Doug Draime

Poem For A Lost Uncle

by Doug Draime

I see you with your

counterfeit smile and

dead eyes, pushing death

like a sweet potato

with your nose. You have

picked a profitable lifestyle

and the world praises your progress.

I read about you in the

newspapers and watch you on tv.

You tell jokes like George Carlin

and you dance like Tommy Tone .

Other men and women murder

for you and more sign up to pull the triggers

every day. Your whores have snapshots

of everyone you’ve had killed.

Your wife is hooked on Chevas Regal

and high powered vibrators, and your darling

young son has sex with

fat old men smoking cigars. Uncle Sam, I’m

sorry to say, you have become one

degenerate motherfucker!

Dreaming Picasso

by Doug Draime

I ran down the alley

running from the cops.

I was so drunk I forget

for what.

I ducked into the back

room of a bar,

in the Bronx or

Brooklyn.

(who knows which, I was

drunk and dreaming).

But Picasso was

already in there, shit-faced

himself, hiding from

Dora Maar.

I quickly held my finger up to my lips,

because I knew

he’d start rattling on loudly

about her atrocities.

He smiled, though, and

got quiet for a moment,

but he couldn’t take not getting it out at all,

and he started mumbling

things

I couldn’t hear in

rapid fire Spanish,

his luminescent black

eyes big as mud pies

Doug Draime has been a presence in the 'underground' and small press since the late 1960's. He was part of the notorious Los Angeles poetry scene of the latter 20th Century. Most recent collection, (with Misti Rainwater-Lites,) is "Next Exit: Three" (Kendra Steiner Editions) and forthcoming from Tainted Coffee Press , "Dancing On The Skids". His poems, short stories and plays continue to appear in a wide range of publications worldwide. He currently lives in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountians in southern Oregon.