Alfonso is a friend who has read at OSFR I and has some new poems he'd like to share. Please enjoy!
QUICK PLUG: While I am on the subject of enjoyment, I recommend suckas who gots to know check out Juliet Cook's 13 Myna Birds. Really interesting design and format of rotating poems; many imagistic, expository, and confessional...all really damn good.
Alfonso Colasuonno is a 25 year old writer based out of Brooklyn, New York. He is a former New York City secondary school teacher. He graduated Beloit College with a BA in Creative Writing. This is his second submission to O Sweet Flowery Roses and has also been a performer at an O Sweet Flowery Roses-sponsored event.
MANIFESTO
Regarding your “poetry” -
It is not complex enough
Nor is it obscure enough
To catch even a faint glimpse of my eye.
The beauty of poetry
Is that it leaves the proletariat
Completely baffled as to what you mean.
Your writing is as obvious
As the cumshot
At the end of a porno.
You hit people over the head
With your arcing stream of ideas.
That is not poetry.
Maybe it is spoken word.
It doesn't have the staccato
The rhythm
The je ne sais quoi
Of poetry.
I have never heard
Something as complementary of my work.
No, this is not poetry
That you learn in classrooms
Or from going to readings
And it never aimed to be.
A visceral reaction
A laugh
A cringe
A masturbation break
This is what I aim for
Not bored applause
Like you aim for.
BAD EDUCATION
I live a life of multiplicities
Responsible for the future of this country
A New York City schoolteacher.
Gutterpunk? (On weekends?)
My preferred mode of dress is a ratty t-shirt
With a picture of Exene Cervenka
And a pair of jeans with holes at the kneecaps
And Eurotrash written in black marker on the pant leg
Like a wrestler's iconography on his tights
Signaling to all parties
A false delusion.
Yet, still, I wear the suit and tie
Monday through Friday
8 to 4
I suck Joel Klein’s cock.
I do it by the book.
How do I react inside those four walls?
Student comes in blazed
Out of his mind.
Reminds me of someone quite familiar
And how false it is to say - “get yourself together”
When having a few drinks later in the day
Crack up at the thought.
I think back to same student and wonder:
Am I really getting that old and yawn-mouthed
That a student needs to show up high to enjoy my class?
And then I realize he is not enjoying my class at all
But the company of his comrade in the next seat.
Question: Did I ever do that?
No. I stifled my laughter.
I respected my teachers.
I tell myself these lies
Until they become truths.
Am I doing a good job?
Can I say what I want to say? No!
The trick to education is knowing one golden rule
Your teachers are full of shit.
A trip to the principal’s office
And a great big unsatisfactory on my teaching record.
I’ve lost control:
Classroom
Self
Severance pay
Big fat j
On the dole
Back to bumming
Reading Bukowski
Drinking heavily
In short, a rubber room existence. There is no such thing as fate.
American Spirit
You have a high pitched voice
An anxious tremor
Resonating to the stratosphere
As if your lungs were never consumed with internal clouds of mist
Sucked in like steamboats in vile vortices
Smoke from a thousand fags
Ashes staining your fingernails yellow
Disguised under press-on nails
And teeth off white
Remedied by Crest white strips
And brushing at least three times a day
In painstaking circular motion
And time permitting, vertically and horizontally, as well.
But you still have a smoker's cough
And your perfume doesn't hide
The smell of countless nicotine cravings.
