45 New Poems 2007-8

by Ralph-Michael Chiaia

it’s raining

out

I hear the sprinklers

machine gunning water

I’m back in the US

from Korea

with a pad

ready to recount my story

from abroad

years ago I bought

a canopy bed

crafted wood

with horizontal bars

for curtains

Vietnamese Mahogany

they liberated all those people

from the Khmer Rouge

how bad can their bed be?

ancient patterns, hand-crafted wood

the people that built Angkor Wat

the Khmers, the Bayon

intricate carvings of the universe

of the soul, of the mind in solid wood

around the mattress

now mom’s got K-mart modern, geometric

sheets on it

and it bugs the hell out of me!

Since born I’ve been allergic to dogs

eyes swollen and red

tired, grumpy

heavily sedated with medicine.

I was always tired while growing

now I’m strong—once out of

the house I got healthy:

ate well, drank juice

conquered my

allergies.

I come here. Mom has bought

a dog.

I spend the night coughing and

rubbing my eyes. Now I’m

exhausted.

my allergies had me

in a ball on the floor

the dog hair was everywhere

I was too weak to

get it off

let it fucking kill me!

dog dander, enemy of

the asthmatic

I am my own martyr!

take me! put me on

my own t-shirt

tattoo me on my own chest:

man who withstood allergies

man who died trying

I don’t want

to break up

I don’t want

to stay

alone, the house is so clean

cause I’ll miss her

together, the sex gets deep n heavy

I need a sign a synchronicity

cause she does my head in!

I miss the Jjii-gae

I miss the late night drinking

the free pool tables

the furtive glances from

girls on the arms of boyfriends

I left Ana

because

I felt this

tension

up through my back

like she physically

made me

sick

exactly want I feel

now

with Sophia

is it that the girls are no good

or is that what a relationship

simply feels like?

Perhaps, if you see enough

of any

single love

you’ll learn to hate

their very guts

All week has been

traffic

to Yeonhui and back

I was going about

150 km/h

when a drunk

swerved into me.

Korean crackhead didn’t even know

he’d done anything improper.

Koreans

get all burned up

offended

by things they misunderstand

but by nature, they misunderstand

a lot

since culturally they’re so weak

with language and thinking

I suppose many would call

that stupid

but it isn’t

here relationships are one-way

top-down, so rules

take heavier precedent

over thinking

interpretation and discourse is looked down on

so the cool ones

the ones down the looking glass

are awesome, secure

fun,

but the others

are

10.

business men on the street

red-faced and screaming

like mad infants. they are drunk

on soju. one falls aleep

against the curb. I put

one 10,000 Won note next

to him. he wakes up and yells:

“I am a business executive! I

don’t need your money, you gorilla foreigner!”

I leave the money there, saying:

“then act like a businessman.”

his face crinkles with confusion, honest

confusion, then he says: “but I am.”

11.

Pilsoo went to Hong Kong

where he learned to trade stocks

in the pit

learned in the London tradition

was a highly-touted young

investment banker

took a job in prestigious Yeouido, Seoul

but was fired immediately upon

suggesting using some London-based ideas

12.

I hate her

never want to see her again

yet she reads on my bed

I want to destroy everything

we’ve built

I yelled, “just go home!”

until she exploded—crying and

stomping her feet on the ground.

she looked herself in the room.

I went for a walk. now she’s asleep

on the bed.

I hate her

never want to see her again

then her skirt gets my eyes

to dance down her leg

i hike it up

and hate her a little less

13.

The Korean channel

has some B class

modeling

on Dong Ah TV

Dong Ah, I don’t

know what it means

Ank by

Miria Sabino

one letter

per name

from

the great

psychedelic master:

Maria Sabina

14.

my idiot students

think

no, think is not the word

because they’ve

been told,

being a teacher

is better

than being a writer

they have no idea the infinite success

it is

to be even a slightly-exposed artist.

15.

I’m surrounded by

idiot optimists

cynical is the only

way to be.

Mom says she

misses someone

saying, “I love you.”

I told her

they’re always lying

she laughed her optimism

clear off.

16.

Some half-wit

dude up the street

tried to save face

once

so he murdered

his girlfriend

cause she accepted

his

ding-a-ling

wouldn’t work right.

17.

Driving 150 km/h

last night

through Seoul,

I braked

to a near-stop

merged left

saw right:

a shirtless man

on the pavement

another standing

over him.

I can understand

being drunk and

getting naked

I can understand

fighting

but get off the highway!

18.

thanks to Alison Ross

melting clock morning

says Salvador Dalai Llama

my legs are spindly

“like stilts,” says the llama

I walk a

desert-scape

while tigers bounce out

of pomegranates

with bayonets

pointed at Venus

that ancient Jinx

she’s asleep, naked

I just

planted pomegranate

seeds in her

then turned to a llama

and said, “I wish, furry dude.”

I ponder the meaning

of this

until a bee stings

me: a pomegranate stinger

19.

I keep a basket of oranges

in the car.

every time I see a really hot girl

I mean disgustingly hot

the kind that makes you involuntarily

moan,

I throw one at her

20.

there’s this Japanese, or is it

Korean, custom

that if you catch an orange

you’re accepting marriage

not that I want to marry

a disgustingly hot girl—gotta

be crazy to—it’s more like

I’d just like an hour or two

21.

47 oranges have hit the pavement

this decade, 3 remain in the basket.

knee high socks and a plaid skirt, mmnnn—

I hope the slut can catch.

22.

these rich kids

drive foreign cars

around Apgujeong

and shout ya-ta

when they see a hot one

“you, get in!” girls, hot ones,

get in—

what kind of girl thinks she

should do this?

after a rough blow job Ji-hyun

gets dropped off on some side street

she wanted to be one of those

hot, desired girls—the rich ones

they are the ones driving the cars.

23.

I ate at 9:30 p.m. again

my mind it is a Martian

tightrope mindwalker

the sound of pressing an old

computer keyboard

the old-fashioned blip

my cock is a picture frame

a momento

a souvenir

a vibrating bunny

24.

All women are whores

he pushed my

head down

I was trembling

and tight

I couldn’t relax my mouth

enough to take it

it made me vomit

he threw me out of his car

25.

I can’t get off

at that station

the people mover

is under fluorescent

bulbs, the

floor is mirrored

it’s like a fractal

a panic fractal

my mind won’t handle it

then don’t meet me

she says

she hangs up

I’m handicapped

so arbitrarily

seized by terror.

26.

She’s yelling at me again

I’m telling her she didn’t

do anything wrong

she hears that I’m calling her

irrational

these arguments are lose-lose for me

she gets angry if I yell

angry if I’m calm

she stomps over and smacks my shoulder

I’m cutting a red pepper

I watch the knife

27.

is there anything wrong

with

sleeping around?

Sophia, Cindy, Cecilia, Yeji

it’s like a Beatles song

it’s almost 3 a.m.

this carb-depletion I’ve tried

has my mind

pumped full of efficiency

I’m a salsa spin

a chipotle chili

an Arabian Mocha-Java

been-bean-bin

Bornea and Brunei. The Sultan.

28.

Cambodia, 1973

B-52 bombers have started

carpet bombing the Eastern

half of the country. this makes

bringing recruits into the Khmer

Rouge that much easier.

today’s bombings of Iraq and

Afghanistan make bringing

recruits into the Islamists

that much easier.

29.

she reads a lonely planet

guide to Cambodia on

the bed. all you have to do

is read one of these to see

that today’s policies are

absolute dog crap.

30.

seeing my poems in print

again

my cock is hard

—so

distracting—it’s a sine and cosine

a moth-sings opera

as water is lifting

weights. it prepares for twelve rounds

with that bad ass dust mite

green and red fractals hover over lakes and

rivers

pop songs have 128 tracks

blended—post-

ancientism = coatlism

I promised I’d write something

meaningful but my cock is up

I’m hungry, and my eyes are

itchy

—who could get

all the rebellions

to put down their

weapons

their holy books

their registers

and manifestoes?

when still

there’s no food on the table

no clean running water

the urn says it’s about truth

beauty

peace.

the net says it’s about money

power

sex.

it, the urn maybe, has shattered into a million eyes

a million suns

it has reflected

like a shaved head

it’s deep in prayer

nose up

knickers down

palms up

guns down

it’s yer birthday! it’s yer birthday!

say, kid, i guess I’ll have another

cigarette

31.

she stares

I wave

she scowls

I stare

she stares

I scowl

she watches

I ignore

she stares

I stare

she smiles

I smile

she wipes

I dress

the door

it opens

it slams

I leave

she waits

I wait

she broods

I wait

she plots

I flee

32.

Aren’t you glad

you

never married me?

of course, I’d screw around on

you

too next

I like every shape

size

taste.

period

33.

I fast-walk the street

check my phone

send a message

I fast-walk

cause I have to get

to the bar

I have to

now

I can still feel her breath on

the wind will blow it off

me—

I have to

fast-walk

34.

In the jungle there

the lacandon

fire-eaters

jugglers

unicyclists

taught me

I need water, water

please

I walk into the jungle

past glow-worms

on trees

to vomit

there are chickens

of all things

just clucking around

35.

read me

buy my books:

anthologize me, publish me

snap me, blog me, upload

me me me

google me, dogpile me

index me, bookmark me

tumble me,

re-blog me,

rss me,

cauterize me, anesthetize me

come hard and

fuck me

This is my song of failed marketing

36.

she climbed up the bar

jumped up

grabbed a light

then dove on the ground

the EMTs said she OD’d

when I took my shoes off

later, a needle was sticking out

injected in the sole

I trembled removing the

shoe—found it hadn’t punctured

any skin.

37.

I'm in the park again.

I dangle myself at her

“it’s so big,” she says

and purrs

stone tigers roar

“you’re disgusting,” she says

with myself growing in her hand,

“all you want is to finish.”

then her throat muscles are a ring

that won't come off a finger dying

to get wed. she wants to get wed

so she sucks and sucks

in this dark park, hearing footsteps

I hold her head

I push it down I push it down

in the distance the old drunks, the

kids, the families. her slightest,

most miniscule movements coax

cream from me

into her, she grunts this guttural kind of

caterwaul, a kind of guggle,

her eyes go real wide, but it’s not

cause of my meat. it’s from the cum

hot down the back of her tongue

into her throat

from the eyes on her, her the slut,

her the slag, but it’s dark, it’s hard

to tell. we freeze like that.

an old man walks by, he wears

a hat that’s too big with a military insignia

on the front that I see when he looks

he may think I'm holding

a girl who just failed a test, letting her cry,

or think she just broke up with

a boyfriend. or he may think

I'm letting the slut’s

palatine tonsils milk out the last drop of

my cumshot. I don't really care.

38.

I'm sick of this but here I am again

girlfriend on the couch, TV blabbing

about style or style icons or some shit

paris hilton’s shadow is dancing the back wall--

as the papparrazzis pop and crackle away--

like a coked up popper or LSD-laced raver

she pulls her torso back from her hips

and smiles—taught in some weird

finishing school—as the paparazzi continue

making that shadow dance.

39.

I’m leaving the stem in my poems.

I don’t think Robert Hass wrote poems

about skullfucking and such. I will

never be a poet with this mind. I need

to cut it out, like the way you remove

the seeds and stem when slicing an apple.

Nobody wants to eat the stem!

40.

I don’t need a soul mate, baby

I need a hole mate, baby

get on fours like a beast

the Kama Sutra

calls this Congress of the Cow, baby

41.

Today changed a Tire Blowout

some idiot came forward at my car

while I was pulled over and nyquil’d

I hit some metal rods lying on the ground.

pop

42.

my throat is itchy

friday’s drinks may have

gotten me

43.

my throat is itchy

sunday’s drinks may have

gotten me

44.

my throat is itchy

all that talk

to get her to come home with me

may have gotten me

then after I got her

I didn’t even want her

45.

it’s like a curtain closing,

all wrinkles, red, and slightly uneven

you see feet running around underneath.

it’s like an electric eye closing

like maniacal laughter

like the smell of ammonia as the bartender mops

you lounge, a pretty French girl, peers at you

like grapes hanging from a tree.

you lounge, a young Korean girl you are ass-fucking on Fridays

sits across from you while her best friend

lays across your chest.

that smell is getting too strong. you tap her:

get up and finish off your vodka!

it’s closing time.

you knew that.

About the Author

Ralph-Michael Chiaia likes playing with toy trains. He was born next to the biggest landfill in the world. Now he lives in a city that can be easily mistaken for a garbage dump. Luckily he has a beautiful family with a two-year-old son who also likes playing with toy trains.

Find more about him and his junk at ralphmchiaia.com or check out his blog at ralphadelic.blogspot.com

If you liked these poems, please leave a review. This is an indie book and needs all the help it can get. Please review it or rate it on Amazon, shelfari.com, or goodreads.com.

Also by Ralph-Michael Chiaia

Ten Poems about East Asia & Kitsch Nebula Ampersands And

For Monks Only

The Sacred Calendar

Glyphic

I, Orange Girls

Ralph-Michael Chiaia

<Ralph’s Bookstore>

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2013 at lulu.com

www.ralphmchiaia.com

Contents

I, Orange Girls (the poems)

About the Author

Ralph’s Other Books

Samples of Other Books

Acknowledgements

A few of these poems appeared in Ink, Sweat, & Tears, Clockwise Cat, and Yellow Mama for which grateful acknowledgement is made.

These poems were all written between 2007-2008