from Crass Songs of Sand & Brine
draw of summer down the shore—
funnel cake pops in black oil &
the gasp of a vast sucking ocean
weed clogged & full of pale jelly
fish pulsing on the lip of the world
where Pennsylvania girls sleep
drunk in the sand tempting sun
stroke & dune-grass gnats, black
mass of gulls screaming Kill! Kill! Kill!
*
The tide is high & it’s time for punk rock
girls & 40oz Steel Reserve passed round
the pavilion deep in stench, deep in bay rot
salt rising off the sea, rising toward kids
in black singing crass songs, sending
PA daughters home drunk—MD 20/20
& old school licks fluid on the tongue
Yes brother,
the hour’s ripe for shouting tunes
in defense of rebellion & youth dead
against summers spent prowling among ships
cut off from camp, alone in the dead rush
of pale faces & out-of-state plates—
*
smell of morning funnel dough
popping in black oil, cotton
webs spinning pink and blue
eleven AM tables saved for noon.
I’m bored & hungry stomach
flexing w/ emptiness—in tune w/
eager gulls shrieking Kill! Kill! Kill!
Thus goes everyone to the world
but I & I am sunburnt & I will sit
in a corner and cry salt
tears in the face of dead hopes, PA
girls on beaches broad and breakers
singing songs of relaxation
No such peace. No clean fun—
only night-worn kids in black
hanging in the pavilion
chapped w/ brine
bleary eyed & out of smokes
*
It’s come high summer—time to fly
the shore, the bay, the invading PA
mothers herding their young to sugar
soaked lunches and SPF massage.
Don’t leave. Take joy! It’s life! they say
life is in the motion, the flight from
what’s neither sad, nor sick, nor merry,
nor well, but openly gross & consumptive.
Remember the time we passed
40oz Steel Reserve—our teeth frail
& chipped in the soup, cold malt
numbing our gums. Let’s celebrate!
brush the blood w/ brine & fly
the shore, the sad, the openly indignant.
*
Yes brother, it’s late here: evening
hunger flexing stomach against
emptiness & boredom as I recall
how we had it with boardwalk burgers
& fries served salted beyond help
from ketchup and fresh-brewed tea.
It bothers me what I can’t do for you
more than what befalls myself, that I
can’t offer relief from the salty taste
condensed vinegar prick on the tongue.
We had enough & were right to rebel
spit our cud into the sea & starve our
selves toward a future free of excess
iodine, vinegar & pan-fried meat
*
Openly gross & consumptive we
pass 40oz Steel Reserve & drink
down cold foam clinging to lips
chapped w/ brine & blown sand
glass-chipped teeth falling in the drink
falling drunk in the laps of PA girls
MD 20/20 flavored tongues
thrilled to dance & sing—not knowing
one ecstasy from another
the moon the sea; the sea the bay
we swim till we stink from fighting the suck
of mud, the old, the rules against shouting
crude songs in defense of rebellion & youth
*
Yes brother, I’m bored thinking of crass
dome-hung neon crosses—OC Baptist—
poster-board advert proclaiming free hot
dogs all-you-can-eat Wednesday night
ball w/ Christian youth stomping real wood
dance floor (heavy lacquer) on level 2
Remember how the hall rang w/ echoes
when we snuck PA girls in after the game
drunk & sandy behind empty bleachers
behind the Baptists’ backs to laugh & play
our bodies flush against bodies flush
against crosses bathed in pink neon light
* *
Note:
portions of these poems are bastardized plagiarisms of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year; Homer’s The Iliad (trans. Robert Fagles); William Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, Richard Duke of York, Titus Andronicus; Bruce Springsteen’s Atlantic City.
* * * * * * * * *
Micah Robbins is a writer and book artist currently living in Dallas, TX. His poems and prose have appeared in Kadar Koli, Shelf Life Magazine, and Superficial Flesh. He edits and publishes Interbirth Books, a small press dedicated to publishing handbound volumes of new and innovative writing, and INTER, an annual collection of poems, prose, plays, and prints.
