Excerpts from:

A POETRY HOUSE

Built With Four-By-Fours

An Ongoing Collection

of Pseudo-Immortal Short Poems

Chapter 1

Shortsighted Works

Written For Transient Profit

Mel C. Thompson

A Slacker Poet from Concord

In Search of Undeserved World Fame

The following are limited selections from Chapter One.

Contact the author for free PDFs and/or free chapbooks of full text.

On Matrimony And Mortgages

We went on a house-buying binge.

It was a symptom of young love.

Rescue efforts were suspended.

The judges held up zeros.

Our failed financial Olympics

Was followed by a wave of looting.

We joined the crime wave too.

No other market was profitable.

Of course we were divorced.

Success was our only polestar.

The church all but agreed

That the Saints erred badly

By claiming vows of poverty

Could come to spiritual good.

We were reunited by God’s grace

At a seminar on foreclosures.

Pleasant Hill, 8-17-2007.

My Phony Credentials

The diploma mill is so busy now.

They just printed my master’s degree.

I‘m in love with the print shop girl.

We plan a future of fraud together.

I am more than twice her age,

But crime breaks down barriers.

She’s got a Wall Street heart

In that U.C. Berkeley body.

She’s politically insane, but I

Just pretend I’m James Carville

In love with Mary Matalin.

Logic is ordered off stage.

It takes a positive attitude

To steal. To grab the proceeds,

Hand over fist. Greed is pre-

Orgasmic. I’m hot for power.

Pleasant Hill, 8-24-2007.

My Lawsuits Will Stand The Test of Time

It was a case of justice gone nowhere.

Each juror recused themselves secretly.

The judge looked stern, but was nearly

Asleep, daydreaming of exonerating

Himself from lawschool debts still

Unpaid decades later. His own children

Reminded him of boiler-room collectors

Calling from untraceable locations in

Banana-republic office buildings from

Some island-paradise-digital-plantation.

The defense presented a logical argument:

The client was too evil to be truly guilty.

The prosecution mumbled something

About morality, but not even the bored

Christians believed him. A mistrial was

Declared, and frankly no one cared why.

Pleasant Hill, 11-2-2007.

Girlfriend Left — Mommy Right

She bore the cross of self-denial,

Becoming a gossip columnist though

Her true love was Kantian Ethics.

It was the supreme sacrifice.

Her children had to be driven

In a life-affirming vehicle.

So she committed to a Humvee

As an act of parental devotion.

Their peers gazed in shock and awe

Which sent a wave of self-confidence

Through all their little chakras.

She was a vegan conservative.

She stopped talking to her brother

Who was disabled and unemployed.

She campaigned against sex offenders

And drank a case of wine a week.

Pleasant Hill, 8-19-2007.

Shopping For The Real Thing

They may be bipolar and suicidal,

But surely an herbal energy drink

And a little positive imagery will

Land them some sex and real estate.

They might be white yuppies, but

If they wear their caps backwards,

They’re sure to have ghetto soul.

Can you feel the beat, sisters?

They’ll end up accountants, but

Their childhoods will be “dangerous”

If they wear baggy pants as they

Blast their ten-thousand-dollar

Stereos and rattle our rickety

Windows in Pleasant Hill.

They are studying authenticity,

Taking seminars to master it.

Pleasant Hill, 8-22-2007.

Heading Toward The Exits

We’re sultry and hot, or whatever.

It’s time to plan your spontaneity.

You’ve got to be steamy. Rehearse

Emotions like you really mean it.

We wrote this bad movie just

For you and your burning passions.

Any kind of quiet contentment

Is not Third Millennium material.

Prop up that Samsara with all

You’ve got. Here’s some Viagra

To fight off your peace of mind.

Only the marketplace is free.

You remain on the leash, boy.

We’ll pump erotica into every

Gadget you’re now enslaved to.

I text you with all my heart.

Pleasant Hill, 8-23-2007.

Dance of The Bower Birds

The theism of plastic explosives,

The Jesus Christ of derivatives,

My self-destructive relationships,

It’s a triple shot of death dope.

We toss our babies from bridges.

We’re doing chemical boomerangs.

We’re doing life without parole

On the outside. You jail yourself.

I’m not seeing the profit margin.

There’s no win-win scenario.

If your body can handle abuse,

I’d start drinking heavily.

A student-loan murder-suicide,

A child-support scaffolding,

A Jim Jones mortgage Kool Aid,

This is my song of love to you.

Pleasant Hill, 9-7-2007.

For The Texas Troubadour

I’ve got a dark night hunger

For the lonely Lone Star road.

I remember Ernest Tubb

Singing Waltz Across Texas

In a slow drawl as I drove

On through the empty night.

And the high plains were

An outer space on Earth.

It was a foreign country

Located within our borders.

I am a foreign man who

Is technically a citizen.

My white cowboy hat

Curls up on the sides

Like flying fox wings.

My simple songs soar.

Pleasant Hill, 9-8-2007.

Unsocial Security

He whispers to lions before bedtime

And reaches into the mouths of hyenas.

Process servers can’t get next to him.

His creditors will simply have to wait.

His mind is deep in the asteroid belt.

Documents remain unsigned, for now.

When pressed for an answer, he draws

An automatic rifle and signals for silence

By putting one finger to his lip

And the barrel of the gun in the air.

Things are done a little differently

In this part of the tropical savanna.

Journalists lurk around the perimeter

Hoping for a photo or a hot quote,

But he has already metamorphosed

Into the cat man of South Africa.

Pleasant Hill, 9-27-2007.