Blow Me

I asked the wife to blow me
she said
blow yourself
I said
I can’t
she said
then get one of your girlfriends to do it
I said
I don’t have any you bitch
she laughed bitterly
said
who do you think you are fooling?

I wondered how much she knew and
how she came to know it–
I said
why would I have a girlfriend with you
around, honey?
She said
I don’t know MISTER, you tell me.

I hated that MISTER
hated those black knee-high boots she
sometimes wore
too
(they always meant trouble for me).

She stamped her foot and
threw her mane of auburn hair around
like a prima-donna racehorse in the gate
at Saratoga
she said
do not think you are getting away with anything
Mister! I can see right through you!

I asked the wife if she was comfortable
she said yes
as comfortable as I can be around you
I said
what does that mean
she said
figure it out yourself
I said
you bitch, I should
she said
should what?
I said I don’t know what
she said
how about you should wise-up a little?
I said
how about you should shut-up, a little?
She said
don’t tell me “shut-up,” who do you
think I am, one of your bimbos?
I said
my BIMBOS? Oh boy, you have really lost it!
She said
you think?
I said
yeah, you are gonzo, way out there…
She said
and how about you? Do you think you are “normal”?
I said
I never said I was
(whatever “normal” means)
she said
it means not you
I said
oh, it means you though, right?
She said
more so than you.
I said
do you know how idiotic you sound?
She said
me? Oh brother! You are something!
Said
people see through you from a mile away
and you don’t even know it!
I said
what the hell you talking about?
She said
wouldn’t you like to know?
I said
yeah, I would
she said
I bet you would
MISTER.

1st Book

since my book was published
I feel as if I have grown
an inch or two,
added an additional foot to my
intestines;
more hair,
harder fingernails,
a darker shadow;
the future has more substance,
I want to hurry it
into existence;
but I fear too
that
it will all end
abruptly
and I will be on my back
in a hospital bed
in Marsailles or
elsewhere
and still
unilluminated.

red bug
on
rotten tree stump
covered in green moss
small yellow yellow flowers
everywhere birds
many birds surround
everywhere flowers
and singing birds
weak ships on horizon
mirrors
like an alien
huckle-wooing
a whale or something

To the Sound of Rain and Smell of Burning Plastic
Ten Poems on Sobriety

‘The weekends’

I am the hardest to love.

the weekends pour
their

endless chatter sour
over
ice

I want to be moved.
.
.
( will choose to die over it).

‘11:12:21:11’

yesterday, we met in the garden.

sketch me
someone
beautiful— say i

not too long in future
did you meet my quaint demand

he was quite the model of delight
all that matter— lacking sight

return him,
no use
to me
is he
who cannot see in shadows
who cannot stumble crooked

who cannot be concerned with being art less
themselves

that they never learnt to sketch:

‘everything’

starts slow
strange and wanting
thing

starts to grow
a listless glut cut wristless

starts to growl
starts to race
starts to glow in color
moving fast
moving faster
etc…
fast chaotic wanting thing

starts to slow
a strange and wanton thing
leaks

from your own eyes.

‘Mis’

Spent supper at Aaron’s again
He became, as always, very political
Still we sat, us all, in
awkward agreement — me thinking,

is it so hard? to admit smallness
in exchange for all this?

‘phases of love’

we are
the snap of magnets
[beige— blue—]
crass, unbent,
[,first days of june]
the Slap
of magnets

( Elohim: take my total love]

: like wrath
of madness

‘Sunday’
Sunday, where will I find you?
, when do you come calling?
Sunday, do not leave me.
you are my most prized

Beginning.

‘Climbing back on the wagon and breaking my nails’

And if I am to live without you
I will do you to excess manic distressed
& sweating

Waking up to words I have no recall
of writing.

Tributes to Dada
the Bhagavad Gita

Live Without Me — TRY

youest you
I cannot seem to scrape you from myself.

‘Staring out a window, presumably in white’

Never been much of a diarist
Never process through word itself
Ironic, I know

It’s just
when each day ends
I’m left with only color

I don’t expect that to change too soon.

‘granite 2 face’

it began as a list of all the ways the last two years have both gone wrong
but instead became this.
too tired to ink it all out.

confinement, the great one #hathtag come.

it began as a two-particle molecule
but instead became all this.

‘The end’

take me back
still further
when ceiling
was sky dogs
were our large nannies
knowing there was plenty of time
to learn the things we’d need to learn
to prosper
to succeed
take me back. in truth,
i cannot recall a moment of happiness.
now, looking up,
only trim-work.

this is the end
this is the pull
take me back,
heavy curtain over mind

this life is unsustainable.

my choice— always is,
always will be,
cleanliness.

I want to be moved
.
.
( will choose to die over it ).

Slipping Through Life

I slip through life
like an envelope
pushed through
a clearance at
the bottom of
a door. I slip right
in unnoticed. I
get stepped on
sometimes. I’m
like the letter,
unopened, with
lots to say that
no one will read.

it all gets too much

It all gets too much
queueing everywhere you go,
people backing off from you
wearing face masks.
it all gets too much
there are no good times
anytime, for anyone,
especially me.
it all gets too much
being under house arrest,
no escape from your loved ones, and those who love you.
it all gets too much
the manic scrabbling for lines
trying to prove your talent
to whoever reads you.
it all gets too much
waking every day in the
same old bed, same old
house, same old me.
it all gets too much
the mediocrity of it all,
unfunny comedy, the
same dull four chords
in every dull song.
it all gets too much
the same ugly face
in the shaving mirror
every bloody day.
it all gets too much
sometimes
it all gets too much

Silent But Deadly

Thought

bon mots

were French mints

and finally

after throwing mine out

figured out which is the

business end of a kazoo

the comb with toilet paper

is a difficult instrument

to master

spoons; metal-prong

dog brush ‘n’ small stone

armpit, cheek,

sphincter rat-a-tat-tat

sacred sounds

the music of necessity

blaring.

(First published by the German literary magazine Raven Cage Magazine, and editor-in-chief Jerry Langdon)

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) was raised by wolves yet managed to graduate high school with honors. He’s been widely published over the last quarter century, most recently at Horror Sleaze Trash, Heroin Love Songs v2.0, Synchronized Chaos, The Scum Gentry and Cajun Mutt Press. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com). and if you ever desire to hear him read a few of his poems, feel free to check out his SoundCloud page: (https://soundcloud.com/j-j-campbell).
Join the madness

stimulated

languid souls
wasting away
in this pit of fear

i never wanted to
know how the other
side lived

it never interested me

i was always stimulated
by deep thought,

neon colors,

an ass that made you
question all your
previous decisions,

the taste of sunshine
between the legs
of a goddess
———————————————————————-
the sun rise through a bottle of scotch

it’s a test of strength, of mind over
matter, how much pain can one soul
gather and hold until the boat takes
on some water

her love leaves as easily as it walked
in the bedroom

another broken heart that will never heal

never get to find anything resembling
whatever the same used to be

somewhere in that darkness, let the tears
roll down your face and rest on the floor

another breaking point conquered as soon
as the pen hits the paper and you see the
sun rise through a bottle of scotch

look in the mirror and understand you have
the will to die on your own terms
————————————————————————
an unsuspecting infant

the facts are not welcome here

innocence was lost the moment
a lit match met a bent spoon

love is a random bullet shot from
a moving car through the bedroom
walls of an unsuspecting infant
unaware of his new reality

hope is a middle finger from the driver
that just cut you off on the freeway

there aren’t enough bottles of alcohol
for the pain and the rich have kept all
the good shit for themselves

war is always on the tip of every
small-minded tongue

there is no room for failure or loss

our bellies only have a taste for victory,
freedom and whatever other lies we were
told in the prisons we took our books to
each day of our youth
————————————————————————

THE DAMNED PLACES

Love can be found in
the most damned
places:
in the ravaged souls
of those
whose lives have been
taken by poverty and
disease and
starvation,
in the hell-holes of
addiction, in the
corners and crevices
of the madness of
every day, in the
shadows of sex and
the silhouettes of
regret, in the
hearts of military
conflicts and the
exercise yards of
prisons, in the
hovels of dirty
desperation and
the quietness of
loneliness, in the
voices of protest and
the songs of
disobedience,
in the eyes of the
young, you can see
it, pure and
innocent,
you can find it
in this poem
and it’s for you.

Safety Net

Your once grateful presence, now fails miserably
to evoke those shock waves that once shattered
my spine and ankles, that left a residue like wet sand,
that would clog my arteries; slow down my tongue.

Those now defiant faces and groupings that kept
us within those spheres of false protection, that stifled
brain cells and ambition, but still offered a net of safety,
too weak to even hold one of us in place.

And our promises, that clotted over redundant scars,
are again inevitably peeled from their surface, allowing
the foundations to weep until septic; we slowly shift
from stained glasses and chipped ashtrays.

Those areas we shifted from each half decade,
leaving behind nothing but cobwebs and kicked in
doors with rusted hinges over indebted shadows;
it’s now time to let our memories release their dead.

Headlines

That resurgence of blisters,
that blight what should be
the easiest of walks, their
guides highly qualified in
deception; a repeated sentence
that promised lined pockets was all
they usually needed. A regular supply
of twisted verdicts from mouths nourished
on rancid vitamins. Their joyous “collective”
like wilting fox gloves, that sip
the given poison through perished straws,
to spit back at each other like frustrated Cobras.
Their nesting season (every four years),
eyes blinkered by their own hands, now
redundant till the final box is ticked; they
see everything at once, but never at the correct time.

Festivities

During that less that typical stillness,
that permeates only on this day, we drive
cramped in your van, that winter daylight
applying animation to the still trees and tower-
blocks; the fading white lines laid out across
concrete.

In that park as the light dimmed, stood
intoxicated, the streets that frame this grass
square still lacking movement like before.
The sharp windows hang like antique mirrors,
begging for reflections without vanity.

At our table, diluted whiskey amongst the half
finished meals, our claws un-clipped, yet sharpened
by the surrounding faces, the first in over two hours.
The bitterness on each of our tongues now turned
sickly sweet.

The avoided families and once a year bonding
escape our laughter and chatter. Each of us dressed
accordingly, we pick up the necessities, and nurse the
remainder of this eve, without the need for prayer.

A Nature Poetry Primer : for my sons

-after reading Guillaume Apollinaire.

“You can never say animals are stupid. You can only say it about other people.”
– Daniel , age 5.

He would butt your head when you fight.
He’s just being antlered.

His hairy belly is full & he is tall & his back is hairy, too.
He’s just a bear.

We sidle up to you . . . we come sideways . . . easy prey.
How you catch crabs.

He bares his teeth whenever he eats.
He deserves the dogfood.

Our heads inside are full of life, & outside easily broken.
We are all of us eggs, yet.

Slender, nuzzling, feeding, quiet, listening, ever alert, & attentive,
the fawn.

A speck of dust in the universe, still our biting leaves the itch,
as pestering as the gnat.

We daily sing of war, it’s our bloodlust. We laugh when old men cry.
We are such hyenas.

A mass of chemicals dropped from the air can kill us,
as if we were not insects.
A footnote to hunters, like packs of wild dogs roaming the night,
we are jackals.
Unable to quit . . . eucalyptus leaves or anything else,
we enter the world of Koala.

We could benefit from your work-sweat, or know that you bleed,
like capitalists, or leeches.

We can move atomically freely among ourselves without separation,
like liquid.

Imagine my molarity or imagine me hairy without language, extinct,
one mammoth mastodon.

It is a dark blanket our special being lays over us all so late,
our Night.

We are as soiled & as showy as a major political party convention,
we might as well be orchids.

It seems our memories may exceed our minds.
Parrots can seem like ditto signs.

A President’s death needs no gun. Apparently one animal does,
when hunting Quail.

He’s just thinking about tail, tonight.
We’ll not use the other name. Say he’s a rooster.

I shine, but I could be dead to you, as far apart as we are.
Read this now – you are a star.

Even great poets do not know who created my fearful symmetry.
But the tyger knows what the tigeris.
Scientists & logicians agree: we only exist in children’s dreams.
But we are, and we are unicorns.
A photo could frame our circles, on a tumbling ghost town paper,
when we are vultures.

Thick skinned, mustachioed, fat fanged, formally tusked,
at the reception, tuxed, I am a walrus.

Having claimed as my own the home of the tribes of South Africa,
by manners, I should introduce myself – wildebeest.

We’d lap our own tongues’ blood from the blades of knives, for living,
being wolves.

A number, statistic, axis, chromosome, generation, or a big unknown,
hardly natural the illiterate sign us: X.

Shaggy stock in life, we stare back, patient as pre-history, still here . . .
Yak, Yak, Yak!
How many of us do you recognize here?
After all this is our zoo.