Two Poems by Kevin Ridgeway‏

Valley Transit

On a rickety local
evening bus passing
an endless parade
of boarded up strip malls
framed by power lines
decorated with
dirty pairs of shoes
and fields playing host
to burned out oil rigs

a senile old man
asks me if I
know about the
Octomom

the endless
stream of
aluminum,
concrete
and
broken glass
pass by
in fluttering
blinks
and he
yells

--she has
Fourteen
Children!

billboards
smile in
the darkness
above us--
a woman
clad in lingerie
with gangland
graffiti
tattoos
lining her
bronze figure,

another
depicting retirees
embracing
each other for
Rose Hills
mortuaries

we climb
the hills
and enter
the heart of
the valley,
the millions of
lights twinkling
from each tiny
suburb,
slowly dying
but still
breathing



Notes on a Law and Order Marathon

They happen almost daily
Formulaic plots, coffee and blood
Spilling into each other
As we nosh lazily on stale popcorn
And masturbate infrequently
To our favorite female assistant DA’s
There’s one we like to call Hot Lips,
Another we like to call Big Red,
And our favorite Mocha Delight
The male cops spout cornball zingers
At the unlucky perpetrators
And haul them to the meat factories
Where they’ll get cut deals
From our favorite ladies
In our favorite skirts
As we frolic through these
daydream doldrums
Hours of suspended reality