UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/JASON HARDUNG


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY

JASON HARDUNG

Love Letter To Los Angeles

The first day I saw you Los Angeles
we sat outside, traded coy glances
you dumped sugar in your coffee
and asked why I ordered the Denver omelet
when the world is at my finger tips.
“I'm not good with change,” I said.

The Melrose pavement was shit hot
as a lost boy beat his brains with a pay phone receiver-
Jesus called collect again,
always drama with that guy
he has great abs though.
The art gallery in the tranny's backyard
was post-modern grudge fuck,
the dead beetles encased in amber
the cat skeletons for sale
the syringes of Burroughs's youth
all in cases under light
and I wanted to buy you that ring
made from brown recluse bones
but I was broke.

The cars on Sunset
ceased to exist
it was all lips and cigarettes by then
the two eyes veiled in plastic hearts
with more star power
than the walk of fame
we got used to talking without words
the whiskey brought courage
and I finally kissed the smog
from your lips.

Hungover in the sand
I watch sea gulls run on knobby knees
the ocean eats itself
flesh surrounds me
and I feel I've been here before.

I pull a stray white feather from your back
maybe from a pillow
or a pigeon
nothing can sway my opinion-

I still believe
this is the city of angels.

Vampires

The city is quiet at 5am
except for vampires
listening to stolen radios

they understand
history is layers
of monuments and bones-

how dust settles on unused things.

Jason Hardung was born and raised in Wyoming where the wind constantly spoke tongues in his ears. He now lives at the base of the Rocky Mountains in Ft. Collins, Colorado. His work has been published widely throughout the American underground. It has appeared in The New York Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Rip Rap (the Cal State Long Beach literary journal), Word Riot, Zygote In My Coffee, Monkey Bicycle, Underground Voices, decomP, Thrasher, Lummox Journal, Heroin Love Songs, Polarity, Up The Staircase, St. Vitus and many more. His first full length book of poetry, The Broken and The Damned came out on Epic Rites Press late 2009 and is available from Small Press Distribution, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Abe's Books. He is currently working on his second book of poetry with Epic Rites and a memoir of Casey Niccoli. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is a co-editor of the Matter Journal.