Welcome to Underground Literary Adventures. A really happenin' place that showcases poetry, fiction, and a variety of material from underground writers.
We'd like to thank Pat King and Wred Fright for maintaining the blog from 2004 until now -- publishing works of 37 different writers in less than a year!
Patrick Simonelli and I are excited to take on the editorial duties of this blog, and look forward to seeing submissions from great minds.
This week's post features the poems of Brady Russell and Cynthia Lewis.
- Marissa Ranello & Patrick Simonelli
This Is Not Your TV Show
by Brady Russell
If you had a TV show
Everyone would tune in to see you
Because everyone gapes at you
But this is not your TV show
If I were a ninja
I would say you yank me out of hiding
If I were Superman
I would say Gold Kryptonite is just like crack
If I were a painter
You would try to buy my work to use in ads for biscuits
This is not your TV show
If I were a boxer
I would go spar in every gym under different names
If I were an astronaut
I would hit ignition early to escape you
If I were the President
I would make the FBI watch you – I would
This is not your TV show
If I were one of the X-Men
I would beg Arcade to hide me in the Murderworld Amusement Park
If I played trumpet in my own night spot
You would be the train blowing and rumbling through the walls of the club
If I were a movie star
I would call you a lousy motivation
This is not your TV show
If I were Spider-Man
I would say that I won’t have beers with you, Mysterio
If I were a novelist
I would make my readers hallucinate you then kill you
If I were a cop on robbery-homicide
I would make sure the captain gave me a partner, a partner
This is not your TV show
If I were a Knight of the Table Round
I would tell you I have but one liege
If I were a revolutionary
I would call you a demagogue and a poseur
If I were a wizard
I would find the spells to forget tempt me nightly
This is not your TV show
If I were a frontier marshall
I would want you to be glad we kept out of the papers
If I were a samurai
I would say you dull my blade and my heart
If I were a riverboat pilot
I would steer clear of your channel
This is not your TV show
If we were in a motorcycle gang
I would ride off from some road house one day and you would have no way to
know where I might go
This is not your TV show
You don’t have a TV show
Brief Bio:
Brady Russell is a political organizer who will live in Madison a little while longer. He has a flash fiction blog (along with other efforts) which can be found at Brady's Flash Fiction
Shallow
by Cynthia Lewis
You don't know me
so get your nose out of the air--
you'll only get rainwater in it
At least I'm not a clone;
I can think on my own.
I can distinguish between an emotion
and a noun
I can tell the difference between
silicone and sincerity
You do not move outside your limits
You do not color outside the lines
I will not conform to your preference
so you can tell me mine
I am real. I can think
I can move without a hand
to pull my strings
You're so busy trying to get
others to follow your path,
you can't see where it's leading you
I admit, I rarely look before I leap--
but at least I'll jump into the water,
uninhibitedly, before I'm quick to judge
how cold,
how deep.
Weeds
by Cynthia Lewis
No respect, no respect--
they breed on neglect.
Rotted, unwanted, they sprout.
Barren and brown, they grow.
No green thumbs or kid gloves
to love and protect:
no promising seedlings to sow.
They are the detested eyesores
on the side of the highway,
or in the cracks of an empty backlot--
redundant, untended,
they stand, quite unmended;
they're always discovered
but rarely are sought.
They ask no permission, or reason to be--
this is all that they are, and,
all that they need is the air,
and daylight, and a foothold beneath.
Deemed unsightly and useless,
nothing short of a nuisance;
abuse them, misuse them, if you must--
through the torture, they thrive,
despite hatred, survive,
in spite of your sneers of disgust.
So pull them and cut them,
remove them from sight:
they shall only grow again,
seeking the cracks in the empty back alleys
in their desperate search for the light.
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