TWO POEMS by Katie Condon

/ / Issue 16, Poetry, Uncategorized

I’m a Kick-Ass Woman


Ask anybody. This ass has never been kicked 
to the curb. I do the kicking. I’m a nasty-ass woman 
drinking chamomile tea at dusk. I know what I’ve got 
& it’s a throne for an ass. Grab it. Kiss it. Pop 
the pimple on that ass. See what happens when you
disagree with my ass. I’ve got a bad-ass ass. A kick-ass ass.
A good-pair-of-jeans-is-hard-to-find-type ass. Cue Flannery’s 
ass, as broad & innocent as a cabbage. I’m getting literary 
on your ass. Listen: you can’t have passion 
without ass. Or Parnassus. Make way for my poetic ass, 
as essential & enduring as your thesaurus
but sexier. I’d tattoo the Cantos on my ass 
if it would make it less boring. This Is Just to Say: A Carafe Is a Blind 
Ass, or: I’m no Modernist. I’m the future 
of The Poetics of Kick-Ass—the voice of a nation 
from the mouth of a woman with the keys 
to the van that fits all of your sweet asses. Climb in. 
We’re bound for the coast. Bet your ass 
we’ll be there before dawn. Sit back & watch 
my Walt-Whitman-dashboard-hula-girl shake his ass
all the way across the American desert 
we’ll make an oasis of by the time we’re through.

 

Poem From the Mouth of God

 

There is a reason 
I have yet to let anyone
see my face. I am a lonely man

& socially inept. I send angels 
into women’s rooms 
because I never mastered the art 

of non-offensive pick up lines
& even with a wingman 
only one woman’s ever said yes.

She is tired of me.
Who can blame her
when I spend my days 

at every window in the house
shuttering & unshuttering myself 
from the view I created

& grew afraid of. My son 
doesn’t visit anymore 
& you’re not surprised.

Me neither. After centuries, 
the first miracle I performed 
was this morning

when I raised myself
out of bed & lifted a razor 
to my horrible face.

What advice do I have left
except that you should make things
& keep them closer to you than ethers away.

Do not be like me.
This light is the only good 
I’ve offered you,

but even light, too often, dies
in a furious burst.

 

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