2 X KENT JOHNSON

 

WINTER ADVISORY 


The finny Arp
Of the startled carp
Stuns the water harp.

Ah! City on a Hill
Where I dwell
The saucy angles of my smell.

Oh Hollywood! City of Melons
Where gangs of poets
Gossip over the felons.

Ach! City of Angels
Lit from the bottom;
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

Flickering blue fire,
Up and down my lyre;
Can’t turn off the gas.

Absolute precision
Is my mission,
Stitch up the incision.

Unreason is laffable.
I’m never so affable
As when I double my entendre. 

Got the raging gout
From eating corner store trout
I just can’t crap out.

Throw me a bone,
I feel so alone,
Or I’ll break up your home.

Golly Gee!
Why don’t the BBC
Contact me?

Some have hang ups;
Some get hung up;
Some hang up.

If you can hang up
You can make making hang ups
Part of your hang up.

Part of your repertoire;
Clear epoxy tar
Sans the cee-gar. 

Ipso facto;
Convolute,
Ya big galoot. 
 
That’s my snow advisory
But make sure your adversary
Is more the wisery.

Advertise. Advertise.
Avoid circumlocution.
Location. Location. Location

Is sweeping the nation.
Its all one big parking lot
Easy access to the mall
To buy Joni, the new sensation.

Lord willin’
I’m no Bob Dylan
Just a New York fill in.

I’m knock, knock, knockin’ on Heaven’s door
To settle a score
With Jesus and his cheatin’ little whore
And her connect Christian D’Or. 

I want my rock
Around the clock
Or its tick tock, tick tock
Up hear in his old lady’s Reebok.

In rides Buffalo Bull
To pull the wool 
Over her thighs like
A hockey stick with hair on it.
Beneath the stars 
In Lima, Ohio
From outside a bar
I hear the croak 
Of the bayou

Now that I’m in the groove
I just want to move
And pull down all my anachronisms
From High School football.

Is there no end
To the mall in Great Bend
Or is this the End?

 


I Am Interested . . .

 

I am interested in naked assertion.

I am interested how with naked assertion you can get away with saying nothing by saying anything.

I am interested in how the anaphoric amplifies this hustle.

I am interested in how naming things in an anaphoric romp reinforces the false sense that you know something about that which is named.

I am interested in how repetition and naming are tools of the pseudo-intellectual bully.

I am interested in how you can use the anaphoric to underscore how you are interested in many things when you are only interested in yourself.

I am interested in why the onion of solipsism resounds in the emptiness of the anaphoric.

I am not interested in authorship.

I am interested in anyone I can use to piggyback off their celebrity.

I am interested in plugging myself every ten or twelve anaphoric non sequitors.

I am not interested in Iraq other than to plug a couple of my poems.

I am interested enough to try to cover myself with a mock self-deprecating “so what.”

I am not interested in the fact that this fools no one.

I am not interested in saying anything substantive about anything unless it’s going to get me some attention.

I am not interested how this makes me sound like a six year old.

I am interested in Deaf Poetry though it’s spelled ‘Def’ Poetry.

I am not interested that ‘Def’ stands for ‘definite.’
I am not interested that this ‘Def’ or ‘definiteness’ is just another hollow assertion, a slogan, signifying nothing.

I am not interested that by calling ‘def’ ‘deaf’ I cam dangerously close to the truth and to displaying how disingenuous my motives are.

I am interested in its use of the anaphoric to repeatedly say nothing with over-rehearsed conviction.

I am interested in being a poet with an agent, an acting coach and a green velvet beret that I wear at a slant.

I am interested in abandoning my poetic vocation so I can be a contestant on Hell Date.

I am interested in Walt Whitman’s use of the anaphoric to pump up his democratic fantasy.

I am interested in how easily the anaphoric falls into jingoism.

I am interested in why Whitman was compelled to disguise his pecker as ‘The Broad Axe’ and ‘The Brooklyn Bridge.’

I am interested in why Whitman’s lumber jack reads like a woman on anabolic steroids and testosterone.

I am interested in how easily the anaphoric falls in nationalism.

I am interested in how easily the anaphoric reinforces solipsism.

I am interested in how the anaphoric forms the chorus for consumption.

I am interested in how the anaphoric can make a poem look long by supplying half the words.

I am interested in any way the anaphoric can make me sound interesting.

I am not really interested in melancholy as a mode of negativity or refusal.

I am not interested in why I don’t know what that means.

I am not interested in why you want to know why I’m not interested in what that means.

I am interested in why you don’t want to publish it though I don’t know what that means.

I am interested in theory.

I am interested in any theory that can cover up the inadequacy of my poetry.

I am interested in any theory that can cover up my inadequacy.

I am not interested that Edward Bernays first PR success was hustling velvet.

I am interested in the fact that no feature films have ever been made about me.

I am interested in myself as Cartesian world filter.

I am not interested in stopping to change the filter.

I am not interested in reading Descartes.

I am not interesting therefore I am interesting.

I am not interested in reflecting on why I smoke filter tipped Cartesian menthol.

I am interested in baseball, still hold my high school's record for most times hit by a pitch in a season.

I am not interested in why opposing pitchers enjoyed throwing at me.

I am not interested why pitchers on my team threw at me in batting practice and at school assembly and when I walked home and...

I am not interested in why people still like to throw at me.

I am not interested in why there isn’t poet out there with a good fastball.

I am not interested in why America’s Best Poets can’t get anybody out.

I am interested in why steroids never caught on in poetry except Def poetry.

I am interested to know why TV abandoned appearance for reality.

I am interested to know if Bertrand Russell liked Einstein because they both liberally fucked other people’s wives.

I am not interested in being interesting.

I am interested in appearing interesting.

I am interested in appearing interested.

I am interested in having people interested in me by telling people other people are interested in me.