Tea With Master Douche

Kid Douche on the problem with movie sequels:

"Shitheads that like nu metal. They're still out there.
And they want more Saws."

Caesar Salad

It’s 5:15 in the morning at the Horseshoe Casino

I’ve been grinding away for 12 straight hours
at the 3/6 limit table

Donkeys with Bluetooth headsets
slackjaws Serbian loudmouths
beauty queens playing the game for the first time
the whole spectrum of Tuesday gamblers
comes and goes

Once it gets down to 3-handed and a fat dealer named Roberto
I decide to call it a day

I lost $1

A night like this can’t end any other way

I get on the 5:30 shuttle back to Chinatown
and take a seat towards the back

Nothing lets you know where your life is headed
better than being on a dark bus filled w/ hookers
and elderly Chinese men in windbreakers
at 5:31 in the morning on a Wednesday

I’m a winner
I think

The sound of a container cracking behind me
the smell of Caesar dressing
the lip smacking
the guttural breathing

of course

I try to ignore it
but can’t
I wish I was Buddhist
and not obsessive

then something occurs to me
the lip smacking hasn’t stopped for two straight minutes
the breathing seems to be getting heavier

a female cough and a gag

Now I really wish I was Buddhist

Could the Dalai Lama ignore a guy getting a blow job
while he eats a Caesar salad?

I get up
covering my peripherals
and move even further to the back

I find a seat
and sit down

I’m still a winner
I think

only this time
I have a chance to laugh

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

27 Going on 50

I’m 27 years old and I’ve accumulated far too many gray hairs

I’m afraid of everything
women
power lines
flights to Cincinnati
kabuki masks
gentiles
tornadoes
centipedes
bicyclists
police sketches
spinach
the elderly

I tried Buddhism
but couldn’t breathe right

I overanalyze my relaxation tapes

I don’t trust my bank

or anybody in rush-hour

I mix my salads with scotch
and my tacos with tea

27 going on 50

and I haven’t even lived like Bukowski

just a Jew
whose grandfather took him to a Baptist-Evangelist church
at age 9
and confused the shit out of him

and now he’s an Atheist

at 27 going on 50

looking back at 9
and forward to a good drink

to forget it all

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

Poem Written After Smoking a Strong Italian Cigar Too Fast

i took a rocket to the moon
and ended up in gary, indiana

while the homicides homicided

and the poets poeted

bill kurtis read bedtime stories to the president

while jesus snuck out the backdoor

hauled ass to canada
to get his ulcer checked out

i took a rocket to the moon
and ended up tossing ice into a denny’s urinal
at 2:03 a.m.
thankful for work

i took a rocket to the moon

and ended up on the moon

and it was nice

there were no poets

or homicides

just jesus

hiding behind a rock

“that guy scares the shit out of me” he said

“plus it’s a little cold”

i agreed

then the earth blew up
in the name of god

and i poeted this poem about it

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

Bombs and Pastries

I awaken at 3 p.m.
to the sound of low-flying fighter jets doing drills

make a cup of Jewel-brand coffee and turn on the T.V.

A talking doughnut is singing a ragtime song
about being a servant of the lord
while 11-year-old kids
with their jeans pulled up to their belly buttons
and white t-shirts tucked in dance along

I go back to bed

nothing’s changed

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

Quietly Waiting

Quietly waiting
we go home
to the same meal
and the electricity of our past loves
in a glass of water

and the pigeons don’t know

and the Chinese pervert at the wig store doesn’t know

the meth-head sneaking White Hen coffee
face like stucco

the whores
and the bicyclists

and the slow hands on the clock
of an eight-hour workday don’t know

It makes people mad

you can see it in kindergarten teachers
gas station attendants and trophy wives

cabbies asleep in a Wendy’s parking lot
and Metra attendants on their ritualistic smoke of the day
outside of Millennium Station at 8:15 a.m.

counting the days

‘til payday

while the pigeons

count their crumbs

and all we know

is that we’re quietly waiting

for something other than this

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

Failure Zoo

Jerome asks if it smells funny

I say
I can’t smell anything

Oh
he says

I sit back down

so does he

it is Saturday
they’ve run the museum into the ground
so there’s nothing to do

my coffee’s kicked in
so napping’s not an option

just listening
to the AC system in the flight simulators
while Jerome tries desperately to locate
the source of the smell

every few minutes
a slack-jawed tourist
or European w/ a fanny pack on
will peek into the flight simulator room
through a small window at the far end

it is near dark in here
w/ a starry night sky and ocean backdrop
painted on the walls

we are on display
in a failure zoo

we were once lions
w/ young bodies

now we’ve learned
that a cage is a cage
and scraps are scraps

but we still have some battle in us
we still have a little fight

every time we fart on the job

sorry Jerome

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

And the Award Goes to...

The staff meeting was in the Coal Mine Café

9 A.M.
I walk in to thunderous applause

it’s the employee awards

plastic Oscar statues
each engraved w/ “Best Voice Over the Radio”
or “Best Smile” or “Best at Dealing With Angry Customers”

it’s 9 A.M.
as the facilitators call out the nominees’ names
and laugh at Chewbacca jokes

they’re all green team
actors by night actors in green lab coats by day

I’m on the red team
single moms stoner musicians
the stagnating poor

we didn’t win any awards
and left before it was over

there was nobody to thank except ourselves

we made our way back in our wrinkled red dress shirts

It was 9:15 A.M.

and I walked out of the Academy Awards
w/ the best overall

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

Wednesday ramble

mind-meltingly bored. burnt myself out on internet poker. only so many times i can have a fat nerd or zit-faced 18-year-old suck out against me to a beach scene back-drop before i look for something else to do. have a staker but the casinos are so damn far away and the weather is shit. don't know how i'm gonna pay rent. don't care. don't feel like writing poetry right now. almost never feel like reading it. the magazines are filled with guys named raymond. poets are obsessed with changing the world with introspective bullshit. everyone's trying to keep their bank account from being overdrawn. verse about your feelings on water with a french symbolist quote in the beginning just isn't gonna do it guys. sorry. one of the main problems with poetry is the reliance on metaphor. just say it assholes. most poets just fart out a metaphor here and a metaphor there. it should be used sparingly. it's like meeting someone for the first time. they start telling you a story. a good story's a good story. it'll engross you as is. if it's some guy throwing metaphors at you you're just gonna mace him in the face and be on your merry way. it happens every day in new york, london, chicago. he falls to the ground. he rubs his eyes. his conclusion: "they didn't get it." sorry. that's a metaphor.

Runner Runner

Two hours of sleep
after a night of tilting

everyone catching runners
against me

as Chicago saw its
worst blizzard in 3 years

my socks are wet
my eyes tired

Being card dead in December
gives you that special feeling

of existential despair
that normally comes post-masturbation

socks wet

eyes tired

I’m running to work

broke

the newspaper lady
at the Metra station yells:

“Happy Friday everyone!”

Lucky girl

She plays Uno

© 2008 Lee Kitzis

Jameson and Swedish Fish was a Bad Idea (Birthday Poem for Brian)

Long night
last night

Five minutes into my workday
Ian dropped his phone

asked me to pick it up

I did

there was a picture of his balls
as the screensaver

he ballphoned me good

One of the old guys
who volunteers
tried to engage me in conversation

He pulled out
his entire arsenal
of senior citizen bullshit

“Museum’s dead”
“Howabout that Blagojevich”
“Went to Disneyland with the family in ‘79”
“Satellite crash”

It is Thursday February 12, 2009

last night
was a long night
of Jameson and Swedish Fish

It was Brian’s birthday

and we ate and we drank

Today
there’s a bipolar Gummi bear
in my stomach

It’s got nowhere to go

like an old guy volunteering

at a dead museum

yammering away

while I try to write a poem for my buddy

The ballphoning never ends

© 2009 Lee Kitzis

Family Day

The husband
weighs 4 grams

the wife
weighs 400 pounds

their child
drinks iced coffee

the one today
happened to be Hispanic

but you

and I

have seen them all

we’ve seen them
in Dairy Queen

we’ve seen them at the Loews Cineplex
talking over Lilo and Stitch

we’ve seen them
opening email
because they were told
they should open it
in the title

the one today
was Hispanic

but you and I

have seen them all

the wife wore a cross
between a blouse a mumu and a garbage bag

the husband looked dejected

I told her
her child couldn’t bring his coffee
into the theatre

after 3 times
she finally acknowledged me
with an:
“I heard you!”

they took it in anyway

they always do

It’s Family Day

at the Museum of Science and Industry

the one today
was Hispanic

but you and I
have seen them all

in Mexico
Prague
South Africa
Saskatchewan

all the colors of the rainbow

all over the world

© 2009 Lee Kitzis