Pre Natal

to anyone 24ish years old or younger
this is a good news bad news situation
the bad news
I fucked your mom
or more accurately she fucked me
You see before the chickens in the yard before the knitting club and the vintage dress store before stepfathers
before life partners before communal living before she knew how to call you out on your shit
your mom
was a powerful
beautiful
slut
her band van pulled up in front of my sad excuse for a group house with a letterpress in the basement
and a witches coven in the attic
Scrawled in gold spray paint on the side of the van “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”
the band was the Cunning Stunts they played in our living room they trashed everything including us
your mom put a leash around my neck and walked me through my paces
though I knew I insisted I was not her breed she said I could be her companion animal for awhile
how I ended up in the back of that van is beyond me
but there was a button on the dashboard  that said Diamandis Hyperdrive
they hit that button so many times
until we took off like the Millabian Falcon passed through the Orion belt and into the Midwest
where we fucked in fields we fucked in the bathroom of a Denny’s, a Motel 6,
a game room at Oral Roberts University,
we fucked wherever your mom told us to
because she had my balls in her hand
and like my grandfather always told me “Son, when a woman has your balls in her hand she decides the game
and all you can do is try to rack up the highest score possible”
your mom made GG Allin cry
Courtney Love cried uncle
your mom drove the moral majority out of the state
your mom stands for reproductive rights
your mom stands for herself
your mom stands for no shit from nobody especially her punk kid who she loves with all her heart
so I say this good news to you dear children as you go out into the dark night
find yourself the girl with the torn fishnets and a pretty pink satin shirt that says high-voltage
because the sluts have everything to teach you
and sluts
make
the
best
moms

Spectrums

On the light rail
Who are all these drunken middle aged dental hygienists and sheet metal workers?
Why are they singing?
Then like a portable tri-lateral commission 
awareness spills over me
The Rolling Stones concert.

Saw a ghost last night.
After several Spanish Coffees and talk about tent revivals
and moving to Hong Kong to install 4.6 miles of stainless steel pipe
painted incrementally different shades of pastels at the new airport

In the perfectly apportioned cigar bar
an amber light jetting out over everything
mosaic tile patterned emanating
Steven, the bartender, mixes and delivers
he has the assuredness to advise a student waitress
not to buy a piece of radical Ukrainian art,

it’s a slow night
advantages and disadvantages to this
boredom creeps in from everywhere, and it’s hard to ignore
the ignorant
if they choose to find their way into your spectrum.

We are that uncertainty
The two tipsy males, striking impassioned
fake flower and sublime cherubic
manic melancholia,
“I want to sell my paintings for a million dollars,” you say
“Buy a loft in Greenwich Village and the whole thing.”
Steve says, “It’s just that easy.” with a sly over-sexed smirk to his lips.

The muse lights up your head on stage.
“Say that again, but this time don’t wash away.”
“You sure do have a lot of butt rockers up here. Is there some kind of special school for them?”
Turning knobs on the microwave turning suburban kids into pansy covered photons as Paul came over and everybody watched his new dance. Smoked some pot and laughed.
Morrissey finally arrives. The door will open by itself, letting in the ancient delirium, well, not really that ancient, just since Queen Is Dead.
Swaying teenage drunk and totally out of whack with the Catholic school girls.

David Foster Wallace is alive and writing the latest Aaron Sorkin novel. He is tooling through the Malibu hills in his 66’ Morgan, looking desperately for Deepak Chokra’s party. “Where is that Hindi bastard?” he belts out scornfully pulling yet another hit off the jug of Dexedrine and Ether.

Waking in your seat as the Amtrak pulls into Vancouver
you see people being loaded onto the train in plastic bags marked center for disease control.
And you think to yourself, those must be some really cheap seats.

Author Biography

Reuben Nisenfeld is a writer/performer living in Portland, Oregon. He is member of several comedic organizations,  has written one man shows, taught theater to children, and has been writing poetry and fiction for 30 years. He says he was recently awakened from a 10 year poetry hibernation by Unshod Quills and thus owes them a huge debt of gratitude. Unshod Quills says, pshaw.