The Anaheim Correctional Facility Poetry Journal:
Issue #14



All I want is to be a small town poet laureate,
paid a minimal sum to jump from firehouse to
football field spreading my word like Skippy
across the Wonderbread of little America. All I want
 
is someone to walk up to me in
Blockbuster and say, Dang, I love your shit, would
you mind taking a look at mine? Then I’d put
Bodacious Ta Tas back and turn
 
on a dime for these small-
town lovers of the
letter, of what it’s like to live in a hamlet
with a 7-Eleven and a near-sighted poet
laureate. Afterwards, I’d collect my gilders
and wine from the Queen of the
Township who mistakes me for the mother of
eight who tried to sneak her 2 youngest under
the fence at the community pool. Get
 
the hell out! the Queen cries not hearing, But I’m
the poet laureate of your small town. But she hears
small town when the door ricochets back open and tells the
cops I said, The hell with this
small town!  Next, I’m arrested at my
 
subsidized housing unit and brought to
trial for being unpatriotic. The judge bangs out
such a shame coming from the poet laureate
on her gavel. Sentenced
 
without parole I write on the walls
tap Navajo code to the poet laureate in the next cell, from
the next town. Same thing happened to me, he taps back.
Good God, this country’s a mess, I cry forgetting to tap. Silence!
the guard bellows. I’ve heard about you from your mother. And he rocks
me to sleep whispering Pinko, Pinko,

Pinko.