COLIN JAMES has had a couple of chapbooks of poetry published – Dreams Of The Really Annoying (Writing Knights Press) and A Thoroughness Not Deprived of Absurdity (Piski’s Porch Press), and a book of poems, Resisting Probability (Sagging Meniscus Press).

A talent for legitimacy

Episodically craved by adolescents,

Prometheus displays his tats

behind The Dollar Store in Bonita.

The one with the plastic pillars.

Chained willingly to a picnic table,

he effuses in atmospheric cigarette smoke

shiftlessness his apparent esthetic.

Peers immersed in forsake-me-not hygiene

crouched in even more uncomfortable positions,

strain to catch a glimpse of his epithelial gland

visible through tiny filaments of foliage

like a conceptual umbrella or soluble shade tree.

Decadence owed

It rained during the night,

my accountant was unavailable.

His secretary referred me to

a descendant of that Hungarian actress

who played the werewolf’s mother

in all those old horror films.

I took the coastal highway

which was pleasantly diverting.

Her caravan stood adjacent to

an erosion affected cliff.

A horse was grazing in a shaded copse.

Colored streamers fluttered in the wind.

She was selling, the sign said.

Her psychological item deduction

had become a thing of legend.

There was a green carpet

on the wooden steps. Strings

of drying herbs, garlic and whatnot.

The claw marks on the door

attempts of an Oedipus fatalist

to check off the right box.

Confederation of knife-throwing sailors

The brass plaque has been damaged
from several attempts
at forceable removal.
Most of the lads are a-sea,
security less than languishing.
There is only old Pythias,
he of the steel braided hair, beard.
Stows his blades in there.
Hear that Tricuspid Regurgitation?
Fortunately the wind has died down a bit
improving his accuracy
pending verdigris.

Call off your goons and I will call off my undisciplined transgressives

For the Int in impotent,
one of those Soho basement flats
dedicated to surviving a wet spring.
There is an old iron rail
I could have tied my bumboat to,
having neglected to bring some oats
which I get on the cheap.
Soon to be renting with options,
a quite large town green.
Copulist, just like a control mechanism.
I have no pen or magic marker
to leave a not so concise note with.
Something nice and sticky
blood or starship cola.

Drake-gasm after Ficlet

Heating pads warm the lower
extremities, arms held straight up.
The UFO lecturer makes eye contact
after every “now this” click.
I see a frisbee
hovering over Mendocino.
Late arrivals bring their bustle
and throat clearing.
I wasted my life reading
about the politics of possibility,
elements like Kryptonite,
undiscovered deference.