Poetry: Selections from Wilson Koewing

Suburban Kids 
 
I could die inside the neon lights, 
pencil stabbed 
or lead based paint. 
Asbestos or Radon. 
Shut up, you
the games on. 
Chicken pot pie 
and liver spot smiles. 
You’re going to play?
Stay gone. 
Square pizza cardboard 
Chicken tender line. 
Star Fox 64. 
Not so much me 
My neighbor. 
Result of hard labor. 
Late night Natty and Marlboro light 
Star gazers. 
Factory third shift. 
Get back to me third spliff. 
Bear share something else 
I heard this. 
Pizza Hut Friday Nights 
Table service. 
Y’all don’t remember that. 
Wayne Campbell 
Fender Strat 
Carolina thunderstorm booms to tremble at. 
I survived Hurricane Hugo
Let’s talk about you, though. 
No Fear
I had 9 of the shirts. 
No Big Johnson though 
Mom knew they were worse. 
Fireflies in the yard 
Driving too fast in my first car. 
Spun out and struck a hydrant. 
Hit Carowinds water park 
Sun out and feeling vibrant. 
Aristocrat and Gatorade. 
Somehow the cops stayed away. 
Hard to believe we made it at all. 
Crazy suburban kids 
Hair bleached 
Slim Shady and all. 



Steve Sax 
 
Your funds are too low to short with God
I don’t do squads 
I only Han Solo 
My drink barely touches the ice 
Apollo Anton Ohno
The Randy Savage cream rises to the top promo
Screaming yolo swan diving off The Duomo 
Surviving
but body pretzel twisted
Hideo Nomo
We’re no longer on our home planet, Toto 
Have a heart 
Surrounded by too many insects and pigs 
I aardvark 
Kind of tired of this aggression, man 
It won’t stand 
Kick
Hand
Band 
The 
Cali, bra 
Too many woman dressed scantily
Sniff so much white they used to call me Hurricane Sandy 
Rainbows mother fuck 
Sandals 
Chasing a tempting breeze 
Surfing Stinson Beach 
The history books will mention me 
One way or another 
I no longer speak to my brother 
That’s just facts 
Okay but not great 
That’s Steve Sax 



Davey Allison
 
No defense needed
Concrete jaw
Reach crazy 
Go on, get naw
Bite strength 
Canindé Macaw
Around my neck 
Wolverine claw 
Carolina classic 
Burger chili onions mustard and slaw 
Stand tall 
Like a redwood 
Attitude stuck on Swearengen 
Deadwood 
Maybe someday 
I can care again 
Fuck around and find out 
Curry from 36 feet
Need a timeout 
Cubs in ‘16
Bill Murray serving cocktails
Dirty sixth street
2 piece breast and thigh meal 
W/the fixings 
That’s what we call those
Southern vixens 
Elementary 
And cataclysmic 
Lineup wild card 
Batting fifth shit 
Grab the spliff and 
Nip the moonshine 
Sunday hangover 
I’m sorry whose fine 
Depressions back man
So I’m sad again 
Helicopter crash 
Let me shift gears 
Davey Allison
 


Let’s 
 
travel somewhere unexpected 
like Tucson. 
Watch cacti shadow red dirt 
and lament how our youths gone. 
Let’s have children late in life and teach them the ways of the world. 
Manifest destiny and street drunks. 
Dream a dream long lost like steam punks. 
Let’s eat dinner by 7 
and be in bed by 11. 
Forget all the the terrible things we’ve done  
and convince ourselves we can make it to heaven. 
Let’s drink every night, 
but not too much,
just enough that our spirits won’t be irrevocably crushed.  
Let’s hold our cigarettes in our left,
our glass in our right hand. 
Let’s get matching night stands. 
Let’s imagine all the places we might stand and watch turquoise waves crash on white sand.
Let’s cross the border and act reckless. 
Let’s order tasso for breakfast 
in El Paso, Texas. 
Let’s watch the sun set over cattle land until it burns the horizon like a cattle brand. 
Let’s see Rome. 
Let’s buy an old Cadillac 
and paint it sea foam 
Take Route 66 west 
No
east. 
Until there is no east. 
Then west. 
Let’s stay in cheap hotel rooms 
and run desperately from gloom 
until our hearts go kaboom. 
Have no funerals,
stick it to the man,
just 2 bodies in bags taken away in a white van.





Wilson Koewing is a writer from South Carolina. His work has been published in a wide variety of literary journals. His debut short story collection JADED is available from Main Street Rag/Mint Hill Books. His chapbook SHRINK WRAPS AND ODDITIES is available from Bottlecap Press. His hybrid collection QUASI is available now from Anxiety Press. He lives in San Anselmo, California with his family.
 

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