Two Poems by Mark Spitzer

How to Get the Democrats to Hang Up on You

                                for John Mitchel

the call came in at eight o’clock
the caller i.d. had no clue
I figured it was a home security scam or something

it was the Democrats

they always want a hundred bucks
cuz I gave for Obama
but since Obama ain’t running
I ain’t giving

so I donned…
                                                              THE PERVERT VOICE!

low, raspy
                                     self-         chuckling
like some creepy-ass masturbator
panting fiendishly into the phone
like you’re a naked hottie
and you’re getting dressed
and your pitbull is glaring at you
and he’s got an angry red boner

that’s the kind of voice I mustered
the voice of that dog

poor woman, I told her
as slowly and as pervy
as I could
the first thing
that popped into my mind
        
“What?” she asked
after I finished
checking to see
if she heard correctly

so I told her again
even slower
even pervier

                      “I’m not wearing…

                                                                any underwear”

anyway
sexually harassing
the Democrats away
makes a guy wonder
what other hate crimes
he’s capable of.

---

Cardinal Sin

after the funeral
I didn’t want to go back to my lonely mancave
so I went to Old Chicago’s
got a beer
and some chicken wings
hoping someone I knew would walk in

Ramone walked in
we had a chat and drank a beer
I was glad when I left

but I still didn’t want to go home to my empty mancave
so I grabbed my fishing pole
and my tackle box
and some worms

then went to this pond behind Furniture Row
it’s a holding pond for drainage from Target and Best Buy and Home Depot and all that
all the parking lots and gutters and ditches empty in here and then it flows
down to Lake Conway

anyway, there was rubble on one side
suburbs on the other
the sky was oranging and
I figured that when it got dark
I wouldn’t catch shit

but when it got dark
I suddenly caught
a small yellow bullhead
it was cool: about eight inches long
and tough-looking
like a little bully
I threw him back

then I caught something bigger
it had some tug on it
it was a small channel cat
maybe 14 inches, almost
two pounds

I threw it back as well
I was happy
then I caught another
pugnacious yellow bullhead

some ducks swam by
I could hardly see them
it was nice
it was fucking
nice.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Spitzer is the author of twenty books as well as the Editor-in-Chief of the Toad Suck Review. He writes books about fish and fish write books about him.