Fred Aiken Writing

Category: Poetry

Where the Audience Drifts Off

blossoming fevers pillowing out over a drab and dreary night
lulled into a false sense of confidence spelled in rectangular cursive badly drawn
on a bleeding chalkboard with rust-colored paint dripping

out into the bleachers sitting in the rain while the game waits
for the audience to start
but no one showed up to watch because they all passed out from exhaustion

after spending 30 years in the mines/mills/refineries/fields/warehouse/haberdasheries
because haberdashery is fun to say
but easier to misspell

Heathen Festivities

grey matter splashed up against a pink backdrop as fervent woods
shoot through a glass ceiling

made clear by night shivering in the back of a used Lincoln
with kids toys strewn about in a literal littered fashion with decomposing logs seeping oleic acid from the putrid confines of ash sap
sipping Mai Tai’s at the beach while contemplating whether or not

a surf tattoo would be better than a vampire tattoo on the left or right bicep…or both or none

Pool of Gasoline Lit

sleep in a pool of gasoline while reading social theory being written with a pneumatic drill
skating across an asphalt prism containing the hopes and wishes
made final by the sinking whispers escaping through the porous clouds telling lies
made of lumber raining in a falling bliss as maple trees weep delicious tears
that sound better than they look on a breakfast made for champions
when delete buttons no longer work and the jumbled mess is all that’s left