Tag: punk

Punk by Bunkong Tuon

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Punk

On YouTube, the kids go apeshit over the Sex Pistols
        gleefully giving Johnny Lydon, green-haired, rotten-teethed,
foul-mouthed, wily-eyed punk icon their hard-earned cash.
        During the first year of the pandemic Lydon is seen sporting
a red Make-America-Great-Again t-shirt, belly protruding like
        a pesky spoiled brat. So it goes with getting old,
the world you once knew is turned upside down, the punk you love
        is now the pop music you hate. But back in the 70s,
when the Pistols played in some unknown bar down in Texas
        Rotten screamed “I am the anti-Christ. I’m going to destroy the Pacifists”
& they hated him with everything they got. They spat, threw chairs, rioted.
        The hate was pure and, of course, mutual, as Rotten spat back
and screamed some more. Sid Vicious scowled, sliced his skinny chest
        with a used razor while Steve and Glenn held down the beat.
Everything was clear then, lines were drawn. And it wasn’t about money,
        fame, and other illusions. It was a war between the establishment
and the underground, between authority and reckless youth, fought
        in the beautiful chaos of noise, the only kind of war for me.

*

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer and critic. He is the author of three full-length poetry collections and a chapbook. His publications include The American Journal of Poetry, Diode, Chiron Review, Paterson Literary Review, Misfit, carte-blanche, among others. He writes for Cultural Daily. Tuon teaches at Union College, in Schenectady, NY.

The Temporary World by Gerry LaFemina

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The Temporary World

The water tranquil, soft loll of sunglaze
as one sailboat lazes from its dock toward adventure
beyond the bay.
Isn’t this how so many stories begin? Behind me

all tumult—jackhammers & Harley growl,
shrieks of children, their laughter gift wrapped
in golden light.
Old oaks chaperone, wear boas of Spanish moss.

Anoles have gone into hiding among
the underbrush; I even watched one leap, an Olympian,
from the sidewalk,
before it changed from brown to green

the way they will, adaptation necessary
for survival, to avoid workmen sawing away dead fronds
& the wrens that
woke me earlier, which seem harmless enough

seeing as they’re barely fist-sized,
their beaks almost dainty. But deadly. Such deception
shouldn’t shock us.
When it closed its eyes that lizard disappeared.

The school kids have returned to classrooms,
but before they left the cutest one said, Fuck no!,
so natural
a reaction when summoned back. In only minutes

the bay’s begun to churn, foam gathering
along the water’s edge, & the child-drawn clouds
to the south furrow
their brows, portent to a storm I still can’t fathom,

so that, hours from now, rain will lash
the windows, breakers crash beyond the storm wall.
Imagine those lizards
how important to survival it is for them to hold on,

the way they must cling to some quavering branch.

*

Gerry LaFemina’s most recent books are The Story of Ash (poems, Anhinga 2018) and Baby Steps in Doomsday Prepping (prose poems, Madville, 2020). He’s also a noted critic and fiction writer, and his first book of creative nonfiction, The Pursuit: A Meditation on Happiness is forthcoming on Madville. He teaches at Frostburg State University, serves as a mentor in the Carlow University MFA program, and plays guitar and sings for Snubbed recording artists The Downstrokes.