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| Image source: popdecay. Source for the 50 words in the poem: Business Insider: Australia. |
His impatient mother would place her mace in an indigo
purse, and badger him, “Slow-poke the artichoke,”
for preferring Reno to the college snuffle, beef market
of lacrosse tossers, Jello shots, and credit card fraud.
His sometimes flame Jasmine got him in the zone,
loin to loin, on the basement couch, their chosen niche,
utopia of quiche and salsa, his red-headed Capricorn
quick to unzip for sex, and call his thrashing fish a minnow.
His friend Jack told him to run, Austin nerd, full of cocaine
and malaise, afraid of Texas, and dropping dead from blowfish
darts from gorilla boyfriends transformed into clandestine snipers
with Ninja stealth from keyhole eavesdropping on his sister’s friends.
Today he suited up, Roswell cowboy, not afraid to strap on his big
asset, his Macintosh, to face the fangs of starving career advisors
peering at him like a veggie burger without French fries or a bun,
the enigma of missing something almost as hard as missing none.
A former U.S Army interrogator, Martin Ott currently lives in Los Angeles, where he writes poetry and fiction, often about his misunderstood city. He is the author of 3 books of poetry: Underdays, Notre Dame University Press (to be published in 2015); Captive, De Novo Prize winner, C&R Press; and Poets’ Guide to America, co-written with John F. Buckley In 2013, he published his debut novel The Interrogator’s Notebook, Story Merchant Books. His blog - writeliving.wordpress.com - has thousands of readers in more than 75 countries.
