Rich Ferguson: California Poets Part 9, Three Poems

Rich Ferguson

December 22nd, 2025

California Poets: Part IX

Rich Ferguson

Three Poems

Your Counseling and Treatment in the Last 12 Months

1.      In the last 12 months did you receive counseling, treatment, or medicine for throwing a lamp or computer out the window?

	Yes = If Yes, go to question 2
	No = If No, go to question 4

2.      In the last 12 months, have you ever tried wearing

a dark, rushing river as a second skin?

	Yes = If Yes, go to question 3
	No = If No, go to question 5

3.      In the last 12 months, how often did you have nightmares

about the time when you were 9—ordering Sea Monkeys

through the mail, expecting a vibrant kingdom

replete with a monarch, minions, and treasures,

but only received a packet of brine shrimp instead?

	Never
	Sometimes
	Usually
	Always

4.      In the last 12 months, have you ever felt

your earlobes being kissed by moonlight?

	Yes = If Yes, go to question 6
	No = If No, go to question 7

5.      In the last 12 months, how often did the people

you went to for counseling or treatment

listen carefully when detailing that night

you got drunk and tongue-tied, slurring Rice Krispies,

when you’d meant the philosopher Chrysippus?

	Never
	Sometimes
	Usually
	Always

6.      In the last 12 months, did you take

any prescription medicines as part

of your treatment?

	Yes = If Yes, go to question 8
	No = If No, go to question 10

7.      In the last 12 months, were you told

about different self-help or support groups

for people with the overwhelming desire

to chia-pet their neighbor’s shrubs?

	Yes
	No

8.      In the last 12 months, how often

did you spend time examining yourself

in the mirror, trying to figure out

where you hurt the least?

	None
	1
	2
	3 or more

9.      In the last 12 months, how often

did you reflect upon your childhood,

when you’d sneak off to mall security,

claiming you were lost, just to hear

the sound of your name being paged?

	Never
	Sometimes
	Usually
	Always

10.  Compared to 12 months ago,

how would you rate your problems

or symptoms now?

	Better
	About the same
	Worse
	Much worse

Hungry Ghost

This is how our story is told: A sucker punch in reverse. Bruises, backlash, and scarred beginnings. You appear to disappear only to reappear. You orchid molester, tuning fork hell-bent by lechery. Even when I’ve used despair as amnesia mechanism, I still can’t shake you. Worm womb, devil’s divining rod, you’re always just a ruin and rumination away. The rotted meat hanging off your bones attracts stinkbugs and sickophants. No bullet or fist can punch holes in your breath. You bounce back jabberjawed and godsmacked, clean as freshly laundered money. My hungry ghost, we are not strangers, you and me. Countless times, I’ve locked you in my deepest, darkest panic closet, but you still escape. The war you wage is a war I wage against myself. To transcend is to be free. When I imagine you in your grave, I am dreaming of you as my slave.

When the Souls of Amelia Earhart and Langston Hughes Cross Paths

after Judy Grahn

She calls him: poem rocket.

He calls her: slow-roll ghost.

She calls him: Lenox Avenue hallelujah Cadillac.

He calls her: white dance on a dark-skinned night.

He says: cloud kisser, highstepper of the Ninety-Nines.

She says: lyric-tongued trailblazer, jazz Electra wing dancer.

He says: unknower of.

She says: Morse code.

She calls him: ebony heart on ivory page, sorrow stone            

skipping across ragtime rivers.

He calls her: dusky bayou drum goddess, a rhythm            

of disappearance beat into the blood.

He says: an itch in the imagination.

She says: that can’t be scratched.

She calls him: seeker of all things circling.

He calls her: shadow soaring over a dream deferred.

Author Bio:

Pushcart Prize-nominated poet Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. Ferguson was selected by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. (NBPF) to serve as the U.S. Beat Poet Laureate (2023-24) and the State of California Beat Poet Laureate (Sept. 2020 to Sept. 2022). In 2022, he received an artist-in-residence grant from the Valparaiso Foundation in Spain. He is a featured performer in the film What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have appeared in numerous anthologies and festivals, and he was a winner in Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match, L.A. He is the author of the poetry collections 8^th& Agony (Punk Hostage Press), Everything Is Radiant Between the Hates (Moon Tide Press), Somewhere, a Playground, and the novel New Jersey Me (Rare Bird Books). Ferguson is the lead editor of an anthology of CA poets entitled Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press).