claim to nuthin’ else
and will aspire to nuthin’ more

-Lewis Applequist December 2009

Candy Store

bang bang bang

eight o’clock am
two barefoot white kids in cut off jeans
stand at the back door
of a black family’s residence
in the quarters
change in hand for the candy store

a few minutes pass and
(we hear her before we see her)
the ‘Candy Lady’ as we called her
comes to the door dressed in what could
only be described as a muumuu only
more like a house dress if there were
such a thing

we file in and start looking
through the freezer for ice cream
sandwiches (which were our favorites but
which she sold out of the most)
homemade and handmade and for
“fo-fi cent” (as she used to say)
you couldn’t beat ‘em

she had drinks and candy bars
and ice cream in small dixie cups
and gum and cinnamon candy that turned
your spit blood red (which we took advantage
of at every opportunity) and which we bought the
most since they were only “fi cents” apiece and
we typically had fifty cents between us

that was almost thirty years ago
surely she would be long dead
the old black “Candy Lady” who dealt
candy out the back door to us kids
while her husband dealt pot and sometimes
a little cocaine out of the front to our parents

bang bang bang
I could use some candy right now

-Lewis Applequist 2009