David Spicer

ANY SECOND NOW

I'm no Zulu warlord, nor
a short-sleeved madman savoring
a drip of coffee in this sad diner.
I renewed my subscription
to Gunfire because the cemeteries
aren't packed tight enough.
All I need is a toothbrush
so I can flick this rot from my mouth
that hovers and proves hate sometimes
overpowers grief. Some scars
aren't ever removed. A proverb states,
If you limp, use a walking stick.
The denizens of this city think I want
to annihilate them. A certain cadence
exists in the control they wield.
They advise me to scrub and rinse the tub
without any smears appearing. It's not like
I’m a thief who’s stolen a mother of pearl
necklace—I just want a plate of shrimp—
but this place is pitiful. I arrived an hour
ago and my roll isn't here.
Don’t they recognize me by my dome?
Don’t they know I have the ticket,
that I’m an island of volcanoes
ready to boil over any second now?


Gerald So reads "Any Second Now":



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David confesses: "There are so many massacres by angry young males that I found it tantalizing to inhabit the voice of one such animal. One word fell into another until the speaker became an explosive shooter with so-called reasons on the cusp of annihilating as many people as he could."

DAVID SPICER has poems accepted by or published in such as Reed Magazine, The Curly Mind, Slim Volume, Yellow Chair Review, Jersey Devil Press, New Verse News, On the Rush, Circle Seven, Phantom Kangaroo, Bad Acid Laboratories, Inc., and elsewhere. He is also the author of one full-length collection of poems and four chapbooks, plus eight unpublished manuscripts.