Cathleen Calbert: California Poets Part 9, Three Poems

Cathleen Calbert

December 22nd, 2025

California Poets: Part IX

Cathleen Calbert

Three Poems

How Lovely it Is to Feel like Shit as a Kid

Dear girl, I see you blowing smoke rings. Kools

will take their toll on me, you say. Not true,

not on you, kid, with your little fringed boots,

kohl-soaked eyes, and newly achieved pallor,

sometime guzzling of strong, apple-flavored

alcohol, wrongheaded groping of groins

with interchangeable boys, Dave Bill Steve,

daily lunches of biscuits and brownies,

sad drawings of humans as animals.

Good God, you say, I’m not long for this earth.

There’s that morning cough, that afternoon slump,

all-night crap fest, stiffness rising, your ass-

crack slipping free of your jeans. Lord help me,

these aches and pains, you say, but you’re sixteen,

so eat those Cheetos and drift into orange-

dust dreams as your lusty appetite grows

to match that of the world, which wants you just

like this: young, dumb, and profligate with life.

The Heart of the Poem

Yes, beauty.

The blueberry-pleasure

of syllables on my tongue.

Sudden narrative shifts

and linguistic high jinks:

I’m for them too.

Sentiment is all

my students come up with,

and I don’t approve.

I strip them

of dead grandmothers,

crushed puppies, and lost virtue.

I give them

fruits and vegetables instead:

apples, onions, artichokes.

I push them

into easy metaphor:

the core, the layers, the heart.

Without art,

the heart of the poem

is just bloody steak, is just boo hoo.

But along with the bottles of beer, 

the bloody sunsets,

and iguanas,

I want to get

to the green meat

that is you, poet.

Oh, I know there’s no self,

sincerity and authenticity

as outdated as “lovemaking.”

But I am at heart a naïve reader.

This is my guilty pleasure.

Est-ce vrai pour vous? 

Well, then this is for you:

I put my hand through a closed window

above a sleeping boyfriend’s head.

I cut an X on that same hand

when another guy hurt me

in some other way.

I’ve slept with less

than thirty men.

Now I sleep with one.

I can’t give you

the names of all my lovers.*

Honest to God,

I would, but I already have

forgotten half of them.

And that’s the truth.

*See Index

Zombie Camp: First Night Festivities

The Gloaming

Shuffling for Beginners

Knuckle-Eating Contest (all levels)

Extreme Monopoly

The Shank of the Evening

Flesh & Bone Frisbee

“Mama Don’t Take Your Gizzards Away From Me” sing-along (optional)

Limb from Limb (ABC’s of Tearing)

The Witching Hour

Undead Don’t Mean Uncool (Corpse Chic)

Lady Fingers and Mauled Heads

Baby in the Pickle Barrel

The Dead of Night

Breaking & Entering (Ain’t Just for Home Invasions Anymore)

“Free Will Never Seemed So Free To Me” sing-along (mandatory)

Dead Man Walking

The Break of Dawn

Re-Animation Festival

Safe Sex = Dead Sex

Last Bash: Apocalypse Stomp

Author Bio:

Cathleen Calbert’s poetry and prose have appeared in many publications, including The Hudson Review, The Los Angeles Review, The Paris Review, Poetry, and Poetry Northwest. She has published four books of poems: Lessons in Space, Bad Judgment, Sleeping with a Famous Poet, and The Afflicted Girls. Her awards include a Pushcart Prize, the Sheila Motton Book Prize, and the Mary Tucker Thorp Professorship at Rhode Island College. Currently, she lives in Carmel, CA with her husband and Pomeranian.