Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

Rats

RATS

Rats said the Jess,
swatting at a passing allusion,
if things don’t improve
I’m going to cancel my subscription
to Nihilist Weekly.

Double rats said the Jess
as a skinhead materialised
out of a pile of dogshit and,
having left his sledgehammer at home,
was forced to soil his hands tearing him limb from limb.
If things don’t improve
I am going to have a great deal of difficulty
rationalising my already untenable position
with the adventurist left.

I’m losing my touch said the Jess
as the enraged Doberman chased him up a tree.
Well he deserves everything he get bang
and the Doberman subsides bloodily
onto the footpath....

and for my next trick I’m going to go east and walk
gingerly into a vendor of veniality,
a purveyor of perversity,
a merchant of amorality,
with all the hindsight of a burnt bridge,
I’ll explore the inner sanctums of discarded apparatus
$5678.00 is a small price to pay for the insight
of bacterial universal unconciousness.

With all due respect to no-one in particular
I’ll ignore the ignominious treatment of our emissaries and
strive for a higher level of contact with the heathen princes,
unconcerned to the point of distraction
with menial issueings forth from whence they came.

Bite your bum said the Jess for the tenth time,
boring even himself now and wishing a new stream of
expletives would sally majestically forth from the rotten
suppurating cavity that was once his mouth
in times less concerned with who and what
was seen up who while paying the rent.

Once while sitting peacefully in the gutter I was accosted
by man who claimed that in good time all would bear
the mark of the beast imprinted on the right hand or
the forehead
but in anticipation he said a prayer to Donald Trump
and ceremoniously slashed a dog's wrists as a substitute
sacrifice intended to maim and destroy the heathen beasts
of modernity and antiquity

comest thou oh sucker daily of
dogs dicks and sundry delicacies
from the south of Madagascar.
I came with powerful vengeance slaying,
maiming and generally boring the tits off all in my path,
so recently hewn from the virgin stone
of comic strip's monthly undergone powerful yearnings
of diabolic nature understood only as an indication
of things might once have been considered
now again untenable in the light recent atrocities
carried out under the guidance of
America's enemy addiction.

So then again we might once have understood
but now the knowledge is deeply buried under a layer
of semi-porous micromatter imported
from the south of France in large kegs
designed to crack on impact spewing their dubious contents
noxiously on the porters and carriers
enslaved by dark yearnings
long forgotten under the mists and dews of outback parities.

Oh come and come again and again at once I say
spewing your own contents
sliding viscously into deep vats for collection and
conversion into things unspeakably potentiated
from there and here and again and again I say
I demand no less from the vassals of reason
for doing anything at all that could be considered worthy
Of the talents of a band of dedicated young idealists bent on

mayhem unwritten and powers unspoken

except in dark alleys
Where rats run in fear
from raven red glowing
eyes arseholes connected
in ways you wouldn’t want to think about without a friend
to buffer collisions of sensibility in dark alleys
with awful rats and glowing eye connected arseholes.
Think of the possibilities I implore but you don’t listen,
you have no need and I to ask much more than this
which is just to say a little now and then
When it seems appropriate.
. ..
.
.
https://soundcloud.com/neopoet/rats

Style / type: 
Free verse
Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Last few words: 
I wrote this poem in 1982, I'm re-posting it for a new poet on the site who might like it. It was originally written for live performance and was un-structured. Now with reading.
Editing stage: 

Comments

I LOVE IT! I have a finished poem named FROM WHINCE HE CAME and I'm reminded of it. I am a producer of the most randomness stories created for my kids(2yr old n 16yr old) but have been the producer of all scary late-night in the dark stories that actually had my little cousin believeing we were the last of ELM STREET an were gonna die on FRIDAY 13th! I believe MIND OVER MATTER and if you truely believe you can do something you can! Taking on other aspects and views from another perspective is always an exciting way to bring something new to something old! THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS WITH ME!
PRECIOUS

Alone we shall find our ways into worlds of never imagined discoveries

I wonder what impression you might have got of the poet from just reading this.

Clearly from my comment about porn and lubricant I had no idea who you were. I would take that as a compliment, seriously, poetry transcending self.

Thank you,

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

A dance in words
not only for the eyes,
the mind and
the arseholes, (not hole's)

but
for the splashes from your Jackson Pollock-like poem,
splotches of all colours
randomly spewed out
of your very braod-minded pen
to entertain us,

just like Pollock,
who didn't know what he was doing,
just did it
and was praised for it
and PAID for it.

You had to repeat it

"Where rats run in fear

from raven red glowing

eyes arseholes connected

in ways you wouldn’t want to think about without a friend

to buffer collisions of sensibility in dark alleys

with awful rats and glowing eye connected arseholes."

SMILe
Ann.

"The image of yourself which you see in a mirror Is dead,
but the reflection of the moon on water, lives." Kenzan.

Others might recognise I had been reading a bit of William Burroughs at the time.
thanks Ann

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

sorry, can't crit this, i'm too busy laughing

just love it
but this isn't the first time i've read it -
lol and i still laugh too much to want to spoil it with any crit - lol i'm sure there's not one to give here ayway except bravo

have you changed the ending, or am i thinking of another of your writes?

lol 'rats said the jess...'
love judy

'Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They are.'
(Rudyard Kipling)

yes, it's a re-post for Preciously, the only lines I've changed just to update it, but which still mean pretty much exactly the same, are

carried out under the guidance of
America's enemy addiction.

used to be

carried out under the guidance of
Ayatollah Pious IV.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

I got many a chuckle with this write. Especially with "America's Enemy Addiction" (both real and imagined. Thanks for reaching back in time and sharing with us again.

always, Cat (& eddy)

p.s.

was this an Alex write?

*
When someone reads your work
And responds, please be courteous
And reply in kind, thanks.

and Alex had been sampling some extremely illegal, unstable and irresponsible chemicals

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

A poor mans Buckowski I don't rate this piece very highly.

Try harder next time

John

and I know you're just cranky because I recently said you use your comments to pander to women. Sprung!

Then again, it may not rate highly, at least I didn't try hard at all on it. It sprung fully blown from my diseased imagination.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

I just think your a bully and an elitist with too great an oppinion of hisown abilities as a writer or a human being for that matter.

If he is a bully, then i am to be bullied. I believe Jess bullies to try and improve and has certainly helped me on occasion. Buckowski didn't write this Weirdelf did, i say Weirdelf because i think he writes as Weirdelf and critiques as Jess. I do not always agree with his critique but i think i understand his reasoning. Dalton you and Jess are poets i admire, so let's comment on poetry not personallity. Lets not compete but help complete. And i liked this poem also. Regards Roscoe...

Roscoe Llane,

Religion will rip your faith off, and return
for the mask of disbelief that's left.

yes, we said radical then, but didn't shorten it to rad.[smiles]

I'm not keen on further structuring this piece, partly because it represents a style and time from my past, a libertarian, stream-of-consciousness approach, partly because I'm lazy.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

You are an interesting writer. this prose was will constructed to hold the attention of the reader through its comedic infection on truth. This stanza for me shows where your perception was aiming:

"Once while sitting peacefully in the gutter I was accosted
by man who claimed that in good time all would bear
the mark of the beast imprinted on the right hand or
the forehead
but in anticipation he said a prayer to George W. Bush
and ceremoniously slashed a dogs wrists as a substitute
sacrifice intended to maim and destroy the heathen beasts
of modernity and antiquity "

(You funny ass bastard you)
very well done!

Eddie
...

LIFE ISN'T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS
IT'S ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO DANCE IN THE RAIN.
VIVIAN GREENE

anything to be heard...

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

I forgot to tell you, I saw house MD.
What a no nonsense funny guy with the most incredible perception. It was like Sherlock Holmes and Watson rolled up into one. I laugh my arse off.

Eddie
...
PS. I'm hooked

LIFE ISN'T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS
IT'S ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO DANCE IN THE RAIN.
VIVIAN GREENE

but you can see why I like him.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

and I'm not fond of dogs.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

For a poem written in 82 it was perfectly updated to today, and is refreshing. The poem is tres Ginsberg, and what could be better? It's a testament to an age, and a style for all ages. Like good jazz. Hits the spot.

(one typo - change to dog's in
"and ceremoniously slashed a dogs wrists as a substitute"

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

perhaps I should mention somewhere it was originally written as a tribute to Burroughs, although all The Beats have been influential. Genre well spotted that man!

It's back on the stream as I did some minor revisions whilst videoing, which will be a work in progress for a while. I've always taught myself software and have skipped several version of Adobe Premiere so a bit of a learning curve.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment
(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.