Poetry: Selections from Kevin Ridgeway

Long Beach Summer

I march around mounds of dirt

from city workers digging trenches

the sidewalks gone

and a death gauntlet formed

for sad little pedestrians like me

a mangled Charlie Chaplin

dodging hood side obstacles,

drug addicts and homeless people

lining whatever pavement is left for me

to take the long way around them all.

A car nearly runs over me in a crosswalk

I had to climb onto from a large pit

of war-torn cement, the beautiful face

of the woman at its wheel whispering

“I am so sorry” to me as she drives on.

I realize I would have forgiven her

even if she had killed me, because

she was the most glorious thing

I’d seen all day amongst the ugly rubble

of this seaside ghetto, on my way

to a clinic for troubled minds to converge

and sort through their problems

in the wildfire smoke of this confusion,

an isolation who existed before

a pandemic came along to dig

the holes deeper than the ones left

along the avenues, where men

scream at the ghosts who took away

all they have lost.  We’ve all been

eclipsed by a sun that’s crazier

than anyone on the face of this

strange earth, the men in the

hard hats yell things to each other

I don’t understand, and I think they

are all talking about me because

of the expression on my face,

a sweat fueled grimace hidden

behind the alleyways and dim lit

morning bungalows as the world

wakes up to its mess and begins

again to try to rebuild itself as I try

to rebuild myself, a warrior with

an existential shovel that’s going

to get down to the bottom of this hell,

to extinguish its many flames

and build a light that glows like

the face of that woman, who

nearly gave me something

beautiful to look at while I died.

Speedos & Mosquitos

Long Beach men scratch

the unprotected chafe

around their bared asses

around drooping lines

of elastic and the bright colored

polyester of sporting goods line

men’s Speedos, attracting

summer mosquitoes to bite

and leave with their ugly blood.

The pale, moist tan lines

disturb the children

and the poor women

who have to swipe away

the mosquitoes while

gazing at banana-hammock

crotch shots strutting

along the shore line,

covered in the hickies

from their parasite admirers—

the only lovers they’re

going to nail underneath

an unforgiving sun

here in the pits of a hell

where these men

blind us with the audacity

of their gooch reveals

while they stretch

in yoga classes

where trauma is born

in the summertime masses,

blood spilling across dirty sand.    

The Art of Doing Nothing on the 4th of July

there’s not a damn thing

to celebrate about this shitshow,

so I’m watching Natural Born Killers

on Netflix and eating Church’s Chicken,

goofed up on Seroquel, watching

the men in my house shuffle

back and forth like robots while

premature bombs start to go off,

fireworks reaching their bright,

sparkling, dangerous arms

toward the window of my room

while I lay here in my bed

surrounded by half-read books

tangled in phone charging chords

and a dim, glowing smile, numb

to the defeat spreading around

the bruised world, my righteous

anger and hope for justice tucked

away for now while I watch

Woody Harrelson bludgeon

Rodney Dangerfield to death—

comedians are getting attacked,

you can’t say a word these days,

the truth that’s on your mind,

so I hide from the truth here

in my den while the sky blows up

for another year another stupid

fucking summer of dumb hot dogs

and people saying regrettable

things in a beer buzzed stupor

until reality sets in and I have

to return to my own fledgling

quest for independence in a world

that’s getting harder to ignore

as it screams in agony, but I have

my own agony to contend with,

so I’m shutting off America

and claiming my independence

from it for a day in the clouds

of cheap cinema and underground

poetry and staring at the sun

while I smoke cigarettes,

my tortured thoughts ashes

in the gutters of the fiery streets

where children step on them

in the name of a kind of fun

I like to call fuck it all to hell.  

That’ll Show ‘Em

I dropped out

of college

got married

& got a divorce

from a wife

who said I was

too dramatic.

I moved back in

with my mother,

who suggested

I audition at

the local

community theater.

I scoffed at her,

hid in my room,

& started writing

bad poetry instead.

Jack of all Trades

I don’t know

if I’m a poet

or if I’m

a mental case

 

but the fact

that I’m sitting

here, listening

to my roommate

blast Boy George

and talk how about

how the Russians

are tapping

his phone

with a paranoid

stutter makes me

grab my pen,

laugh and think

 

maybe

I’m both

Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019) and Invasion of the Shadow People (Luchador Press, 2022). His work has appeared in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, San Pedro River Review, Trailer Park Quarterly, Plainsongs, The Cape Rock, Into the Void, Sheila-Na-Gig, Lummox, Misfit Magazine, Cultural Daily, The American Journal of Poetry and So it Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, among others.  A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, he lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.