not a sequence, just stacking them as they come in, until I see what to do with them all...

Wong Liked Fucking

Wong liked fucking
but was good at short order cooking.
so he cooked all day and night
at Satch's bar and brought the fucking up
when I came in to order food.
“three hamburgers all the way,” I said.
“you likee fuck-fuck?” he said.

except for the Chinese specials,
he taught me to cook
so he could take Sundays off to go
to the Chinatown whores and fuck.
he was a perfectionist.
everything had to be just so in his kitchen,
so I wondered
but didn't ask how it was with the fucking.

Pig

zack the bartender
and owner's brother
had a girlfriend

who sat at the bar
all new year's eve
while he fixed drinks
and called her 'pig'

until she wet herself
right there on the stool

and continued to sit
dripping
while I cleaned it up.

Mistake Dinner

the mafia guy had a big big time
with friends and family -

lobsters, racks of lamb, the works.
the manager sent wine.

when I gave the big man
his check,

he stood up and thundered,
“I don't pay for nothing here!”

the manager agreed,
it was just a mistake.

Jones

she's the original ice queen

tall dark cool and statuesque
brusque

with a small shy horsey smile
that disarms you.

overnight, bad heroin kills her

and the young manager
who's got a big jones for her.

Last Chance

“this is your last chance,”
the robber said.
he pushed his gun a little harder
to my head,
making my hand shake worse.

“take the fucking gun
off my fucking head for a minute,”
I said,
“and maybe I can open
the fucking thing!”

he did.

Generous Basket

since he counted
the collection at St. B's
he kept a basket of $5 bills
on his mom's
coffee table

in case any of the strays
he staggered home with
needed something.

his mom was of the
philosophy
it's better if your children
conduct their bullshit
at home.

a naked girl with
one misshaped, discolored buttock
was sort of hopping
to the bathroom as
mom walked downstairs
in her robe

to sweetly ask
if she cared for a donut
or some eggs.

A Third Buddy

he was a ski bum,
loved to talk about a ski bunny
he fucked who had one leg.

he was so wild in bed
everyone he fucked loved him.
I know, I was his landlord
and they would come up
for breakfast in between,

sometimes just the girls,
sometimes not wearing much,
desperate for fuel.

did he pay the rent?
not very often.
had to kick him out finally.
was he pissed?
no. why?

Another Buddy

he was a big-time moocher,
never worked, took the couch,
drank our booze, even asked
for pocket money.

it astonishes me now
how much I liked her gigolo.
our gigolo.

One Buddy

he was flirting too hard
or I was drinking too hard
so I clonked his head
too hard
against the radiator.

what a motherfucker
he was.
the shit he did
to his wife
and then his daughter.

but lordy
he was fun to drink with.

Makeshift Sonnet

what scared me was standing bent
in half in the shower after I fell down
and hurt my back the night before,
and seeing blood from hemorrhoids
running down the inside of my thigh.

what terrified me was when my heart
would race so fast, the only way I knew
to bring it down was tear-assing
wild-eyed out the door and around
the neighborhood until my respiration
caught up to it, and took it in hand.

what made a difference to me was
your offer of love providing I could
get there and back without crashing.

i think this is supposed to be funny, but it seems kinda sad and painful to me.  hope it's not autobiographical.   hemorhoids--bummer.

nevertheless, good sonnet, altho i'm sure i couldn't write one,
cheryl

Thanks for reading, Cheryl. Yeah, am trying out new autobio mode. Must've been seeing Mickey Rourke in coming attractions for Iron Man II. -Tom

9 1/2 weeks -- now that's a Riorkan you should try.

; )

yeah you're right, you couldn't make this stuff up.

have you ever read anything by Anais Nin?  these short items remind me of her.  and since you wrote about elizabeth and whatshisname i've been reading about Anais and Rupert trying to get a feel of their relationship.  she's erotic, yet sort of quaint, and kinda bizarre too.

this stuff really hits home.

c

Read Nin decades ago, and don't remember it that well, sadly.
Thanks for reading this bunch. -Tom

many writers don't like her.  my english professor, who graduated from Harvard, and serves on a yearly counsel of newly discovered John Donne items, told me he detested her and thought she was cheap and baudy.  needless to say i was embarrassed i brought her up.  shoulda known better.

cheryl

all of these characters are like one-hit wonders or 'golems' of your life;  overnight one-time famous people--the one-time being here.  all of them are your golems or reflections of who you are now. 

we all have them.  the trick is putting them into words worth reading.

cheryl

Tom, perhaps a new title might invite more
readers and respondents.  I read them all
and enjoyed the segments with a satiric
edge.  I particularly liked Mistake Dinner
and Last Chance and the gigilo one; I can
relate to.  The other f... segments not much,
heard it a lot growing up in a rough
neighborhood to think it's clever. (not since
the fifth grade)
This is geared for a particular audience.
No 1 is more like a dirty joke than
poetic.  Oh, well, different strokes
for different folk.
I agree with Cheryl that the "sonnet"
is kinda sad.  Perhaps go more for
the fourteen lines in 3 quatrains and
neat to rhyme a couplet at the end.
I've seen them written in free verse
and that's fine as long as they have
iambic meter - but try giving this
one another twist of irony by some
characteristic to a sonnet other than
fourteen lines.

I like the ending stanza - touching.

The whole sequence
is too bizarre for my taste,
certainly unique, and this style,
no doubt, will catch on - don't
know if audiences are ready yet.

Thanks.
marion

Sorry, to me the prof sounds like a snob who makes himself feel good by denigrating others. Keep bringing up whatever you want. Screw the profs!

Yeah, I agree, Cheryl. In some of these, trying to draw out character in one stroke like those good artists do. We'll see how it goes. Thanks, Tom

Thank you for reading and responding with such good feedback, Marion. I added a note up top I should have put before, that they're not a sequence, just a stack of now writing that I haven't quite figured out what to do with yet. So your ideas help.
The grotesqueries - the "fucks" being one of them - an issue, yes. Part & parcel, but tough reading sometimes.
The sonnet more in spirit than in form, as you note. Can you create the spirit of a form without the form, as with haiku too?
You leave me laughing overall, the nonchalant pessimism a poem itself: it's not for me, so yeah, it'll catch on, just a matter of time!
Thanks again, Tom

Great stuff, Tom. I like the first one a lot, but I think you need a better last line.

Jay, I will take that to heart and see if I can do better. Thanks for the look, very glad you enjoyed. Tom

Yup, it's really a good piece--had me laughing almost from the start. Stray word here: so he cooked at all day and night

Actually there's a bit of a syntax/logic issue here, as well:

he taught me to cook
everything except the Chinese specials
so he could take Sundays off to go
to the Chinatown whores and fuck

I think what you mean to say is

he taught me to cook
so he could take Sundays off to go
to the Chinatown whores and fuck

The line "everything except the Chinese specials" you might want to wedge in parenthetically.