Muttsy Hugbars' Complaint

I know this cat, Captain Shugars,
and I’m tired of his gut-punch poetic.

He wrote a cycle of poems across Afghanistan,
one in the outhouse of each Buddhist monument
dynamited by the Taliban.

He plucked a turkey pen
and feathered a love poem in Bayou Pierre,
near Port Gibson, Mississippi.

With the long line of a fishing pole, he cast
the twenty-first century epic of Gilgamesh
in the desert water of the Tigris River.

He tattooed the 46 haiku of the earth-
worm on the forearm of a tsunami.

He sliced the ballad of the fallen dawns,
the sick-moon laughter and pop-song
possibilities of a government shut down
on the neck-ties of all the politicians,
regardless of party affiliation.

I saw him read his poems
at the Speckled Bird in Cincinnati.
On his balding head he wore
an pair of ladies briefs
like a beret; he waved his arms
like a Baptist preacher.

I saw him
read his poems at that dinky loft
called Chase Public in Northside.
In one hand he gripped a glass of sangria,
in the other, a fist of papers --
unpublished poems that smelled
like piss-warm PBR.

He needs to find
the corner of a room or street
where someone gives a shit.
He needs to find
mountains beyond mountains.

He sings songs
like sand in my shoes.
He sings songs
like the carnivorous feast
of identity theft.
He sings every song
Arcade Fire ever wrote
and calls them his own.

He eats tiny stars
and sweet-farts
small galaxies.

He never shuts up.