Scott Laudati lives in NYC with his chiweenie, Drake. He is the author of Hawaiian Shirts In The Electric Chair. His poetry has been featured in the Columbia Journal, The Stockholm Review and many others.
"I write poems to let the future know how terrible our era was."
The Experiment Failed
they want their painters dead
their writers dead
their rock stars dead
their emotions
their politicians
their heroes
their children,
everyone but the police
and their priests,
they want them dead.
and they’ll kill right in the living room
if someone says
it’ll help them
get on with their living.
anything to fix a bad morning
and a sleepless night.
as long as it was the same as yesterday
and the super bowl
doesn’t take too many
commercial breaks
i guess it can be a good life,
always cheering for someone
and never cheered
by anyone.
i was pretty angry yesterday
so i took a train up the hudson
to jim carroll’s grave
and told him about
my friend in texas
who sits by the highway all night
and watches mexicans
fight roosters in a dirt lot
behind the wal-mart.
and the one
always drunk and alone
on a harlem fire escape,
waiting for clear nights
to count the tug boats
breaking the current
on their way north.
the poets no one
threw money at
when the words were good
and their guns were loaded
for a third act
that never came.
the radio said art was dead
and the professors ran to cash their checks
before the students realized
their mics had never been plugged in.
and my friends apologized to trees
whose legacies had been robbed
by so many talkers
with so few words.
because nobody wants the truth -
the babies shivering in cold apartments
the old eating cat food so they
can afford their rent.
no one wants to know life
no one wants to stand in an elevator
alone with themselves.
haven’t we learned they’ll go broke
for a minute of hope?
they’ll pay extra for happiness
they’ll pay extra to smile at a coffee mug.
theres no credit limit on
the happy ending
and all the rich poets
know it.
New Friends
we saw the end of the sun some time ago
and i thought about california
and the palm trees that were still eating
and the girls in the sand
and their hair in the wind
and how it didn’t matter to me anymore
where the lightning bugs went
once the days cooled off,
or why old men never die like outlaws
if it’s what we all want.
born alone.
legacy always in question.
life has a way of herding the useless together,
drafting us into a showdown
that began
long before the dead had to
explain their worth.
bellys up.
no closure
no kind words left behind
for the kids.
we forgot a long time ago
the world is going to roll over
like it always has.
so we laugh at the snoring dogs
shaking their jaws
and running in place
but i wonder now
why are they the only ones
who sleep deep enough
to dream?
i’d been locked up at my
girlfriend’s parents for a week
and all anyone could talk about
was a skunk that lived in the woods.
and every night i’d go outside
and stare into the trees
but i never saw anything.
the sun dropped
the geese flew south
and just as i was about to give up
for the last time
a little skunk crawled out from
under the shed.
i jumped up and waved at him
and he looked back as friendly
as any fat and free thing
and neither of us did much more
than that.
but then my girlfriend came
out and screamed.
the skunk looked back like i’d
betrayed him,
and as i watched his tail go up
i felt like i’d broken our bond too.
i knew my girlfriend would get mad if
i said it was her fault
so i cursed at the skunk
cursed at the trees
cursed my name,
never going for the one who deserves it,
hating everyone and everything
in this whole stupid world.
her mother made lasagna that night.
i left a plate out by the backdoor.
The Throne
i don’t want them to have hope,
i know what they’ll do with it.
it becomes freedom
it becomes equality
it runs away from the founders
and digs deeper trenches.
you’ve had a best friend,
where they there when you needed them?
everyone’s been burned by
the ones they love.
you can hear it in the cop’s voice
as he clears the street.
a man with blood in his eyes
a man who doesn’t care who pays his checks.
where’s the honor in dying for a nation
that forces everyone
to sleep with the lights on?
they know that when the armies retreat
and the dark horse gets the gun
there’s never a sanctuary for the guilty.
the streets run back the other way
and finally the underdog
gets the thing he used to pray for.
but the throne was always a funny thing,
all men want it
and no one ever knows
what to do with it.
