american poem

by Damon Hubbs

I saw the ghost of JFK at Skipper Chowder House

down in Yarmouth on a rainy day in August.

He was buying gin with a necklace of cowrie shells,

bitching about the broken water main

outside the Red Jacket Inn. I don’t know shit about love, he said.

I didn’t want to be her friend. I just wanted to eat her ass.

Starboard isn’t my best side, I’m afraid.

Imagine having a foot fetish and being surrounded by mermaids.

The sun knocks the birds loose, first the green one, then the blue

miraculous grot, pictures of the floating world.

The mast bears no sail on a ship of fools.

Six men, two women, and then we pick up two more.

The young pearl divers

are entwined with a pair of octopuses,

each sucker like an angel

sticking out its hot pink tongue.

The pearl divers are named Jackie and Maxine.

They are young and white and blonde.

One of them just starred in a jeans campaign.

This is after the famine but before the earthquake.

This is prior to you gaining an extra heartbeat.

Sometimes animals are stand-ins for gods

but that’s not the case here.

The octopuses are from the Edo period

and like to fuck.

Jackie and Maxine like to fuck.

There’s a private island in the Turks and Caicos

where everyone likes to fuck.

O it’s fun, seedy-fun

to saw off the barrel of your gun.

I’m a little homesick.

Tomorrow never came

and I’ve always liked the grassy knoll

better than the landing strip,

the barely there, the Hollywood.

God, America was grand.

Click here to read Damon’s bio.