Incendiary

They tell us what he’s eating
but we don’t get to taste it tell us what he’s reading
but they’ve locked
the library doors tell us he doesn’t have
the shits
but they won’t let us dip our fingers
in it tell us he’s cursing God and praying
but they won’t let us hear him tell
us his whore of a wife ran off with his brother but
they won’t tell us where
tell us how he masturbates through the bars and screams he’s
not afraid how they
spread the cum on his toast and pretend it’s mar-
malade how they shaved
him bare but nobody saved the hairs (but they
did they did the liars) telling us
there’s no seats left for the “live” performance but
they’ll sell us bootleg
tapes for a hundred
a pop reasonable enough they say when you
figure the way
everything has doubled and quadrupled since the last
one
in eighty-eight how when they throw
the switch even
the floodlights in the parking
lot below dim and flicker and little flames dart around
his chair like butterflies
from hell
how the burnt smell comes right through the glass like
you aren’t
a spectator at all but strapped
in there beside him how
like in a storm the lopsided ions will make some
of you anxious and others want
to dance how nobody speaks
how the only sound you hear
is the water creaking far off in the pipes the way it
happens in church when your
stomach just won’t shut up.


The Hole Truth

A certain "Jennifer Knox" and her
unnamed friend were going through a few of the more
bizarre
irresponsible

things they could do in broad daylight
in the city of Milwaukee
without getting in trouble like having sex with some

bosses and their hoochie mama
secretaries from all over the state "in a wild group
fucking office kind of thing,"
or better yet

maybe wet their pants on the bus
to make people nervous but not nervous
enough to ask questions

or perhaps give up regular food for vending machine
stuff
that will rot their teeth so they can have
them all pulled then (says the friend) buy some guns
and lift up their lips

to "force Asian tourists
at gunpoint to look at our holes" all of which sounds
a bit like the six-o'clock news
until we realize that Ms Knox ("Miss Liar-Liar-Hot-
Pants-In-The-Choir,"
as her friend would say) isn't so much
concerned with life as she is with art which to her
involves

some kind of two-
faced woman kind of thing where nothing is ever
what it seems and all us hapless Japs and bosses and
hoochie

mamas are left to decide
(with only the shifting "bright light of
responsibility" as our guide) if it's truly gum-
holes the lady means

or that cute little hole in her jeans


click on author's name to send email.
©James Lineberger

James Lineberger is a professional playwright and screenwriter. His poetry has appeared in numerous print and online publications.
BACK