Post-Thanksgiving Poem

A paycheck short

The Hustler’s on T.V.

I pour a martini

too tired to shave

5 hours ‘til work

I make tomorrows spaghetti

it is November 28, 2008

the turkey is gone

I will be thankful if my paycheck gets here
before the rent check gets cashed

there is a slice of pie

I won $2.95 in poker today

I’m thankful for that

4 hours 30 minutes ‘til work

sleep

Tomorrow’s November 29, 2008

I’ll watch the History Channel

and toss cranberry sauce off the balcony

because the holidays are the holidays

celebrity deaths
socks
and slush

Some people run into each other
then it’s over

like rush hour

like this poem

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

Movie Time

The two latest movies at the Omnimax are
WILD OCEAN
and
GRAND CANYON ADVENTURE

Museum features always have a way of over-selling themselves

GRAND CANYON ADVENTURE
is about a river

WILD OCEAN
is about sardines

WORK EXPLOSION! is todays feature

It stars me
eating carrots in the break room
and staring at the wall

It’s either this
or nap time

“You remember that scene where he’s drinking a Squirt in the bathroom?”

“Yeah, that was so fucking funny.”

“Or that one where he walks half-way to Subway during lunch before he changes his mind and turns around?”

“Yeah, that was sad.”

In closing

our rivers are at risk

sardines something something

I’m out of carrots

please gather all of your personal belongings

and exit at the top

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

For Dan, Lindsey, and Brian

The pretty Hungarian girls bundled up at Hollywood Grill
the Czech bars are empty
and the hostels dark

I’ve got work tomorrow

‘cus poetry only pays the printer

but I have my friends
and my pinto beans

so that counts for something

but not much

since this is a short poem

and I forgot to buy tortillas

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

Little Hells

Big-thighed Latinas riding by on bicycles
as the loud mariachi music blares out of beat-up tanks of cars
and it is Noble Square Mexican-town and it is a great thing
in the cool late spring night air of Chicago

I take a sip off my Evan Williams
and forget about my overdrawn bank account constipation
lack of love brain wired in a skull going straight to Jewish hell
waiting for my roommate to stumble home with his usual drunk
from his usual bar so I can borrow ten dollars from him

I can’t complain too much
I’ve got a low-paying but good job in a museum
for every little shit I see there’s a glorious smiling little tyke
whose parents actually give a damn
and who wants to see every dinosaur possible within that day
and there is no shortage of gorgeous black women
working the ticket booth with me

but still some of it’s hell
some of it needs to be hell
it keeps us on our toes

lest we become smiling Danish couples
happy with everything on the menu
or freckled moms in shirts with advertisements
and Umbro shorts with 700 kids
reading terrible romantic literature in a Panera Bread window

but not me
I’m halfway between
and that’s the best I can hope for
while my ice melts
and the whiskey tastes weak

Little hells
to keep us on our toes

I shouldn’t have that big-thighed Latina riding by on her bicycle

None of us should

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

SUPER INSOMNIA FUN TIME!!!

insomnia's an interesting animal.
it's the only time when it's logical to chase a beer with a cup of coffee.
i'm typing this at 6:28 a.m.
countdown one hour 'til i leave for my shit job.
hop on the train with well-rested idiots going to panera bread or artichoke festivals or whatever crap people do up before 8 a.m. on a saturday.
sorry, no poems this time.
just my old friend trying to clamp my eyes shut while he wires my brain.
it's 6:31 a.m.
good morning.
goddamnit.

Untitled

On top of my air-conditioner
clacking away again
while frightened armies go to bed
and Irish girls I used to love
laugh at Spanish television
and drink screwdrivers
and they bury the writers
and they bury the chess players
and they especially bury the unburiable
and there’s nothing on T.V.
except Spanish sitcoms and news of the dead
and scrambled porn and wristwatches
and I look out the window and onto the freeway
at the light-up lottery sign
and there’s nothing on it
and they bury the dictators
and they bury the actors and the cyclists
and they especially bury us
alive
in our homes
at the dinner table
with the electricity of our past loves
and a glass of water

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

Obama To-do List

1. create a fiscally responsible economic stimulus package.

2. air out cheney's corpse feeding room.

3. victory pound wife.

4. netflix

5. nap

6. do tony montana-sized mound of coke and stay up for three years 350 days fixing the mire of shit left behind by the bush administration.

7. get re-elected.

8. become ruler of own island where karl rove, dick cheney, g.w. bush, lindsey graham, tom delay, and every other jagoff republican has to wrestle to the death.

9. kill the winner.

On Being a Poet

When you’re a kid
on Saturday afternoon
your lunch
is probably something like
a salami sandwich
and Spaghettios

and when you’re an adult
it’s pretty much the same
except it’s dinner
Thursday
at 10:30 p.m.

and your milk
is a can
of cheap beer
like High Life
or Old Style

make that a few glasses of milk

and you work tomorrow
instead of school

you finished school
long ago
and realized
most of it’s
bullshit

you wanted to be
an astronaut when
you grew up

and now
you’re all grown up
and serving the astronauts
chocolate-covered truffles
and gummi fruit salad

I was a kid
until I picked up “HOWL”
and that made me want to be a poet

So this bowl of Ramen’s for you
Ginsberg

You fucking asshole

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

To That Woman That Snapped Her Fingers in my Face at the Spirits Tasting

I just wanted to let you know

we did have some ice

a big bag of it

I was lying

and afterwards

I took the bag home

put on “Thunder Road”

and made love to it

then we drank Penfolds wine
ate Stouffers pork cutlet dinners
and watched Malcolm in the Middle

the ice drove me to work the next day

and as I got out of its Mini-Cooper
it grabbed me by the hand
looked me straight in the eye
and thanked me for not putting it in your glass

it then took Lake Shore Drive to the public beach

parked

got out

found a nice sunny spot away from the crowds

laid in the sand

and happily melted into oblivion
knowing
that it hadn’t been prison-raped
by your clown lips

meanwhile

Sam’s Wines and Spirits opened its doors

to the freezer trucks

and a brand new day

© 2008 Lee Kitzis