TO GET A HIT AND NOT GET HIT

It dawned that I relocated only to thieve
unsuspected and to sleep on a less familiar subway line.
Christianity is no guard against beatings by cops so
I went back to the D with new name new beard new god,
committed, unlike some who merely sported it
like an embellishment to one of their suits.
I worked the bags, plotted the new scales,
found passages, tried to run with the lust
for something stronger than diner coffee.
One day a week I might feel unbroken.

KICKS

Every single memory
comes from one of those hundred days
in 1977.

Setting the skin of a slight ghost aglow
we set out, the power of outlaw drag now
seeped into bloodstream and starting
to saturate corpora.

So far beyond the Hollywood pictures,
pigs with dogs and horses could
not contain our seizure of desire.
The meat-cleavers and cans
of piss are an unimportant detail.

Charge-walking with welterweighted
inflation and long-corked pressure
towards ornamental turnstiles –
what agonies were suspended,
totally overwhelmed by glorious
menace, repetition and multiplication.

OVERRIDING

The New Thing, the non-believer
Il Campionissimo, all style, speeding up
in pilling wool and peaking
on either side of the war.

The race won’t be blessed this year
but this is our post-Fascist future:
by hook or by crook, rushing
out of the dark ages.

The friar confessed a confession,
told of slow poison, evening the score,
finally closing the gap.

---

Luke Bradley is a writer in Victoria, BC, Canada. His work has appeared in Vice, Racked, Baltimore City Paper, Esquire and other publications. He is on Twitter @Sloganear.