Kevin Ridgeway

Swear Jar Militant

The only beauty to me right now
is the beauty of upstanding citizens
taking to the streets and shaking
the foundation on which
modern leaders have been built
until they come crashing down
at our feet, looking up
at the angry truth in
all of our patriotic faces—
when you kill our fellow citizens
and think we’re going to march
along like voiceless fools means
the only beauty to me right now
is real history in the making,
taking things back, however slowly
away from the scourge of hatred.
The swear jar I kept whenever
my father said the N word
is still deep within me,
and it’s come to collect
a fortune from the dark side
of the American Dream. 

Dead Malls

Scattered across
America, you will
always find them: 
merchandise mausoleums,
their wires emerging
from concrete craters
beneath the lonesome sun
of parking lot dunes,
where tumbleweeds
guard the sealed doors
beyond which one finds
drunks, junkies
and nameless transients
at rest in the darkened
inner sanctuary food courts,
dining on aged Orange Julius.
They do their last minute
Christmas shopping
in the wilted shops,
breathing in ancient 80s
asbestos and wielding
faded charms
for loved ones
squatting within 
the abandoned
sporting good
store tents, washing
their feet in cesspools
of drained fountains
flanked by chipped
baby angels, their
heads bowed and
whispering sweet
demolition prayers.

 

Kevin Ridgeway’s latest book is Death of the Coppertone Girl (Luchador Press).  His work has appeared in Hiram Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Gargoyle, Paterson Literary Review, Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy and Trailer Park Quarterly, among others.  He lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.