Poetry: Selections from Jonathan Hayes

The Palm Tree

Is a crucifix

 

of sorts

Zen

i feel

 

Nothing

 

when

 

i masturbate

I Was Supposed to Die

Watched several episodes of The Last 24 Hours

 

And booked the Union Square hotel room

 

Kissed the wife on the cheek while she lay in bed,

and told her that I loved her before I left for the City

 

Bought so much crack in the Tenderloin

that it was coming out my ass

 

Blew MS13 clouds from the white sheet king size bed

— a narcotic morning marine layer with flowers in the hair

 

Sang myself electric between hits until I got the text

 

From the hotel balcony I looked for my escort down on the street

 

But she knew better

 

Alone, in the carpeted hotel hallway

 

The ominous ice cube machine rattled near the elevator

 

And I didn’t die

 

Not, last night

Jonathan Hayes lives by the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz, California. He walks the levee at four a.m. to go to work at Trader Joe's where he brakes down grocery pallets. He is responsible for editing and publishing the small press literary journal Over the Transom for the last twenty-five years. His new book, Ghetto Sunshine, Poems 1997 - 2021, is forthcoming from Poems-For-All.