I TOLD YOU HOW IT WOULD GO

by R.B. Morgan

A little tough guy
With a bandana
Wrapped around
His head.
I like little
Tough guys..
I was one myself.
It makes me happy,
Yes, I think happy
Is right,
When a little tough guy
Is bloody flat on his
Little tough guy
Back,
Staring up scared
At a one-legged old fuck,
And his pals want
To buy in,
But they're usually
Big tough guys,
And so I take one,
Or two, by then
I'm all cashed in.
Let the old bastard
Go. Shit, it was one lucky
Punch, while a girl
On the side starts
Dialing the Cops.
Someone always
Fucks the party up.
Then I go back
Where they won't
Let me in. I look exactly
Like what I am. For very
Good reasons,
That bothers them.
Home with my head
Beaten and stoned,
Spilling wine on the cat
Who bails out the window.
It's the third night like
This, my second fight,
Both eyes swollen.
Pain's an old friend.
We've been together
Longer than you've been
Alive. And look,
I've got money,
For, it's hard to say.
I'll scrounge some later.
That's where women
Are handy.
They like it when I lie to them.
It's so odd and romantic.
Here's a try for heroic:
I don't have to live
Like some street
Addict asshole.
I do what I do
And the world
Can fuck off.
Some of them buy
It. Most of them don't.
I generally do.
A lie is always the best
Part of the truth.
Just easier to swallow
When you're locked-on loaded,
Decking some small-time
Tough guy,
A right wrapped tight
Around that old
Roll of quarters.
Take that,
Sucker.
Wait.
Wait.
Here's one for the road.

FLIGHT RISK

by R.B. Morgan

Another woman gone.
Cat mourns, crouched
Beneath the filthy bed.
Bills rot with the cold
Food, rotting on the table.
My one friend, Guyla,
The androgynous schizophrenic,
Calls to tell me that winter
Has slammed down
The iron lid.
She cannot tell the ground from
The sky.
I say, You never could.
Her laugh is hoarse and dry from
The bad meds they give her,
To help her remember
Gravity, which she flatly rejects.
Guyla never yells, Look, I can fly.
She takes off, without a word.
They've pinned her back together,
How many times,
A plate in her head, a rod in her thigh.
Smug bastards are the easiest to fool.
She flies when
They're not watching.
And lands and grins and cheeks
Her meds. Guyla perches, preens,
And waits for the next opportunity.
It will come, my one friend tells
Me. And for you too, she says.
Just don't listen to them. Their truth
Is our lie.
Kid, I say, sad and hung-over, Kid,
When you get out I have the works,
And some shit from Chicago.
Do that right, you'll soar for days.
Okay, but I don't need it. You can have it.
Man, watch and learn. I have my own way.
The line goes dead.
The therapist's hand, heavy as winter,
Slams down on the receiver.
Guyla will sit there. Sit there.
Then he will pay.

This happens all the time.
They actually think they
Can keep her.
I'll do just a little of that
Hot shit from Chicago,
Know the woman is not coming back,
Coax the cat from her place of mourning,
Try to clean this goddamned place up,
Leave a window open,
For my one friend.

Come on, Guyla,
I'll talk you down.
Come on, come in,
Nice and steady.
Make it a three point.
Let the bird,
Guyla,
Just this one time,
Safely touch the ground.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

by R.B. Morgan

My friend the bartender
With his gigantic ex-wrestler
Grace and ferocity
Throws me out the door,
Carefully.

He does not want
To injure my mangled legs.
He is kind. He knows how they
Came to be the heavy half of history
I drag behind.

All I wanted was one good shot,
The lightening jolt of electricity
From fist to arm to restart
Head and heart and cock;
To shut that punkass loudmouth hick
Right the fuck up.

My friend, the bartender, says,
When he's sure I can stand again,
Just a couple days, man.
'Til then you're eighty-sixed

Now it is Christmas Eve.
My friend the bartender wears
A Santa hat.
I am safely back on the cracked-plastic
Of the rusted barstool.
The skinny hick has disappeared.
Stories about a ball-bat, fractured leg.
Rumors fly like blizzard driven snowflakes
This holiday time of year.

Santa and his muscles and the scars
Around his eyes pours a double Wild Turkey
With a little water back.
Bless you, child, I tell him, because I have
Been given the gift of ten Vicodin.
All my pain sleeps in the
Tangles of my brain stem
And angels sing.

The bartender turns, shaking his head
At another beaten down lousy bum.
He pretends a limp and says,
Sure, dawg, sure. How's that go?
I drink the double down and burn
In the proof of its flame.
God bless us, I say,
More broken than I have ever been,
God bless us every one.

FORTUNATE SON

by R.B. Morgan

When I see in a mirror,
Whatever stares back
Is my own sick disaster.
I am drunk and write a letter
To the kid who
Will remember:
Here's your chance, boy,
Come slay the dragon.
Your loving father,
Semper fi.

Months down the road I get:
Don't tempt me you
Worthless mutherfucker.
Diyala is heaven
Compared to you.
Don't write me no more.
I'm shipping out for my 3rd tour.

He's the one who always gets me.
I'm laughing and high.
Takes time to strike blood
In a withered vein.
He's gulping forties,
Paying mean money
For meaner pussy,
Staff Sergeant Aye-Aye,
Most rikky-tik, chop-chop you faggots,
Living the life in the USMC.

He's got the humor,
And close to the laughter,
The kind trapped in jails or
Strapped down in locked wards.
I gave him those;
A couple of back hands.
Shit.
Don't remember.
There must have been more.

But I know my boy, his bent
Sense of duty.
He was the kid,
Just used to slay me.
I'm laughing my guts out.
He'll get me back,
Don't worry.
He was locked on
To me
The day he was born.

NOT YET, BUT SOON

by R.B. Morgan

Winter is out there,
Just below the horizon,
The great predator pacing
Down rivers of ice.
It will touch trees;
They will explode.

This is the predicted attack,
A time for dying,
When farmers lose cattle,
Machines, and fingers, and
Wives prone to wander
Just wander away.

The hard ground between the
Mudroom and barn
Is twenty years long,
With buckets in both hands,
The pick-up gone,
And the banker,
The banker who's just twenty-five.
She's already got
That mortician smile,
And those grave digger eyes.

It's coming on,
To kill down the days,
And blank out the sun.
Dark by 4:30 we work
Under droplights,
Heat our horse tanks,
Throw the phone as far as you
Can throw voices and trouble,
And lawyers and governments.
The dirty bastards.
They just won't leave
A good guy alone.
But she can, so she does.
What the hell, man.
Boy's in the war, never hear
From him. The girl, well,
The girl with her brown baby
In a welfare hotel.
He can't remember.
Could be Lincoln.

So he sits at the table,
Still in his coveralls,
One bulb burning,
A bottle half gone.
The hard frost darkness is all around.
It's just turned October.
He'll burn dinner later;
Sleep in his clothes.

Hard winter's out there.
He could give one
Good Goddamn.
Hard winter out there,
He's long past caring.
Beat a man bad enough,
He gets dangerous, cruel,
Colder than winter.
Dead but don't know it,
We see them each year.

And whatever they touch
Will freeze down solid.
Freeze them past zero,
They will explode.