Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Ben Newell - One Poem

Sunny Side Down

Fearing a DUI debacle,
I call a cab to pick me up at my apt.
and deliver me to the bar;
I tell the driver that I feel lucky,
lucky as in some sweet thing
is going to take me home,
adding that this is it between us,
good luck and be good as we’ll
never see each other again;
he laughs and hands me his card
because he knows better—
Sure enough, four hours later
finds my ass pressed into the
passenger seat, wasted and hoarse
from too many cigarettes and
trying to talk over the band;
it’s just as well; there’s nothing
to say in this confusion, staring at
the meter, analyzing yet another
poor performance, already dreading
the next noon; that’s when losing
really hurts, stretched out beneath
a hangover sun shining just for
you.



Ben Newell is a fortysomething library clerk in the Jackson, Mississippi area with poems appearing in Carcinogenic Poetry, LUMMOX, Negative Suck, Nerve Cowboy, Yellow Mama, and other underground publications.

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