Marty Shambles
Marty Shambles
a decadent squalor
by Marty Shambles
“when they fell asleep i / got locks of their hair / and smoked them like it / was something good. i / let the nihilism of the / hair take over. i got / hooked and smoked myself / bald.“
bible meat
by Marty Shambles
“the / gristle of God gets stuck in the teeth.“
when i was too high to smoke
by Marty Shambles
“they know that i / smoke sleep and whisper / a scoundrel's poetry / into the pillow.“
charity
by Marty Shambles
“my charity is stronger / than red cross. it is / here to offer guns to / desperate people. the / people have to prove / desperation. we can’t / just give guns to / anybody.…“
i wanted to know the contours of the sun
by Marty Shambles
“like most kids i wanted / to be an astronaut for a / while, not realizing / until later that / astronauts are / overachieving nerds who / don’t do anything cool…“
four shots of espresso
by Marty Shambles
“When Bobby and I went to the coffeeshop last, he said that Bob Dylan was overrated, and sure anyone elevated to demigod will fall flat, but Bob Dylan changed how we listen to things. All of us.“
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…”