Poetry by Michael Frissore

Four poems
by Michael Frissore

Cookies

Cookie crumbs fall like rain onto your blouse, red as Bozo’s nose so that flowers may bloom from said blouse like Twizzlers or Krazy Straws. But no. I eat them and your blouse, like Cookie Monster before his vegetable diet. And you stand before me in your bra and say, “What the fuck?!?”

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Arts & Crafts

She thinks I’m immature because I like to draw swastikas on Etch-a-Sketches and spell the C-word with wooden letters at the art and crafts store. I say, “Well, if that’s immaturity, Mister, then I don’t want to be mature.” And she says, “Stop calling me ‘Mister’.”

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I Wrote a Poem

Who are you, the fucking Love Boat bartender? You can’t write poetry. You can hardly read, for fuck’s sake. All right, lemme see it. If this is a dirty limerick I’ll spank you into next week. Gimme that. What the fuck is this? It doesn’t even rhyme. This is like what a thirteen-year-old writes in her diary. Are these your innermost thoughts, Debbie Gibson? Are you gonna recite this while you skip rope and play hopscotch? Is this for the boy you like at school? Are you gonna slip it in his locker after third period? Why not title it “Ode to Rainbow Brite”
or “My Little Pony?” Queer, with your poems. Go to your room.

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Stealth Portrait

An enigma
wrapped in a dichotomy
wrapped in a flaky crust.

The elephant in the room,
the fly on the wall.

The unknown child of noisical fantasy,
a child of black crayons,
sitcoms and wrestling action figures.

The social phobic renegade,
the superstar of lazy indifference.

An anarchic, sarcastic, spastic man.

Medicated median comedian.

A Picasoo or a Dali,
perhaps a Gacy.
Maybe Dogs Playing Poker
or that nonsense your
kid gave you and you
stuck on the refrigerator.

If I drew one it would
look like a witch or a
fortune teller,
or a character from
Wallace & Gromit.

Because I stink at portraits.


Author bio:

Michael Frissore’s prose is forthcoming in print in Monkeybicycle, and online at Flak Magazine and LitBits. His short fiction appears online at Blood Orange Review, Antithesis Common, Cricket Online Review, The Flask Review, and elsewhere. He is a staff writer at The WRIToracle and a contributor at Undress Me Robot. Mike grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Tucson, Arizona with his wife.