Arthur Graham > Recent Status Updates

This book is dedicated to the city planner from Anchorage who bought me one of every item on the Taco Bell Express menu during a snowstorm in Dallas, Texas in 1993 and told me the story about how his brother was in a medically-induced coma because he tried using a belt sander for self-surgery and accidentally split the two halves of his brain, which increased his United States Chess Federation ranking by 400 points.

Rave demons into the hot meaty soup.
Tripping meaty ecstasy in the woods.
Golden skin and songbirds everywhere.
Sunburn your genitals in the throbbing
Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist. Perform.
The soft aesthetic mindless trancey porn.

most souls weigh twenty-one grams
unless you’ve sold yours.

It’s like garlic
You can’t get
too much

oh sweet constipated jesus
the purity of obscurity!
baby let me tell ya
it is more delicious
than leftover
cherry pie

If you fuck someone tonight
try to love them less than me.

A girl’s gotta eat.

Scumbag Jesus won’t be taking your shit.
He has no fucks to give.
He’ll see you in Hell,
waving the Stars and Stripes,
and swinging his holy dick
like a motherfucker.

I’d always had a problem
with impulse control.

She always showed up with a suitcase and a story.

Watching the trains
We knew
That death came for everyone.

Poocasso Creates Another Masterpiece

The drunk tank had been in need of a makeover for years.
And here came Poocasso, dropping his pants
to create another masterpiece.

Chainsaw Yeyo

The guy
who runs the tree removal
service in town
pays his workers in coke.

More snort off the table,
than paid under it.

No wonder those boys
work so fast.

Could probably clear
a third of the remaining rainforest
by lunch.

Greetings from Planet Rim Job

He kept sliding behind the motel door
like going into hiding again.

As though he were melting
into the room.

People forgot he was there,
and went back to talking
over the music.

Everything sounded muffed behind the door.
The LSD from that house across the street
from the Barrie Jail was top notch.

Flat Sausage

We were over at her place
watching Braveheart
when the idea came to me.

I’d always had a problem
with impulse control.

Drunk Tank Ouija Board

They put a Ouija Board in the drunk tank.
So you can call up demons instead of lawyers.

Everyone is trying to get help wherever they can these days.
Best to cast a wide net, I guess.

Trawling the dregs for diamonds.
A true man of the trenches.

Somewhere,
there are labs full of humanzees
learning to sign and doing the nasty.

The future is bright if you stare
right into the sun.

Gordon's Geckos

There is no harm in sharing now,
a confession for our dearest reader,
that if I opened a pet shop down on Wall St.
I'd call it Gordon's Geckos,

The beach has been closed again.
Dildo-infested waters according to the sign.
An uncanny likeness bobbing just above the waterline.
Boaters warned to kill their engines
before the thrusting wake.
Giant seafaring phalluses that could split you right in two.
A panicked message from the tourism board:
Don’t go in the water! No lifeguard on duty!
No one has creamed themselves yet,
but it is only a matter a time.

I am fares from a tinderbox,
I am Baphomet’s urine-soaked waterslide.
To worry about your place in the universe
is to run out in traffc, among the roar of a billion stars.

My almond Soo Guy is cold
and smothered in a most questionable gravy.

I can taste the ginger
and think of Gilligan’s Island.

That mole on the side of her face
and those crazed forget-me-not eyes.

A three-hour tour indeed!
What a Dirty Gertie I’ve become
while the tablecloths were off
chasing factory direct patterns.

Wednesday’s Child

She put the butcher block knife
to his throat
and asked him to tell her which
child was full of woe.

“Do I get a phone a friend?”

“I’m not Alexander Graham Bell,”
she shot back.

It was true.
Those ripped stockings
were like a cutter’s paradise.

But he had never been good
when put on the spot.

Narcs in the Oatmeal

Drummond liked to watch the fights from Thailand.
The 120 lbs rakes in ceremonial headdress.
Doing a strange dance-off for the crowd before the bell.

The time difference was perfect,
he could sit and eat breakfast over here
while the Muay Thai munchkins kicked the shit
out of each other on the other side of the world.

Cocaine, Shotgun Willie, and Balzac

Years heaped like golden maple leaves in Quebec or snowflakes on a Tucumcari coyote moon night on Route 66

Sometimes the heart is nothing more than a clock measuring your minutes while ticking and pumping in your chest

Life, death, earth, moon, sun all move in circles, wise people live in circles, right angles make you a square and box you in like cattle not free buffalo

This is a cowboy song,
a kick in the nuts,
steal your woman,
screw your dog,
set your horse on fre,
piss in the gas tank of your Ford pickup truck.

It's Pancho Villa and Willie Nelson
on Acapulco Gold and loco juice.

It's Kenny Rogers getting friendly with Dolly’s jugs.

Fingers chasing each other, notes
pouring forth like champagne

Horns blowing elephant love
feet tapping snapping bo bapping

Bass booming vibrating magic rhythm
crooning words of desire desperation

Monk said his mama looked like a
gorilla and he could never find

Her nipples for all the damn hair
at least he could bend a note on

His piano like a blacksmith making
horseshoes and all the girls smiled.

"How are you? You old one-balled horse thief."

The dancer’s name was Chichi Martinez and she was a bundle of smoking hot chili peppers chased with raw mescal.

The love of women, their smell, their smile, their twinkling eyes, their walk, and their hidden curves all drove him senseless. Nicky painted them all in his mind.

Twenty-One Grams

A gigantic seagull soared above
Istanbul, blue diamond sized
snowfakes fell out of the sun

She was a Manchurian beauty
driving a sixty-six powder sapphire
sexy Lincoln with suicide doors

We drove up a curving mountain
road that overlooked the sea cliff
to a mansion, they said “Come in

Where the dark shadows will soothe
your soul, most souls weigh twenty-
one grams unless you’ve sold yours"

38 Buffalos

Hammering down rye whiskey boiler makers
After eating cheap pig meat tacos was never a
Good idea, I woke up my pockets were inside
Out and underwear was on backwards and yanked

Up into the crack of my ass, a rat was gnawing
On my big toe, I was dreaming of a lady in Saigon
And trying to remember if Geronimo ever went
To the Alamo, I found a roll of 1938 Buffalo nickels.