what comes is better than what came before


Ryan Hill, Why?, 2009

The Poetry Reading
-- by Charles Bukowski

at high noon
at a small college near the beach

sober
the sweat running down my arms

a spot of sweat on the table
I flatten it with my finger

blood money blood money
my god they must think I love this like the others

but it's for bread and beer and rent
blood money

I'm tense lousy feel bad
poor people I'm failing I'm failing

a woman gets up
walks out

slams the door
a dirty poem

somebody told me not to read dirty poems
here

it's too late.

my eyes can't see some lines
I read it
out-

desperate trembling
lousy
they can't hear my voice

and I say,
I quit, that's it, I'm
finished.

and later in my room
there's scotch and beer:
the blood of a coward.

this then
will be my destiny:

scrabbling for pennies in tiny dark halls
reading poems I have long since become tired
of.

and I used to think
that men who drove buses
or cleaned out latrines
or murdered men in alleys were
fools.


capitalist poem #5
-- by campbell mcgrath

I was at the 7-11.
I ate a burrito.
I drank a Slurpee.
I was tired.
It was late, after work washing dishes.
The burrito was good.
I had another.

I did it every day for a week.
I did it every day for a month.

To cook a burrito you tear off the plastic wrapper.
You push button #3 on the microwave.
Burritos are large, small, or medium.
Red or green chili peppers.
Beef or bean or both.
There are 7-11's all across the nation.

On the way out I bought a quart of beer for $1.39.
I was aware of social injustice
In only the vaguest possible way.