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The Punk Poet
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Death is such a beautiful thing
The Punk Poet
Several years ago I started up this blog as a means of building up an online community of punk poets. I have published a few poets in the interim. However, not as much effort has gone into the project as I would have liked. Nonetheless, I have a body of work of my own I have never tried to publish here. From the start, the blog was intended to facilitate both written work and audio work. My work is recorded, to musical accompaniment. And so it’s appropriate I publish it here while re-opening channels for other punk poets to submit work, despite the neglect of recent years.
Here is my first entry – it forms part of a new album released this year, called COVID-19, under my non-de-plume/performance name The Punk Poet. It was the result of COVID-19, and one of the quirkier compositions on the album. It is also quite clearly a song in the bardic tradition, and a piece of punk poetry. I will be releasing more from this and previous albums intermittently, while renewing calls for entries from other writers.
You can find this work and more on my site punkpoet.com, on CDBaby, on Amazon, on Spotify, on Youtube – in fact, just google. It’s everywhere.
- Death is such a beautiful thing
CE Hoffman II
Punkpoetry.com is delighted to publish a new entry by CE Hoffman. Describing her work as FemmePunk Poetry, CE Hoffman also has a volume of poetry available at Amazon.com – Miss Spiritual Tramp of 1948. We look forward to seeing more.
Blue Blood (My Fairytale)
Once upon a time, bluebirds slit my skin.
I cried and cried
afraid to let him in.
We rape what we take
and sow our own sins.
They all lived happily ever after.
Amen.
Matthew Strimaitis
Punkpoetry.com is pleased to introduce Matthew Strimaitis. A computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Matthew has been writing since grade school, and started penning work for the Huffington Post while still at High School. You can find more of his work at huffingtonpost.com/author/matthew-a-strimaitis
Pretty Okay
Dance in the grey, it’s a pretty okay
A foot in the bed of an earth stamped sandal
A tattered-torn anklet like an airplane blue blanket
Treading naked the road with no peachy display
A fence that holds hostage its border and name
Looking for rightness, a neutered excitement
Or a hope that is young, imprisoned for fun
And rationed out slim to make tangibly tame
Deformed rusty mold with a texture and taste
All diseases I own will be mine to parade
But I’m looking for hope to be mined to create
While imprisoned an intimate, minor mistake
Pair a leader, a leaper, deformity way
Raise your flock to feed off the disease that you make
Then a whistle and spark and they bury me shade
To live out a sentence embark in the fade
While a half hearted lightness in rags and indictments
Said “I would be fine living day after day
Wandering Earth with no plans of a purpose
Living my life as a pretty okay”
Emily Ramser
Punkpoetry.com is pleased (actually more than pleased – honoured) to introduce Emily Ramser – a California transplant poet living and writing in Denton, Texas. She teaches creative writing to middle schoolers and writes poems about flowers and being a lesbian in her spare time. She has published four books with Weasel Press, the most recent being UHaul: A Collection of Lesbian Love Poems. You can check out her work on her blog authoremilyramser.wordpress.com, or tweet her at @ChickadeePoems.
the 1950s’ lesbian pulp fiction bookcase at recycled books
each shelf filled with tales
of women lazily touching
each other’s thighs and forearms
with soft wandering fingers
in back alley motel rooms
and army barracks,
kisses hidden in shadowed corners,
hands held under the covers,
side glances in public spaces,
gentle hands cupping breasts
late at night with slow and gentle movements,
climaxes filled with women screaming
women’s names and institutionalizations and suicides
because they said
no woman could be both
happy and homosexual
