Teriyaki Land
By Marc Olmsted
Conveniently located
between Teriyaki Land and
Graveyard Tattoos, I go
to get the car smogged
in Clackamas, Oregon
– but it’s closed –
cyber Monday a holiday for some
the shy couple
exiting Fantasy Emporium
with nervous glances
Writ 2 Days After Manson Died
By Marc Olmsted
I took acid age 15
same year Charlie Manson ordered
Helter Skelter killings
I took acid in L.A., later mescaline,
walking the ugly railroad tracks
of murder burning
a black candle
heh heh heh
a horned god’s face
on the black book case
Bond, James Bond-ond-ond
By Marc Olmsted
At 15, a lotta acid & hash
Jim said “Treat your parents
like you’re a spy”
James Bond beyond
007 once seen on acid the
snow turned red with
a ripped up body –
I didn’t know how to feel
“Watchout Love Children”
the car with the loud speaker
said – a strange lowrider shark
in the Valley near the supermarket
where suburban wives swam
behind aquarium plate glass
Cash For Guns
By Marc Olmsted
the sign says
she sits outside chain-smoking haggard
“You got what I need?”
No (to meth I’d guess)
“Are you sure?”
the strip mall nameless in Portland
where it turns Vietnamese
a plain clothes cop car across
the street at the 7-11
flashing its red & blues
Nobel Lit
By Marc Olmsted
In the give away box good poetry but I have nothing to trade
With a cryptkeeper meth face she’s a skeleton dressed for a rave
In the park the scruffy boy’s eyes dart from his car probably geezing his girlfriend’s foot anonymous on the dash
40 year old Spider-Man t-shirt reclines on the picnic bench his baseball cap shifts slightly to examine me one-eye
he’s covered with prison tats
or homemade out of that inside time
barcodes of the poor & using
wanderer scanning before scanned
feral for release
Marc Olmsted has appeared in City Lights Journal, New Directions in Prose & Poetry, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and a variety of small presses. He is the author of five collections of poetry, including What Use Am I a Hungry Ghost?, which has an introduction by Allen Ginsberg. For more of his work, http:www.marcolmsted.com.
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