Poems by Dennis Mahagin

Cam­bridge Bone

Then a dream
of Aerosmith’s

Joe Per­ry,
how he fixed me
with some low down

vacant stare,
on the banks
of the Charles there,
how he loaned me

his snow-white muffler

in Boston, not

Austin
—about mid
Decem­ber, uncle Salty, Season
of Wither.

Joe Per­ry pressed
a platinum
plectrum
in my hot palm; how it dissolved
as any iridium

wafer on tongue… I shivered,
shiv­ered and sighed, said: "Why you always
hum good har­mo­ny my man, like Steve Tyler's
thumb nails com­ing out arrow heads?" …

Joe Per­ry flashed

Anger – flaring

dream­like
hard rock onyx, only
8 tenths

of a sec­ond there, then

gone.

I knew our lives take
a thou­sand, six­ty eight

sep­a­rate win­ter weeks
as so many lot­tery tickets
to repa­tri­ate a false

belief,
while the human being
burns up

in antic­i­pa­tion
of imag­ined grief …

Joe Per­ry couldn’t be
con­front­ed by none
of that; in fact was already
hum­ming anew, melodies
ground­ed in the knocking

of Dorchester’s best
hotel radi­a­tor; yes, he spat

a soft swirl steam cloud into the heart

of the heart of the Charles
a lit­tle while

lat­er in this dream

Joe Per­ry

told me Frostbite
makes a hel­la good

cal­lus —> but only

to a point.

Sheridan’s Girlfriend’s Girlfriend’s Ghazal

She lived to love it so, shoot­ing her speed balls washed down
with Chanel, trip through grave­yards. Goose flesh spun, and spun.

A thing lured, intrin­sic, hence­forth indica­tive: how’ll it rise above?
She would address each of her twen­ty eight coun­selors as Kay Hon? …

Oh, stare long, hard enough at those pre­cious breath clouds, mid
night, fair to mid­dling duel w/ moon­light. Last spill. Tes­ta­ment. Done.

Plum cardi­gan she wore out, sev­en sizes too big, sleeves pulled past
fin­ger tips. In the dive clubs of Mult­nom­ah, cum bouncer's stun guns.

My Lord when that old jam song Jere­my came on, the bass itself did
glis­san­do her corneas. Skull-ward, milky thick as a cluck of nun's tongue.

Con­do­lences bro­ken, for her freak's self: Ali McGraw’s win­ter beanie,
as Death held her by the tas­sels, whis­pered up, up, babe—you're the one.

Anoth­er Tongue-Twistin’ Allit­er­a­tive Face­book Tweak­er Poem

Wal­ter White’s
on the World Wide Web

cor­ner­ing Chlor-Trimeton

from Cana­da
using a most­ly re-loadable

throw­away

New Jer­sey Visa deb­it card.

Den­nis Mahagin's first book of poems, enti­tled Grand Mal, is avail­able from Rebel Satori Press, and Ama­zon Dot Com. Friend him on Twit­ter: https://​www​.twit​ter​.com/​s​c​r​u​f​f​y​123