COLEMAN DUES
- Apr 5
- 2 min read
MISSINGSSIPPI
Nowhere–nowhere: — circulates the Missingssippi.
Just — loses his damn mind in it. Gui-tar strums east–west.
Time becomes a finger-picker — plucks his person birth–death.
Past–present all history a hissy-fit. The future — due dizzy.
Believer–non- ( — and vice-versa eventually).
Slink of the faint-grasped rosary bead — from to–fro.
The horizon: idiotic: self-obsessed with nothing — from not–so
its mass-produced unlikely likeness — from sky–lips. Eventually
starts to look like a look-alike — north–south gets him
as lost as Loose-iana — head–toe he’s not exactly
anybody: anywhere: any-goddamned-more. Teensy–vastly
here is the implex: the dark-divisor — between 0–1000
thousandfolds. Versa-vice the horizon beads back — from width–nighth.
Something strums the neck — but clean-cut: surface–marrow
straight as — tomorrow. Beginning–end dissolves the bureau
of his disquiet. 1952–2021 — ask god: must god be tiger-striped.
EVADE JENGA PARTIES
The creole of his slumber:
crazy with quiet.
The bootstraps of his brainmatter:
bunched up in shadows.
The moves of the daylight:
moored to his actions.
The bijoux of paradox
bisects his life.
Watchmakers and sleepwalkers
sleuthhounds and circlegoers
the evidence and measurements
evade Jenga parties.
The sigils on his slumber:
spelled out in silence.
Hee-Haw and Soul Train:
the two heads of Janus.
CAPTAIN DANDELION GREENS
Diogenes the Dog.
He thought the world made of air.
You thought the world made of philosophers
in their underwear.
Captain Dandelion Greens.
He’ll spank your ass through your jeans!
What he spanks is what he means.
Captain Dandelion Greens.
You clap your hands to the world!
You sing the song smoke the pipe etc.
You blow the smoke off the barrel
every half-moon night.
Well you and me we’re not so different.
We both have our suspicions. . . .
Country boys and country girls
we’re of a similar tradition.
You goddamn motherfucker.
You son of a fucking bitch. . . .
Get up motherfucker get up!
You sugar-sweet son of a bitch!!
O Darkness lay him out!
O Night give him the what-for!
Keep your RealTree on
at his funeral at his funeral. . . .
You're as game as fire-flame
O Day! You smoke meth
On a mare with flamey hair!
You smoke his death.
___
SO I SET OUT from Galveston
with the nasty Gulf at my back.
Mom asked when I’d be back
I said that I wouldn’t be back.
Dad didn’t ask he just laid on his back.
Dad up and died on his back.
My father didn’t come back he just went all the way back
and the nasty Gulf lapped at his back.
COLEMAN DUES is the author of the chapbook Pop-Country Sellout (Wry Press, 2022). His writing is published or forthcoming in Chicago Review, Fence, and the Poetry Project Newsletter, among other publications.