Bad Kids #1 and #2
Tiny Tweaks™ for 2022: all notifications off, read fewer books, write more chapters, shave head, stretch, goddammit, and tone down the calorie-bombs before bed.
Two new poems for you today. Hope you dig ‘em. They’re from Sentimental Noise, a zine celebrating 25 years of Jagjaguwar, a record label I love so much.
Says my buddy Eric Deines (A&R and a painter), who edited the thing:
Issue #001 is equal parts oral history, poetry journal and black metal zine. Its 200 pages were created in collaboration with visual artist Nina Hartmann, and feature poems from the likes of David Berman, Robert Creeley and Sharon Van Etten, as well as tribute pieces from Dead Oceans founder Phil Waldorf and Secretly Canadian founders Ben and Chris Swanson, plus troves of images, inside jokes, heartfelt love letters and more.
You can get a copy for yourself. An unpublished Berman in there!
My poems, Bad Kids #1 and #2, are re-printed below with Jag’s permission.
Happy New Year,
Adam
PS: here’s a recap of other stuff I published in 2021:
Sad-Ass Soup & Bitch Filet - two poems in No Contact
Family Photos - short story at Vol. 1 Brooklyn
Bad Kids #3 (poem)
Old Angela Guard (short story)
December 32, 2020 (poem)
If you’re into the emails, please share the newsletter. I’m gonna spend more time here this year.
* Reading on phone? Better on a web browser for proper line breaks!
Bad Kids #1
Rush’s older sister lives with his mom
while Rush stays with his dad who is always working
always smoking, often mad
I don’t live near either of them, but she picks me up
every morning in a green Chevette, and I join Rush in the back
with a rotating cast of senior girls in the front passenger side
who live who knows where
This is serious driving, gone and moving,
steering several sides of town before the bell
at 8:15am
She blasts dirty rap
without concern
for our age or my religion
and I memorize Too $hort lyrics
talkin’ Nancy Reagan
lickin’ his dick
up ’n’ down
like. it. was. corn.
on the cob.
Bad Kids #2
Clayton kicked his shoe through the wall
and I’ve never seen a kid so scared
of his dad
But a couple days later, fearless again
he mixed a screwdriver in a Thermos
on the biggest night of our lives
We pitched a tent in Clayton’s back yard
and packed it with sleeping bags, snacks
and a lantern that took 6 fat Duracells
He buried the liquor in a mound of mulch
at the base of a Poplar
on his property line
We started at our old elementary school
for carnival games, face paint, and a dunk tank
with past teachers smiling inside
Later, we egged the houses of some assholes
and toilet papered a girl
we both liked
Circled back often
to the cushy campsite
to dig up and nip at the drink
I wiped bark from my lips
but faked all my sips, so
Clayton downed the whole thing
I crashed in the grass
by the neighborhood pool
while he went further into the night
Woke up to blue jeans heavy with dew and
Clayton shaking me:
We’ve got to get back!
Walked past a Jaguar parked on the curb
with the back window smashed and
hood ornament missing
Arrived at the tent before his dad came outside
with waffles and hot chocolate,
but just barely