Poetry: jerry lee hits by John Yamrus

jerry lee hits

the 
first one 
smack in the middle 
 
of 
the face 
 
and 
throws 
the money 
down on the floor 
and the fight is on and 
 
it’s 
like that fight 
in the beginning of Ellison’s Invisible Man,
 
only 
there’s a lot 
less at stake and 
 
it’s 
a whole 
lot more fun.  
 
that’s why 
he threw the five on the floor...
 
to 
make 
them scramble 
 
and distract them a bit 
 
and,
no matter what, 
they’d never find that 20 
 
he had 
in his sock.
 
he 
looked like hell.  
 
his 
nose 
was broke.
 
his 
lip was split 
 
and 
he might 
have bit thru 
a part of his tongue, 
 
but, 
god-damn, 
this was fun, and 
 
nobody 
in the world 
was gonna tell him it wasn’t.





John Yamrus, in a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, has published 39 books. He has also had more than 3,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A number of his books and poems are taught in college and university courses. He is widely considered to be a master of minimalism and the neo-noir in modern poetry. His two most recent books are the memoir THE STREET and a volume of poetry called PEOPLE (AND OTHER BAD IDEAS).

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