Poetry By E. Martin Pedersen

E. Martin Pedersen, a San Franciscan, has lived in eastern Sicily for over 35 years. He teaches English at the local university. His poetry has appeared in Verse-Virtual, Frigg, Literary Yard, Strong Verse, Ink Sweat & Tears, and others. Martin is a 2011 alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. 


A Shit Dream

Walking towards the clubhouse on a golf course 
searching for a shit pile left by Phil's dog like a lost contact 
(we don't golf)
mistaking small brown leaves for it then
I see it on the last green
one fresh turd then Phil
kneels down, picks it up and throws it at 
at Desmond, who catches the biggest part and throws it back
I'm in the middle but get out fast
P. continues playing shit catch with D.
Nevil is singularly amused 
crying golfballs
I'm disgusted
get my pack from the car
the white Panda
a muttered salute
leave the rabble 
leave for good
get a bus on the main road.

Do I meet a nice girl on the bus
Or find a bag of money?
Anything's possible
In a shit dream.




Sir Philip Sidney's Last Drink

Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) was an English poet, courtier, scholar, and soldier, who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. 
He joined Sir John Norris in the Battle of Zutphen, fighting for the Protestant cause against the Spanish. During the battle, he was shot in the thigh and died of gangrene 26 days later, at the age of 31. As he lay dying, Sidney composed a song to be sung by his deathbed. According to the story, while lying wounded he gave his water to another wounded soldier, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine". This became possibly the most famous story about Sir Phillip, intended to illustrate his noble and gallant character. (source: Wikipedia)


Hey where you going with that, you bloody bastard
Bring that cup of water over here, I'm dying of thirst, arsehole
"Sir Philip, I'm so very sorry, 
but I brought this water for the wounded soldier next to you,
you see, I hate to be indiscreet but, shall we say,
he can receive more benefit."
You fucking wanker, gimme that water
gimmegimmegimmegimme god-fucking-dammit
I hate you, damn your bloody eyes
You dare piss on the last wish of a dying hero, a poet, a nobleman, a saint
Last words hey?
Hey you, shitface!
'Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.'




The Subversive Nature

He’s taking a hose to her as we speak.

Hasn’t everyone magic protection? I do.
I have symbols, scabbards, shrews
Swords and shields and spirals and skulls
Superstitions and salamanders
Satyrs, scarabs, shadows, sibyls, spades, storks,
The scythe of you-know-who
And the Sphinx
Swastika
Sapphire – 
Only powerful witches can harm me.

He’s swinging his bat toward her at this moment.

Of all these people getting off planes
Not one is right
I’ve been at this airport now for, I don’t know, weeks
Eating tunafish sandwiches, drinking Dr. Pepper®
The very person I need refuses to come through
That gate, that self-sliding door
Unless she/he came through when I wasn’t looking (physiological necessities galore)
Damn, what if that happened?
They have plenty of footage of me on the surveillance cameras
Yet they let me stay and wait longer still
Maybe the watchers and I are waiting together
For the right one. I will.

Now she’s begging him to spank her harder, 
SPANK ME, AH, HARDER
Because she knows all about cause and effect.

One meal to another, chew chew
One cigarette and then another
The same conversation over and over
Same words, same gestures, same expression
My wife died, cry cry (better you than me, buddy)
Money filling and emptying the marble tide pools
Doing it pretty much the same way as always
Will the car start when I turn the key?
Will I sleep tonight, wake up tomorrow
Be myself
Be good
Do I care?
Is it already
Too late?




We Didn’t Know

Captain Kangaroo
molested children (not on his show, they didn't allow kids there with good reason)
Mr. Greenjeans too
after beating them with snakes
shot down lines of kids with a plastic machine gun
and cut em open, and ate their guts
the blood and gore ran out of their noses
and down their necks and throats
Howdy Doody
Captain Satellite
Miss Nancy
Mrs. Ward Cleaver (June)
Dr. Suess
Uncle Walt
Misterogers (Mister Ogre)
(would you be mine?
(could you be mine?
(would you be my . . . )
: disgusting perverts all.
We know that now.

Except
none of what I just said is true
it’s not my fault
we never saw a naked woman
back in the 1960’s
we didn’t know the parts or how they fit together
how babies swam downstream
the world had not pornographized yet
and when we played Crack the Whip or Smear the Queer
we weren’t clear on that either
we hadn’t invented sex-ed
yet.

So much still to be discovered and named,
so much.




Winner’s Rules

If that means sucking the boss’s cock, so be it
Those are the rules around here
To get that shiny future, a prerequisite
To support my children who I love dear
(Trenton 6, Brick 8)
My ex I hate

People have this romantic view
Or just study till they drop, for what? To not live?
I always liked having fun too
And fuck all that other shit
Life is too short to look back
On what who did to whom in the sack

-- a virtue –

Ambition means swimming with sharks
And becoming a shark, okay?
Even eating other sharks’ hearts
To stay afloat, moving all day
Survivor, thriver
I'm aliver

Keep the party going, the feeding twister
I play just like everyone else, I’m in
We’re all in the same game, Sisters
I just play to win
By cheating, yeah, why not?
Everyone does, so fucking what?




From K. Marx to K-Mart

"The vocation of poet in America has about it a delicious absurdity.  The paradox itself is enough to turn the veriest clod into a poet.  Our poetry should be as crude, vulgar, thick-skinned, lumpish, arrogant, immature, and sado-masochistic as these States themselves." Karl Shapiro 

From Reading to Dreading to De-Reading to Dribbling

Hey baby, wanna fuck?
Not your scrawny ass
Not your vienna sausage
Not your mother, sister, daughter, piano teacher.

From Cash, grass or ass: Nobody rides for free to Happiness is a tight pussy

black windows
on black chevy vans
shit hanging from the mirror
with a big yellow spread eagle painted on the back
and a postcard mountain scene painted on the side
of the sliding door

sunday at the lake
trout fishing in America
boone's farm cherry
hot dogs burning on the hibachi
whatever oak ridge boys for 150 yards
glove compartment full of rubbers
(if this van's a-rockin', don't bother knockin')

we studied so hard to become something
something less cruel
some of us turning anger into suicide
to avoid the war
the self-control, the instinct
will win out
outside the K-Mart
where our friends
live in their cars
on garbage and dope
unable to read
Richard Brautigan.