twat

me

here i sit
pencil behind my ear
ready for marking up poetry
or tapping against my forehead

here i sit
toothpick in mouth
belly full of soup and grilled cheese
a hint of a smile on my face

here i sit
beer breathed
and glossy eyed from pain pills
toes pointing the wrong way

here i sit
laptop in my lap
preparing a poem while
cancer forms in my testicles

there you sit
smug faced or smiling
face pressed into this book
thinking i’m crazy..

..and loving it

-Lewis Applequist (Fall 2009)

you walked past me today
and at first I was thinking
‘damn, she’s pretty hot’ but
as you got
closer
i could see the depth of your life in the lines on your face
even though you stared at the ground as you
walked back towards your
motel
single brown bagged 16oz beer in hand

i just want you to know that I understand
where you are coming from and
where you are heading
i’ve seen it so many
times
years of partying under your belt
you have surely gotten that look from
too much living and too little
life
“fuck it Lady”, I write, beer in hand

we are all, mostly all, working to
make some other men rich
we have unclear futures and
crystal clear
dreams
because we sweat, because we toil, we party
and we put off monday as long as we can
come 11:59 sunday night we are still
drinking
“fuck you world” we say to the last sip

fuck you all

-Lewis Applequist (Summer 2009)

Here are some things I like:

Hearing W.S. Burroughs queer voice
Smelling the occasional weird Sugar Smack smell of my piss
Seeing that I have two beers left not one
Feeling that itch that comes from that stuff
Tasting sweat on the neck of a lover

Here are some things I do not like:

Hearing Ginsberg doing the Om sound
Smelling someone’s nasty ass discharge
Seeing that I have no beers left.. on Sunday
Feeling that pain that comes from not having that stuff
Tasting your best friends cologne on your lover’s neck

There are plenty more things
These just came to mind
Demanding to be written
Even if they are
Strange

-Lewis Applequist 2009

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

Hey, this is a bunch of Haikus..

-Lewis Applequist 2009

screw this I'm broken bones

lying here with broken
toes
ankle
spirit
i remember a time when I longed to be wheelchair bound
insanity now

i thought of all the time I could
write
read
live
without having to work for anyone
only myself

but here I sit today
three
long
weeks
and all I have banged out is this four stanza piece
of self-loathing

i can hear other bikers roaring by outside my window
rumbling
freedom
givers
the machine which gave me such rapturous joy and agonizing pain
will return

-Lewis Applequist

to my friends
who have gone
before me
i hope you are
there
waiting for me

even if it is just
in a conscious,
bodiless form
wait for me
i am on my
way

if it is only
blackness and
we only have our
voices
that will surely
be enough

enough to justify
this life
enough to justify
the suffering
enough to justify
having to wait

to be able to
hear your voices again
and laugh and cry
and remember the
time we had together
in THIS life

that would be enough
of an afterlife
for me
no gold streets needed
no pearly gates required
just us together

but if you happen to learn
that we move on
again
from where you are now
please,
wait for me.

-Lewis Applequist

Halloween 2008, no costume, bearded, unaware and surprised

I keep telling myself that
to be a writer requires that I
actually spend time writing
and not thinking about it.

But I will not put finger to
keyboard or pen to paper
just to get a word count
for some content hog.

Fuck that
I will not make a job
out of my last remaining
passion.

People are depending
on me working this shit job,
but it drains the life out of me,
drives me to drink.. and more.

Then you look at me in
the mirror and wonder why
I look like shit, feel like shit
and sound like shit. (I am shit)

The fact of the matter
is that I AM A WRITER.. a failing
writer who has no ambitions,
not even to write.

Someone once said I was too young
to write.. haven’t lived enough to know
love and loss, death and heartache..
I wish I could use that excuse.. I do.

When I am not writing, I live and see and know
the story keeps going on, I watch it unfold
before my eyes, hear the narrator as
he describes the scene for the readers.

Then he leans in closer,
reeking of alcohol and with
drug crazed eyes he says,
“Stop staring at yourself in the fucking mirror and WRITE DAMN YOU!”

-Lewis Applequist 2008

I miss my apartments
It’s as close as I can imagine
city life could be for a boy in
Alabama.

Now living in the ‘country’
even with neighbors next door there’s
no socializing.
I am so bored.

I miss all the friends,
the sounds, the sirens,
the shouting and hell
yes, I miss the fights.

Give me Pinecrest or
Colonial Acres any day,
you can keep your lawns
and your fucking fences.

in my life, two people
struggle to cope with
loneliness and despair

one suffers alone
in silence
bound to another in misery

the other suffers publicly
a town drunk with a heart of gold
regularly and violently lashing out

one takes any affection
or compliment they can
needing attention, needing love

the other rejects affection
snarls at compliments
needing attention, needing love

on a friday in august
each does something
about their situation

one takes another’s embrace
in awkward silence
needed attention, needed love

the other takes a bottle and
six feet of chain and hangs himself
needed attention, needed love

friday nights in my
life are like badly
written poetry