Crib Notes

I performed heart bypass surgery on my dog

Using new wave practices I'm super excited about,

Guided by a video on YouTube.

Jessie was my surgical assistant,

Kirby was the technologist,

D.J. was the nurse, R. J. his twin was the radiographer,

And Vanna was the anesthesiologist.

The operating table was 

Unsanded,

Four by eight,

A sheet of plywood

Atop four Burro brand sawhorses.

Important safeguards

Were in place, though we were shy

Certain mission critical tools and systems.

We launched a Zoom event,

All trompe l’oeil and fin du monde.

But the connection was unstable,

Cutting in and out,

Kinda slud my mind off the edge of reality,

Causing my dog's intestines to glitch out elaborately.

And then somebody called the health department.

I’m a very time sensitive guy.

I grew up in a token-defined community

Like any chainbased artist

Ready for the spotlight.

Maybe that shows a cultural bias,

A kind of privilege around a kind of whatever.

Personally?

I totally feel bad.

 

 

© 2021 Randy Stark

Please visit my website at www.randystark.com.

My books are available on Amazon.

#randystarkpoet

 

 

 

Climate Change

painting by Andre Derain

Freeway traffic, flowing, like lava.

What does unlimited mean?

Answers concealed in distressed wood.

A 9.5 lb. lobster cut me off.

I was like oh no.

Not on my route.

You want to start some shit?

I don’t give a fuck.

In the wake of flux

A faction is born.

A sort of

Understanding I guess,

Everybody waiting for the ten-year to go up,

To bring them closer to the people

And the things they love,

But right now they're sitting in my front yard.

Across devices I hear panic sweeping.

The sound flickers but

It’s not gunfire, it’s the refrigerator.

Don’t get your paddle twisted.

When deputies arrived, they found a fifteen-year

Fixed, throwback merch,

And the artist at work,

Subverting the dominant codes.

 

© 2021 Randy Stark

Please visit my website at www.randystark.com.

My books are available on Amazon.

#randystarkpoet

 

 

Choice Bits (a continuing series)

 

Cassette cover design by Joseph Keppler, photo by Neil D. Novello

Within the context of the literary world, living as I thought I would, in constant creative mode, a little crazy, I went to the beach to clear my head. The whoosh of the ocean, the smooth waves, a crispness like turning pages of the family Bible. While I was changing residences I paused reading, but now I’m back at it. 

Here are some choice bits from the immersion más rápido: 

Rick Snyder

it’s hard to get lost

with the same stores

on every block. 

(From “Enough Silence”)

Ada Limón 

Whatever state you are, I’ll be that state’s bird.

Raymond Chandler

No border town is anything but a border town.

C Pam Zhang

Young enough to think desire alone shapes the world.

Charles Yu

Tables flipping, chips flying, kung fu breaking out all over the place.

A leading man trapped in the body of an extra.

Natalie Diaz

There are violins playing. The violins are on fire—

they are passed around until we’re all smoking…

I put Mom and Dad in charge of balloons

let them blow as many years of my brother’s names,

jails, twenty-dollar bills, midnight phone calls,

fistfights, and ER visits as they could let go of…

(From “No More Cake Here”)

Brian Evenson

That might have gone on for a long time—even forever, or the equivalent.

A.E. Osworth

The best part of America is the junk food.

Eliza forces a smile, one that makes her look like a wolf with a facial tic or a violent offender.

Jenny Zhang

my dad’s girlfriend was short, like a broken tree trunk.

my skin itched like there were little tiny ants carrying sticks of fire and doing somersaults and cartwheels all over my body.

[the girls] had stubby necks that reminded me of how my Barbies looked after I snapped their heads off and then screwed them tightly back in.

Derrick Jensen

“shop our way to sustainability”

“chronic relapse”

Denis Johnson

Psyops is all about unusual thinking, man. We want ideas blown up right to where they’re gonna pop. We’re on the cutting edge of reality itself. Right where it turns into a dream.

Mina Loy

 “souvenir ethics”

Please visit my website at www.randystark.com.

My books are available on Amazon.

 

Small World

 

THE DEVIL YOU DON’T

He walks in

And I’m like

Oh hell no.

UMM HMM

And I mentioned your name.

FOR HIM

For him and for her.

DUDE

Went from backhoe operator to lead man on the job.

Thing is he can’t put two and two together.

SMALL WORLD

I said to her, “Men can be a-holes.”

“Oh,” she replied. “You know my ex-husband.”

MARRYING A VEGETARIAN

The only difference will be your meat.

So yes, your together awaits.

SHE TEXTED ME YESTERDAY

And said she wanted to stop by.

I said no.

HIS REAL DAD

Played Tarzan on TV.

MOMMY’S SO PROUD OF YOU

When I said it’s time to go

You didn’t throw a fit!

That’s a good boy.

 © 2021 Randy Stark

Please visit my website at www.randystark.com.

My books are available on Amazon.

I've heard the names

 

Labor Day weekend party for trowels

KAYDEE AND KIONA

You were good babies.

Other women would come up

Oh I just want to hold them

And they would dance around with you.

MR ZIP

Shotcaller.

IS THERE SOMETHING YOU’RE NOT TELLING US?

Continued Connie.

MORPHO THE HUMAN PROBLEM SOLVER

I know he sticks in all y’alls craws.

ST. SEBASTIAN THE ANTI-VAXXER

These martyrs sometimes

They force you to

Hunt them down

And stab them,

Stab and stab and stab them.

ST. CATHERINE THE MISSER OUTER

Never had McDonald’s.

NAFEESA’S GOING TO SEE HAMILTON

Actually, she wanted to see Wicked.

WHERE’S QUENTIN?

Quentin needed bait.

THE LATINX MARX

On Ethnonymical Fetishism.

MACHIAVELLI ADDENDUM

Toss ‘em a national holiday.

MISS MANNERS IS STRUGGLING TO REMEMBER

It’s somewhere in her phone.

JOHANNES

I was so mad, I was calling him Ludwig.

SVANA

You automatically think

Oh my gosh.

She must be an Olympic athlete.

TRASH DAY

Morning Al.

Morning Akeem.

 

 

© 2021 Randy Stark

Please visit my website at www.randystark.com.

My books are available on Amazon.

#randystarkpoet

 

 

The Tragedy of Big Macdaddybeth

They act in tandem

Against the world’s injustices.

Big Macdaddybeth.

LadyMamaMacbeth.

A knowledge-based juggernaut.

He revs. She revs.

Big Macdaddybeth: 

If we should fail?

LadyMamaMacbeth:

We fail?

But screw your courage to the sticking place,

And we'll not fail.

I still have the video.

He’s like what happened?

You know?

What went wrong?

 

© 2021 Randy Stark

Please visit my website at www.randystark.com.

My books are available on Amazon.

#randystarkpoet