Skunk
The pot I'm
smoking now
smells like
Armpits after sex (
not with you
of course). You
always tell me
to go to hell. (this
may be the
last time we
see each other.) Where
I will lie is where
I say I loved
you more than this.
Verse
some-
thing's out
there—aft (her
the uni-
verse). The verse
is yet.
Call It
Tobacco
cotton
sugar in
Louisiana
shirts
made of gingham
and slaves
after
and the crack
of what twang of what
tight strings what
on earth under
the sun nothing mugs
but time
for the
load coffee
is like that double
time to
the old swing
No Joke
dragging myself
through 3rd street
& across avenues
depends on the kindness
pf strangers, cars, trucks, bicycles
refuse to run me over. The other
day a bus stopped just short
of a crutch at a curb I was
hanging precariously from
& swung out to miss me, it was
an old man who
was getting on that alerted
the driver & a young hoodie
that grabbed my pack: i
thought he was going to run, but he didn't.
"Watch out pop!" he said, solicitously, &
never asked me for
a quarter. Maybe more
people should be crippled: even cops.
_____________________
John Farris
Last Poems
Archway Editions 2025
