Dave K

there are so many ways to say ‘fundamentally unemployable’ at great length


the window reflects my open mouth and
i line up the cars with my teeth as they
surround the black tongue of the street

on busy nights they pack into the gumline
grinding and scraping and exchanging plaque

one time a guy ran out of his car
left the hazards blinking
and jumped into oncoming traffic
the decal on his back windshield said FLORIST
his license plate said NHLST with the vowels missing

he was jutting halfway out of the space
he would never fit and he knew that and
now it’s someone else’s problem

an impacted kind of wisdom, this

sometimes it’s like my brain is a dick
and my skull is a fist and my blood is
gushing from all the holes in my head

i still keep one of that guy’s teeth
in my wallet when enough of mine
fall out i’ll make it fit
this is my gift to him



* * *


for whom the Chris Tolls (dedicated to Chris Toll)



why is work in twerking? that
shit is supposed to be fun.
who put the manslaughter in
laughter? wait, reverse that
one or it won't work.

i see trenchcoats flapping like
sheets on a line and a whole
Chekov's arsenal of guns unfired.
there is more ado in an avocado than
about nothing.

i scrape plaque from my teeth with
my fingernail and wish i'd brought
some sunglasses.

i can't see through all this light.
there is too much cum in this
cucumber for my taste.

we have about a billion years left.
that's not as long as forever.
someday the sun will die
and its last rays will wrap
around the earth and its final
words will ride on stellar winds
i'm sorry
i'm sorry
i'm sorry
i'm sorry




* * *


Dave K.'s work has been published in Front Porch Journal, Welter, Writers & Words, Artichoke Haircut, and Cobalt, and he is the author of stone a pig and MY NAME IS HATE. When Dave K. isn't writing, he spends his time as a tributary of the Bobu River in Romania.