Jay Sizemore

Working

I play roulette with a cannon,

a single-shot barrel that swallows

my head and sounds like a cave.

My staple gun has a rusty hinge,

squeaks like a dying bird

with every report or breath

fastened to the gravity of repetition.

I light the extended fuse 

and walk to the mouth of doom, 

awaiting the truth of seconds 

that taste like rain.

New pens are sexual partners,

their virgin seals violated 

by my teeth and signature,

by numbers fucking numbers.

Every day a storm and a failure, 

black socks staining my feet 

while seagulls get lost in parking lots

and my fingers memorize paper cuts,

waiting for the fuse to dry.

Nashville, TN #3

Here’s a homeless man 

walking out into the road

like his hip is a piggy bank

and passing cars are

potential hammers. 

His shoelaces are pink,

his face a grizzly peach

of pockmarked sun,

a horrible grin of piano keys

hovering above a yellow smock

stuffed with newspapers. 

One dollar. One dollar. 

One dollar is all he needs,

to stash in his hip, 

to solve the housing crisis, 

to touch the outstretched hands

from car windows

like a leper messiah,

to feel like security 

is as contagious as air conditioning.

Downtown

If I lose my job, my home, my love,

you can find me downtown by the bars,

strumming my guitar like a blind man

searching for faces in the blackness,

case open on the pavement like a ribcage

without guts to enclose, hoping for 

some loose change, some loose smiles,

to pay for the next round of forgetfulness.

Jay Sizemore plays guitar and sings poems for the damned.  He resides in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Elizabeth. They have three cats.

cur.ren.cy

is now publishing poetry and prose

inspired by these, uh, "tough economic times."  

Your editors/mortgage-backed securities managers:  
Howie Good, Dale Wisely, F. John Sharp
Sister sites:  Right Hand Pointing & White Knuckle Press

 

Wanna be reminded when we have new content up?  Join the right hand pointing facebook group here.