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Fat Pigeons Over Tokyo Bay
Pigeons fling themselves from the balconies
like suicides. Fat, filthy rats, fly from rooftops,
as crows attack the sidewalks, on harikari missions.
Feathered rats, spreading misinformation; they carry
messages along with filthy cryptococcus organisms,
with words to the wise about world peace.
The Tama River glistens, sparkling wine, not
champagne, not now; it’s a work night.
The city of endeavor beckons. One drinks it in.
The view, the birds of paradise sing. Far away,
on the hallelujah trail, the village idiot eats
a Caesar salad with French dressing.
The rains drown the fires. Drenched. They come
by the minute, hourly, to eat white rice from broken
bowls, cracked. Like readers of Tennyson, they are
perfect. T. S. Eliot said so, along with Dante, and
his other friend, Groucho Marx. Not in Spain but
right there along the Mississippi in Biloxi.
They had themselves some fried chicken picked up
at the filling station. That and a Nehi grape soda.
Had me the same kind of sandwich that made Toni
Morrison contemplate suicide, a fried bologna on white
with a neon mustard out of a squeeze bottle with some
sweet summer pickles.
It was dark enough to catch fireflies. Mosquitos were
landing in my inner ear. The cat fish headed down
below, to nestle in the ice-cold mud. We sang songs
all the way to Tuscaloosa. We asked the girls to take
off their panties. Henrietta hung her ass out the rear
window. Oh, yes, she did; she did, indeed.
She’ll have to pray on Sunday. That’ll do. We’ll
take her for some pig ear sandwiches. Then, we’ll head
on over to the game. Don’t know what’s next. I gave
that girl a slap the other day. I’d like a chance to see
what’s up. See for myself. I heard she had a bruise.
Lemon tree, lemon tree, oh, so pretty. Oh, so sweet.
Someone had better call Social Services. That woman
has let her daughter wander off. The State will know
what to do. The government cares so much for the little
ones. That fat man from behind his desk is a caregiver,
a gentle soul. He’s the man who sings those songs.
Clouds of ammonia fill the skies. Cries of despair
can be heard. The women stop to eat their hair. They
scratch their nails against the wailing war, they agonize
for children lost in war. They sing their songs, they sell
their souls, they beat the shit out of their sons and daughters.
God bless the men for bringing up the artillery.
It’s time. Time to die. There is a time to live and time to kill.
There is a tribe that cuts out a man’s Adam’s apple and leaves
it on an ant hill to be picked clean. The children shoo away
the birds. Women wear them around their waists on their honey
moons. The bones dangle from rhino tails until they are dry.
There, you can see the sparrows riding on a hippo’s back.
That is that. It’s been lovely, I’m sure. The women and children
will be marched away. Women will be left to kowtow. There sits
the ghost of Jerry Lewis, the mad genius they say tormented women
with his erections, rampaging around Paramount studios, his arrogance
on full display. On their death beds, in 2022, his female costars
accused him of being no more than another Jew on the move.
Bombardier to captain. “This is the captain speaking.” Doom replies,
as the bombs fall on the Ginza. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?
Starring world peace, the sequel, as they say in the trades, “War
and Peace, Part II.” Ask his Latvian secretary for an appointment.
Spielberg is waiting. Jaws III. It’s a five-act screenplay. You’ll play
the fisherman eaten by the shark. Let’s hope you can use a gun.
Send your dick pic in to the producers. Use VIP parking. The gents’
room is on the second floor. The commissary is where Rock Hudson used
to flaunt his biceps. It’s where Doris Day lost her virginity. Avert your
eyes; look at the floor. Back into the room and sit down. Don’t look up.
Tell them how concerned you are about the treatment of the great white
shark and how careful you will be not to scratch his throat as you are eaten.
Getting Emotional
More and more, it’s all about food.
You can’t expect everyone to eat short ribs
And gravy. Roast beef, brisket, red cabbage,
And rye. It’s too much. That’s why they
Invented yoghurt.
You can mix champagne and cognac. We
All like French butter flown in on Fed Ex.
My wife keeps it in the freezer with the coffee.
She likes to be smothered in whip cream. She
Invites me over to lick.
It’s Christmas time this year in July. We had
Sliders. An ancient recipe. French fries. With
Watery ketchup. Ice cream. Betty White died
At 99. She had white hair. It makes me want
To listen to Amy Whitehouse. Back to black.
I can’t help it if I like pastrami. I miss the empty
Parking lots at Fairfax and Third. Breakfast
Every day from 10 to 2. It went on and on as we
Sat on lawn chairs in the shade. We ate bagels
And pretended to be Jewish.
The newsstands opened at noon. I was a fixture
At Samuel French. Hollywood and Vine: I peed
On the sidewalk. I called the police. I witnessed
A drug deal involving a trash can and a drop. I
Worked down the block at Pickwick.
Martha Stewart is the only woman over 70 I feel
Close to. Snoop Dog is the only black in my life.
After years sitting in the parking lot at the County
Museum, I feel my life is worthless. I’ve thrown it all
Away. It’s a lie. Champagne and cognac don’t mix.
Life Without Death
Cringing liberals give me the willies.
Kosovo, baby. I’m sitting with the goys.
My garden is full of red radishes.
We’ve put up a ten-foot fence
to keep out the white rabbit. We
play cricket so the neighbors will think
we are from India. We must be doing
something right; they call us Paki Shits.
Santa Monica is oppressive. It’s the third
time someone has knocked a lit cigarette
from my mouth. I think I will return home
and write a novel called The Handmaid’s
Regrets. Smug is in, after years of humiliating
humility. The vegans all have bad breath;
they smell like the inside of a church: incense
and rotting corpses.
My wife has taken to wearing an abaya. I’ve
removed my ghutra and I’m not sorry. I’ve
thrown it to the wind, but I keep my thobe
on. We’ve been here in Las Vegas for less than
a week. It’s the first time I’ve owned an American
car. Even while in the desert, Arabs drive Toyotas.
Soon, the neighbors will know we are not Pakis at
all. We’ve taken to grilling turkey hot dogs on the fire.
Pakis don’t eat beef. Arabs don’t eat pork. Only
Americans eat bloody fowls, like turkeys and
spoiled chickens. My neighbor is a chicken hawk.
We caught our neighbors stealing chick peas. We
told them they are used to make hummus, but
they thought I said humans. The Americans we meet
are stupid. Their children use little machines
to do math. They can neither subtract nor add.
Americans are so behind. They constantly compare
camels to horses. They assume we breed camels
for money. They have no idea how much we love
them. We love them as much as American love
money. We dream about them as Americans dream
about cash. We cry when they are born. We cry
when they run away. We cry with delight. We hug
them and we kiss them. We love them as family.
There are no church bells ringing. Sundays are silent.
Solemnity greets the shopping day with 24-hour sales.
Costco has this in in common with Mecca: people push
and shove. They step on each other’s feet, knee women
in the crotch; they elbow men in the back; they look to see
if they got away with it. They gloat. We love the wheels
of cheese and the 5 lb. bags of asparagus. I bought six
industrial-size cans of Campbell’s mushroom soup.
There are no teachers. Our son’s school is closed. He
watches porno sites and listens to rap. Yesterday, he
called his sister a bitch and laughed. In my country,
for this he would be whipped. For rape, he would be
killed. In this country the music encourages him
to try it. He is encouraged to play with himself and
to scorn God. His friends buy and sell drugs. His friends
don’t hesitate to call my daughters whores.
Life now consists entirely of shopping and fucking.
My son and daughters practice sex on each other.
They lock their mother and their father out. My eldest
sends pictures of her body to the neighbors. She flirts
with strangers. She combs her hair in public. She doesn’t
wear underwear. The boys work for pimps who blackmail
the girls; threatened with humiliation and exposure, they
belong to the men. Soon, they are sold for less than a camel.
National Tragedy, A Poem for All Ages
His name could be Jesus Macready and so could yours. He won the best
metaphor contest back in 1973. He compared his parents to mice in heat.
He compared Saul Bellow to a Jew. He said the president at that time,
Whatshisname, looked like a German cabinetmaker.
For this he won the Pulitzer, but was denied, because he was a woman.
He changed his name to Angela Lansbury and ran for Congress.
He lost, found a young trucker, and had him move in. They relocated to
Baton Rouge where they watched E.T. and Jaws and considered suicide.
He and Tony Velvet founded the Steven Spielberg Fight Club for devoted
moviegoers who hate DreamWorks and all it stands for.
They wrote death threats to Indian Jones in the belief he was real. They
were inspired by Spielberg to adopt a black child. They named him Jaws.
In 1981, he and Tony divorced. Tony got custody of Jaws, who fell in love
with the transexual daughter of Warren Beatty and Betty Crocket.
Jaws and Worship Beatty now live in Topanga Canyon. Jaws Velvet
is the Merle Oberon Professor of Steven Spielbergiana at UCLA.
Worship Beatty gave birth to twins in 1985 and named the boys after
Andropov and Chernenko, the deceased Secretaries General of the USSR.
Andropov and Chernenko Velvet and their mother, Worship, now reside
in Moscow. After working for several years for Senator Feinstein, they defected.
The two boys had been furnishing US state secrets to Russian President Boris
Yeltsin and his aid Vladimir Putin in an effort to bring about world peace.
They believed that if they threatened to expose the sexual liaisons between Tipper
and Hillary that Bill would deliver the nuclear launch codes to Yeltsin.
Real estate developer Donald Trump tipped off Liz Smith who was able to get
a message to Hillary through Nancy Reagan. Hillary and Tipper ended it.
Gore divorced his wife Tipper as soon as he had the necessary funds from his
investments in solar energy and his invention of global warming.
After dumping Tipper, Gore had his bodyguards move into his mansion
outside Nashville, where he is known to run his lights 24/7.
Everyone agrees that life has never been the same since Bill and Hillary
rented out the Lincoln Bedroom to Rod Stewart and Barbra Streisand.
The Clintons made a killing renting out that room. It became known
throughout Hollywood as the most expensive B&B in the entire world.
Only Obama made more money in the White House than the Clintons who
charged $200,000 per night. Michelle sold her zucchinis for $2.8 million apiece.
It has now come to light that Trump has been held in low regard by liberals
because he was the only president who failed to make a killing while in office.
It is also rumored that he liked E.T. It is even said that he loved Jaws.
He is a big fan of Robert Shaw. He watched Poltergeist over nine times.
The Nobel-prize winning NYT economist Paul Krugman has reported that
Trump requested diet Coke while dining with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
He has said privately that Trump’s most unforgivable sin was preferring
the burgers at Club 21 to those served by Peter Lugar’s in Brooklyn.
David Lohrey is from Memphis. His plays have been produced in Switzerland, Croatia, and Lithuania. His poetry can be found in Otoliths (AUS), Tuck Magazine (UK), Terror House Magazine (Hungary), and The Cardiff Review (Wales). David’s fiction can be read online at Dodging the Rain, Storgy Magazine, and Literally Stories. His newest collection of poetry, Machiavelli’s Backyard, was published by Sudden Denouement Publishers (Houston, 2017). David is also the author of Bluff City, available from Terror House Press. He lives in Tokyo.