UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/KEVIN RIDGEWAY


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY - 02/2012

KEVIN RIDGEWAY

The Old Man and the DT's

Grabbing at wisps of air fairies
the anorexic Santa Claus
and arm chair politician
repeated himself a consecutive
bile dribbling three times
about running away to Mexico with
his long-ago Italian bride
who got run over by a bread truck
these tales of desert woe told
in between pounding from a tall
can of High Life
his hands wiggling
Mexican jumping beans
as he torched his pipe

He would grind at his
two remaining teeth as
he indoctrinated me
into his brotherhood
of shaking fists
before an altar of the Virgin Mary
a tattered 80s centerfold of a
scantily clad woman standing by
on the melting candlelit
wall of ant spray tears
praying with us in her bikini
for our souls

his condemned mind
has been demolished
and will never be rebuilt
in the midst of these
broken appliances and
hip-high grasses fostering
a living, breathing tomb

Kevin Ridgeway is a writer from Southern California, where he resides in a shady bungalow with his girlfriend and their one-eyed cat. Recent work has appeared in *Gutter Eloquence*, *Thunderclap! Magazine* and *Negative Suck*, among others.