Poetry: Selections from Kevin Ridgeway

THIS IS NO WAY TO RUN A DESERT!

 

When I’m out there 

alone in the world

& my plans go awry,  

my transformation 

into Clark W. Griswold  

slowly begins, 

with my crown 

of heat sweat 

trousers, raving 

& yelling at nothing 

with nobody to listen 

in an endless desert 

I can’t find my way 

out of because 

I can’t get over myself 

until I’m melted 

to the sand

in my raging mirage 

of self-defeat,

& there’s always 

a local to point out 

what an asshole I am, 

but they don’t know me 

& how sparky 

my personality 

can be with 

a big fucking smile 

plastered on my face 

on a holiday road

bound for disaster.  

WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK 

OF THE CHILDREN?  

 

They wanted us all to Just Say No,

but the problem was the producers 

of most of those late 80s/early 90s 

after school specials were high 

on drugs when they created them.

One Saturday morning half hour 

anti-drug special produced by 

McDonald’s featured nearly every 

animated character known to kids, 

many of them dreamed up in heads 

full of the same dope they wanted us 

to say nope to.  Cartoon All-Stars 

to the Rescue featured Bugs Bunny, 

the Ninja Turtles, Garfield, Kermit,   

the Chipmunks and Alf, among 

others who all creeped me out 

with serious talk about melting 

all of my brain cells, cast alongside 

a crypt keeper apparition voiced 

by Academy Award-winning 

drunk George C. Scott as the demon

of addiction, the finale a wretched,

saccharine song and dance number 

that still gives me shivers—

the Me Generation fucked me up 

so much in their failed attempts 

to teach me how to Just Say No,  

that they inspired me to Just Do It.

SUNDAY SCHOOL SEX MACHINE

 

I was just five years old and

wanted her so badly it hurt 

every inch of my unformed, 

hairless body.  She was the 

twenty year old daughter of 

the pastor of a church we briefly 

attended before grandma quit 

drinking and came to her senses.  

Her big 1989 hair and low cut 

dresses made going to Bible Study 

Thursdays and all that other 

hokum worthwhile.  I had a funny 

tingle deep inside of me that I had 

never felt before.  I finally got up 

the guts to ask her out on a date.  

She agreed to go with me to 

the church pancake brunch, 

which was a really big deal, 

so I wore the purple California 

Raisins sweatshirt reserved only 

for special occasions that I knew 

would get her to want to be at 

my handsome side by nap time.  

These hopes were dashed when 

I tried to impress her with my 

Ghostbusters action figure play 

set.  She called the Ghostbusters 

morbid tools of Satan designed 

to take me away from Christ. She 

placed her hand on my cowlick 

and began to pray the Keymaster

out of me.  I had to dump her 

right then and there.  Her beauty 

was not enough to forgive taking 

the Ghostbusters' names in vain.  

It was like crossing the streams.

THE BALLAD OF LARDASS HOGAN

 

This is the poem within the poem, 

a pie eating contest at the county fair

about to turn rancid with a revenge

barf-a-thon chain reaction instigated 

by the fictitious man of the hour, 

who’s about as alive as Ray Brower, 

laying dead by the railroad tracks 

in the real life of a novella spun onto 

moving frames by the son of a clown 

for the grieving kid brother to see,

who told the others in the gang about 

the triumph of the ultimate social reject 

who put their own dejection to shame:

a reason I didn’t eat pies until recently, 

to honor a glory against bullies 

& tyrants who made us almost 

grieve ourselves more than the dead,

but Lardass sits back with all of us,

taking in the horrors, the chaos & 

smell of vomit in the morning loved 

more than napalm by people like me 

that stand by people like Lardass, who 

drank castor oil to baptize the rat finks in 

what was hidden deep inside of his guts.  

GARBAGE PAIL KIDS

 

the adults 

found all of 

the sticker

trading cards

affixed to my

trapper keeper 

revolting, 

 

which gave me

my first sense of

accomplishment  

& pride.

Kevin Ridgeway's latest books are Invasion of the Shadow People (Luchador Press) and A Ludicrous Split 2 (with Gabriel Ricard, Back of the Class Press). His work has appeared in New York Quarterly, Hiram Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Slipstream, Paterson Literary Review, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, One Art, San Pedro River Reviewand Heavy Feather Review, among others. He lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.