Americana
I grabbed Don Delillo at a used bookstore,
not him personally, I am not the president,
but grabbed his book, Americana,
cover worn to the point of being free,
got home, flipped through it like a flipbook,
found a bookmark between the pages,
no, not a laminated banned booklist
or a massage parlor business card
or a slipped in Jesus flyer,
it was of all unusual things
a large ripped off mattress tag
almost the size of the book itself,
the soft limp kind that says if removed
from a mattress is punishable by law,
an offense actually meant
for the manufacturing company
not mattress customers gone wild,
but still, I was curious as to why
the previous book and bed owner
didn’t just tear off a piece of paper
instead of reaching down and thinking
you know what, this mattress tag
would make a great bookmark, rip—
a trippy-ass decision in my opinion,
who is that desperate for a bookmark
except for maybe an avid reading
paranoid mattress company employee
who is hiding their mattress crime
of selling untagged mattresses
on the black market of bedding,
or is there such a thing as a literary brothel,
perhaps I am now the perplexed owner
of souvenired lawlessness
and the aproposness of Americana within
Americana, a satire to which I live.
Pour One Out for My Poetry
I mean, even poetry with a capital P
in general could use a drink
to read it or write it,
a rest in peace pour of Grey Goose
if it doesn’t make it in the New Yorker
or one of the popular lits,
or indie anywhere, and even then.
I mean the eyes are on fiction,
the money is on fiction,
and poetry is not fiction.
I mean, I got an MFA degree
in creative writing and I sell liquor,
I don’t sell poems. I mean,
poetry in the wild is like a porpoise
without a purpose. Sometimes
it becomes tuna, or ends up
in a sideshow and people clap.
I mean being a poet is like drinking
Popov vodka, is like wearing
pleather pants, is like listening
to Puccini while eating a frozen pizza.
I mean the placebo is ineffectual.
I mean what you are reading here
is poor in economics, in culture,
in class, in society, in ethnicity,
in literariness. I mean potato salad
with the pits. I mean I write poems
while wearing Wal-mart glow-in-the-dark
Pumpkin King pajama bottoms. I mean,
pour one out for me and my poetry,
even a malty 40 oz. of Old English will do.
BRIAN HARMAN lives in Southern California where he received an MFA in creative writing from California State University, Long Beach. His works have been published in Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, Misfit Magazine, Sho Poetry Journal, Meat For Tea, and elsewhere. He is the author of Suddenly, All Hell Broke Loose!!!, published through Picture Show Press. He enjoys the beach, craft beer, tacos, poetry talks with his poetry goddess, and loves being a dad. He is also co-owner of a local bookstore, Blue Font Books, in Downtown Santa Ana.
