Marty Shambles
Marty Shambles
fast and furiousing
by Marty Shambles
“i used to go fast & / furiousing as hard as / anyone but i couldn't / handle the movements / of automobiles.”
reclaimed redwood
by Marty Shambles
“…each ring is epiphany / forgotten, / like new years resolutions / and their inevitable decay.”
meat
by Marty Shambles
“is it the good part of the / animal or the bad part? / is it tender muscle or / sinew and viscera? / only the chew knows”
she stares at
by Marty Shambles
“[she stares at] me when i’m not snoring, / laying in the still, paranoid / night–she stares until / there’s a gasp or twitch”
form follows folly
by Marty Shambles
“So the mirage was here. It looked just like a city, but it was the dance of light off the flex of the desert. I came out where the continent yearned for more, and I built it exactly as I saw it.”
why i write
by Marty Shambles
“i write for a world where / money doesn’t exist, / where worth is derived from /’ the bliss of gnosis”
clouds are like roaches
by Marty Shambles
“what’s / the price of rice now? / why are there roaches in my / basmati and why do they move / like clouds?”
80s poem
by Marty Shambles
“a rubiks cube is suspended / above a glass of Tab…”
the gutter dance
by Marty Shambles
“it’s a hungry time of night, / when the stomach sucks juice / from the ribs.”
there’s always more stuff to buy
by Marty Shambles
“walmarts look like churches. / churches look like walmarts. / prosperity gospel in the parking lot.”
untitled
by Marty Shambles
“…a plume of smoke pours / from my lips dangerous precedents are set every day.”
the big show
by Marty Shambles
“the adoration is truncated as they shuffle you / offstage to make room for the new players / who will be loved more than all your gestures combined.”
words are inert
by Marty Shambles
“the words illuminate a holy picture show… / then to again be inert symbols / scrawling the walls of this prison.”
how to regret a sentence
by Marty Shambles
“O-F-F-E-N… / you see the reactions of / your audience—faces washed / with disgust—-and you know / you’ve stepped in it…”
skeleton poem
by Marty Shambles
“everyone / vies for my attention, but i just / drive with my bones, waiting for a / metaphor that never comes.”
skeleton story
by Marty Shambles
“I do not miss the toil of it; the ingestion of medicines, the scramble for more days.”
the luddites
by Marty Shambles
“There comes a time for every employee these days when robots come for your jobs. For you that time is now.”
johnnie meatshoes
by Marty Shambles
“Born John Merchant III, heir to the great Merchant fortune, Johnnie Meatshoes, (a name self-ascribed), squished out to the clamor of reporters, and the lightning of bulbs.”
american mysticism
by Marty Shambles
“There's a comfort with the return of the towers. It means Americans can go on not caring about the world again, as the great, lumbering hell beast of American empire stomps the arena of the Global South, with the kayfabe of democracy.”
the pitch
Poetry by Marty Shambles
“step right up folks / step right up! / come see the amazing analog poet / watch this human anachronism / use an organic computer made of skull goo / to formulate sentences never before / uttered by man or machine.”