Tell your dog, I bite.

Tell your Jesus
I too
have a blood-wet diaper
and a tendency to fall in love
with stray women at art galleries.

I got a hair net for my halo.
A bag for my jokes.
A side kick who smirks
and slaps himself
in time to a vicious disco beat
our punk drummer makes.

Tell it.
Go tell it on the mountain
and in our over-stuffed malls.
I have a mandate, a kill order
from the Big Boss who says it’s open season
on right-wing nut jobs
the unvaccinated unwashed masses
those Libertarians with large-ass paychecks
and a need to protect liberties
of all fascists, Daddy’s simpering boys
in perfect jackets and PTA booster clubs.

I have a diorama to explain blood loss
and gerrymandering
to the proper Philistines of 2024 and 2025.
The sacred code of Robin Hood
and Johnny Appleseed
will be published in time
and tagged on billboards on Sunset.

Meanwhile I’m taking notes
on jazz fusion and nostalgia.
Escape routes.

I have a pink slip to the Titanic
coughing up wet dust from ocean floor,
the sheet music Nero followed
in unholy bebop
head bobbing off time with flat feet.
It’s all plugged in and ready to go.
I found the keys to Daddy’s Cadillac
the notes for Sunday sermon.
I’ve got pre-headband Springsteen
on washed-out cassette
in the glove compartment,
a blunt pistol
and half-empty bottle of Brut
to cover the smell of desire that keeps leaking out
between the buttons of my shirt
marking me as human and in play
for the end game and big prize.
There’s a road map we can follow on our phones
into an unbroken world.
It never dies.

Dan Murphy, a sub-urban child of 12 Step punk romance, was raised on the sweaty streets of Canoga Park, Van Nuys, and Los Angeles, and aims always to depict the personal in the political, the spiritual desolation alongside consolation, and some meaning beside all that postmodern moaning. Murphy has published two poetry chapbooks—Seasick Serenade, Sung Partial (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and The Book of False Rhyme (Finishing Line Press, 2014)—along with poems in Field, Image, Zyzzyva, North American Review, Spillway, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He received a BA in English from UC Berkeley and lives in Los Angeles.