For Mingus the Cat

We were united in our mutual weirdness

co-conspirators
writing partners

If you were a person
you’d be an installation artist
who wore nothing but Hawaiian shirts
and drank Night Train
out of a bowler cap

You saw the street
You saw the good life

You cared nothing for either
and took it to your death rattle

I would’ve traded a city block for you

but that’s not how life works

so
I do the next best thing
and leave the door to the attic open
when I write

like Jews
leave the front door open
for Elijah

in the hopes that you’ll wander up
and perch your dirty asshole on the railing
like old times

and watch me chug black coffee

and write through dirty glasses

swearing at stanza after stanza

missing you

I know it’s weird
I know it makes no sense

but humans never do

like the street
like the good life

like an empty attic
and some silly lines

© 2016 Lee Kitzis

Everything Smells Like Breast Milk (A Poem on Fatherhood)

My wife’s kisses smell like breast milk

The baby’s head smells like breast milk

The plants smell like breast milk

The cats smell like breast milk

The mailman smells like breast milk

The sidewalk and the stoplights and the streets and the birds

The reverend and the rabbi and the bums and the stoners
and the fresh air at the beach

Titty milk
Titty milk
Titty milk

My receipt for creamer smells like breast milk

The cop writing a ticket smells like breast milk

The cage fighter smells like breast milk

My typewriter smells like breast milk

This poem smells like breast milk

Titty milk
Titty milk
Titty milk

12 AM
2 AM
5 AM

I’ll shout it from the top of a mountain

down below to the U.P.

Where the woman I love pumps away

and waits for me

© 2016 Lee Kitzis

Marquette Housing Commission Poem #1

Those gone made
for lack of love
and medication

their television sets are
5th story windows
endless blizzards
and the chatter of birds
too proud to fly south

The half-drunk ghosts
of Finnish miners
pushing their carts of bottles
into the frozen waters
that connect with the night
and disappear

I imagine this is death

and I am fine with it

the way a cat is fine
splayed out in the sun

waiting on nothing in particular

© 2016 Lee Kitzis

Valentine's Day Message to My Daughter on the Way

I

Savoring the last of my late nights
watching Kitchen Nightmares and
drinking Old Crow at 2:30 in the morning
which was less of a savoring
and more of an affirmation
that I wasn’t giving up much

I’m excited for you

you culmination
of mutual strangeness
and love

the nonsense songs we sing to our cats

are now nonsense songs we sing to you

please don’t lick yourself
and walk away

II

I want you
to have the life
my parents gave me

minus the sour stomach
and constant self-analysis

I want you to cook
and name the squirrels you see
Dottie and Action Jackson
and Doctor Acornsworth
and light a flame
in the Presque Isle snow
that burns the way it should

different

and you will

III

It’s 4pm

the huskies
are bedding down to nap
after a hard
two-day race

I’m about to make your mother
fried chicken for Valentine’s Day

she requested it

you requested it

the secret
is to let it soak
in over-seasoned buttermilk
for at least 3 days

and to never ever
season the dredge

that way you get the crunch
followed by all the flavor
contained within the chicken

people will tell you
to season the dredge

but that’s overkill

don’t ever listen to them

and don’t talk to strangers

and don’t date line cooks

and when the avocado’s ready

eat it

© 2016 Lee Kitzis