Kevin Ridgeway: Two Poems

“Rainbows”

Surprisingly, rainbows do not gush out of my ass
or any other orifice of my body
while I ride my unicorn Pony Girl to candy-coated Heaven
I smell like cigarettes and ride the decaying
public buses that usher out their very own shitty rainbow of
pollutants and I pop my lithium like candy corn so that
I don’t actually see unicorns strolling in the back alleys of
The local AA Social Club

Maybe it will pour down rain and wash my sins away
and a rainbow will shine brightly in the sky while
a Goodyear Blimp cuts across it,
magically giving my morning coffee a hint of pumpkin spice
and breaking my smoking habit for good
good sport I am I’ll have started a fitness program
for pre-teens who believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster

No, rainbows do not gush out of my ass
or any other orifice of my body
while I tiptoe through the tulips
or in my case the thorn bushes
I prefer stargazing on LSD
and miniature people collecting.



"The Dance Craze Pandemic!"

The great modern day pop
weasel mans the studio consoles
that control the world
and roars into his microphone
completing another item
of rotgut music warfare
he lives in the Top Ten
he manipulates the sonic
airwaves and spins them
on his rotating nuclear bombs

The apocalypse is near!
the apocalypse was near
in 1972 and again in 2000
and three times
a holy fuck charm again
in 2004,
for crissakes you dropout!

lawmakers, businessman, physicians,
housewives, teenagers and jihadists alike
are dancing the crazed new
whitewashed urban gigolo
dance in spells of ecstasy
mice following murderous
kazoos polished by drum
and bass

The new craze erases!
their problems evaporated
for two minutes and thirty seconds
while the world around them
deteriorates from inoperable
global carcinogenic
cosmic space fuck
world wide smoking stew
everyone was dancing and
no one was minding the
store no was minding their mints
and toxic oral fumes
like biased ideas
staining undiscerning
cookie cutter
minds in the ether
of living rooms
across ticky-tacky
purgatories
sandwiched between
strip malls and
endless nowhere
pavement teeth


The new dance craze
is war and starvation
manipulation, greed
and crumb bum
stifled civil liberties
Sport Utility Vehicles
zipping by anonymously
bumping the hit song
of the day sending
shockwaves into the
atmosphere

LATE BREAKING NEWS!

The Earth was found dead on
the floor of its galactic bathroom
by its close adversaries
the Sun and the Moon
Venus and Mars cleared
all of the prescription bottles
and draped the Earth in
its favorite rhinestone studded cape
the cause of death was
termed acute global culture shock


Where’s the Gods?
they’re dancing in the
next foggy
discoteque dimension
over our planet’s grave
Twistin’ the Void
Away!


Quick Bio:  Kevin Ridgeway lives in a shady bungalow in sunny Southern California with his girlfriend, one-eyed cat and stolen library books.  His work has been published in The Left Coast Review, InSomnis Veritas, and he has work forthcoming in issue 30 of Breadcrumb Scabs and Larks Fiction Magazine.