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.