Jay Passer: California Poets Part 8, Three Poems
January 8th, 2025
California Poets: Part VIII
Jay Passer
Three Poems
Dr Day
I took fists
the boy and
the black horse went over the sand onscreen
They seemed happy
so I got a ride to Torrance
the good doctor, boots made from Komodo dragons
"Basically you’re fucked son"
say fly to Bangkok
on $300 a month you can live like a king
maybe less! Maybe develop a taste for
cockroach paste
Prognosis: detached retina
moon waning gibbous, 86%
riffing at the lobby coffeeshop,
black as raven piss and
Maynard Ferguson
firing up the
Superbone
"Call it a day son"
I Never Stayed
at the Chelsea in New York
or saw a show at Max’s K.C.
or met Andy or Dick Hell
I was busy pulling espresso
and mispronouncing the
names of European women
in San Francisco in North Beach
and Cow Hollow in the Marina
where I worked with a Filipino
who’d been a policeman under
Marcos, and who promised me a
nice plot of land and a spare niece
Poem to Keep Me in Shape Like Working Out on Sawhorses
my father beat me with a tuning fork
it kept me from crawling back to mom
who leapt off the bridge of stars
to sleep ensconced in black op labs
raised from the dreams of physicists
resentful of the Nobel selection process
that kept them from choosing which
countries to annihilate back in the day
when Renaissance Popes appropriated
the canals of Venice and Amsterdam
for use as their personal latrines
Author Bio:
Jay Passer's poetry first appeared in Caliban magazine in 1988, alongside the work of William S. Burroughs and Wanda Coleman. He is the author of 15 collections of poetry and prose and his work has been included in several anthologies as well as print and online publications worldwide. His debut novel, Squirrel, was released in 2022. A lifelong plebeian, Passer has labored as dishwasher, barista, soda jerk, pizza cook, housepainter, courier, warehouseman, and mortician's apprentice. Originally a native of San Francisco, Passer currently resides in Los Angeles, California. His latest collection of poems, Son of Alcatraz, released in February, 2024 by Alien Buddha Press, is available on Amazon.
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