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.