Philip Larkin – “This Be The Verse”

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

Sharon Olds – “Douchebag Ode”

When I hear the young refer to someone as a douchebag
I want to say, “You may have never seen a douchebag.
They were red rubber bags like hot water bottles
You’d fill it and hang it high enough so that gravity….
I can’t go on….”

I see my mother’s douchebag, my poor mom’s
pathetic douchebag, with its clamps
and its aorta tubes, dangling over the bathtub
awesomely shameful,
and which reminded me, I’d been some
kind of catsup Halloween costume in her
almost before I was human.
And so to call someone a saline sac?
Let’s take some pity on the creepiness
of how women were treated in the 1950s.
It drove my mother crazy, but she did the best she could.
She never turned and said,
“I could have got rid of you, my little Valentine,
but I gave you the warm, rose-colored
lunch bag of the placenta, I gave you
my heart to eat,”

and now I remember it, not my mother’s,
but mine, like a dowry,
lock the door, then
hang it from the shower rod
like food hung over a bough
out of wild animal reach
slide the perforated wand inside
you then unclasp the clamp
then Lo, you are a night clearing
in which a fountain of Aphrodite leaps up
and cascades down, making her music,
her brine sea-chantey,
her sparkling douchebag song.

The Notorious B.I.G. – “Suicidal Thoughts”

[Puff Daddy]
Hello, aw, shit nigga What the fuck time is it?
Oh, goddamn, nigga, do you know what time it is?
Aw, shit, what the fuck is going on?
You alright? Nigga what the fuck is wrong with you?

When I die, fuck it I wanna go to hell,
Cause I’m a piece of shit, it ain’t hard to fuckin’ tell.
It don’t make sense, goin’ to heaven with the goodie-goodies.
Dressed in white, I like black Tims and black hoodies.
God’ll prolly have me on some real strict shit.
No sleepin’ all day, no gettin’ my dick licked.
Hangin’ with the goodie-goodies loungin’ in paradise:
Fuck that shit, I wanna tote guns and shoot dice.
All my life I been considered as the worst,
Lyin’ to my mother, even stealin’ out her purse,
Crime after crime, from drugs to extortion.
I know my mother wished she got a fucking abortion.
She don’t even love me like she did when I was younger.
Suckin’ on her chest just to stop my fuckin’ hunger.
I wonder if I died, would tears come to her eyes.
Forgive me for my disrespect. Forgive me for my lies.
My baby mother’s eight months. Her little sister’s two.
Who’s to blame for both of them?

I swear to God I want to just slit my wrists and end this bullshit.
Throw the Magnum to my head, threaten to pull shit
And squeeze, until the bed’s completely red.
I’m glad I’m dead, a worthless fuckin’ buddah head.
The stress is building up, I can’t
I can’t believe suicide’s on my fucking mind. I wanna leave.
I swear to God I feel like death is fucking calling me.

[Nigga, talk to me please]

Naw, you wouldn’t understand.
You see it’s kinda like the crack did to Pookie, in New Jack.
Except when I cross over, there ain’t no comin’ back.
Should I die on the train track, like Ramo in Beatstreet.
People at the funeral fronting like they miss me.
My baby momma kissed me, but she glad I’m gone
She knew me and her sister had somethin’ goin’ on.
I reach my peak. I can’t speak.
Call my nigga Chic, tell him that my will is weak.
I’m sick of niggas lying. I’m sick of bitches hawkin’.
Matter of fact, I’m sick of talkin’.
[BANG]

Franny Choi – “IMPULSE BUY”

bugzapper dress
laughing teeth beacon whats
yr name again dress
filled w/my hips (not fables of yr
lips & pulling me close &
saying the word beautiful) so
hot shit dress. oh i cum
from the future dress
electric zinging super christ & fuck
that! dress. what’s that?
phone #? passwd.s? well, that’s for me
to keep and you to
drool for. in which case:
mr. pavlov bell/ringer dress
take a number & get in line dress
neon polish, programmed to scoff.
bathroom fuck dress. highball hookup
greygoose in splintered shotgunz pow/pow/
we die soon dress. hair dye blue dress.
sloppy wink dress. chlorine in the sink dress.
me without you dress.

Danez Smith – “how many of us have them?”

friends! if i may interrupt right quick

i know y’all working, busy smoking & busy
trying not to smoke, busy with the kids & moms

& busy with alone, but i have just seen
two boys — yes, black — on bikes — also — summer children
basketball shorts & they outside shoes, wild

laughing bout something i couldn’t hear
over my own holler, trying to steady
the wheel & not hit they asses as they swerved
frienddrunk, making their little loops, sun-lotioned

faces screwed up with that first & cleanest love
we forget to name as such, &, hear me out
i’m not trying to dis lil dude, but in this gold hour
he kind of looked like Francine off Arthur
same monkey mouth & all, ole & i say hey looking-ass boy

tho in a beautiful way, the best beautiful
same as i know all of us have looked
like something off when backlit by love. o loves,
y’all ugly asses have crowned me the worst names:
wayne brady, gay wiz khalifa, all kinds of bitches
& fags (tho only with my bitches & fags), all kinds

of shit &, once, mark of buddha that year acne
scored my forehead with its bumpy faith.
my niggas & my niggas who are not niggas
i been almost-pissed myself, almost been boxin’
been tears & snot off your dozen wonders
been the giddy swine dancing the flame.
o my many hearts, y’all booty-faced

weird-ass ole mojo-jojo-looking asses
dusty chambers where my living dwells
roast me. name me in the old ways, your shit-
talk a river i wade, howling until it takes me.
i can’t stop laughing, more river wades
down my throat. could be drowning
could be becoming the water, could be
a baptism from the inside out.

don’t save me, i don’t wanna be saved.
i’ve died laughing before, been seen
god’s face & you have her teeth, my nig.
but   hers   ain’t   as   yellow   as   them   saffron   shits
you   keep   stashed   in   your   gloryfoul   mouth
my friend! my friends! my niggas! my wives!
i got a crush on each one of your dumb faces
smashing into my heart like idiot cardinals into glass
but i am a big-ass glass bird, a stupid monster

crashing through the window & becoming
it just to make you laugh. Andrew used to say
friendship is so friendship                        & ain’t it
even after Andrew gave it on over to whatever
he was still my nigga. when they turned his body
to dust he was still my dusty-ass boy.
don’t you hear it? the dust on the fan calls me
a bum, says my hairline looks like it’s thinking
about retirement. the dust in the car says i look
like a chubby slave, says i look too drunk, takes

my keys, drives me home. the wind is tangled
with the dust of the dead homies, carrying us over
to them, giggling in the mirror. hear them. hear
your long-gone girl tease your hair on the bus. hear them
rolling when you sweep broom across the beaten floor.
i miss them. all the dead. how young. how silly
to miss what you will become. i apologize.
sometimes it just catches up in me. love
& ghost gets caught up in us like wind & birds
trapped in a sheet just the same. & my friends
is some birds, some chicken-head muhfuckas

who i would legit stomp a nigga for, do you feel me?
when they buried my nigga i put on my timbs
walked into that hot august tried to beat his name
out the dirt. i beat the earth like a nigga.
i threw hands at the earth like a punk muhfucka
& the ground chuckled, said my nigga. what is you doing!
you can’t hear the wind drunk off the kindred lent?
can you hear that great roll from way off like a big nigga
laughing in an alley! how your dead auntie laugh
when she see you still ain’t grew into that big-ass head!
like your real friend laugh when you still the same ugly
as yesterday! same ugly as always! same ugly as their last life!