bowling | After Hours Poetry

Happy Happy Holidays—

May your next black out…be the one you remember most. It is time to put on some Doors music and whip the horses eyes on this trip…This is where Six Ft. Swells Press truly shines…through the rose colored lens of our felonies and misdemeanors, illegitimate children and body doubles for world leaders…how wonderful to be such as we are…golden, eternal, tough, arrogant, untouchable and forceful. This is the holiday message Six Ft. Swells brings to you…and isn’t it a lovely one? full of funk and fucked up ness and blues and soul…man…that’s a good evening…..there comes a time when we have to sing…”this is the end…my only friend…the end…” I like that.

For everything that has happened this year… the slipping on the side of goodness aint that bad…You are good and we are good…what can top that? This is beauty and if it don’t turn out…oh well. Truth be told…I was trying to find some Quicksilver Messager Service. Anyway..Happy Holidays…etc. etc. Listen to the MC5 and Son House…Thank you Dr. Cullen you put me on this wicked path.. thank you.

In an effort to feature others that make our poetic hearts smile; I want to celebrate and acknowledge, a man who understands After Hours Poetry and taught me bullshit journal entry vs. substance…Ladies and Gentelmen…love him…touch him…feel him….John Cullen….

The Spark

Ladies get in free and compete

for the grand prize if they ride the bull

wearing a bikini. It’s Saturday night,

and every drink’s on special at the recreation

room behind the new arcade.

No one’s worked since Tri-Tool closed,

but The Spark’s lights brag twenty six

lanes with “imports on tap!”

The fifty dollar winner is the woman who strips

and sits the bull long enough to bounce her boobs.

Young guys stare and drink one buck draft.

Back on the lanes, a few guys bowl,

swapping frame for frame. Teenagers roll free-hand.

They sight the head pin, then spin their balls, harder

and harder, hoping they can roll over average.

–John Cullen, Big Rapids, MI

Originally from upstate New York, where he attended SUNY Geneseo and later worked in the entertainment industry. In the late 70’s he moved a hair west and ended up in Ohio for a few years, teaching at BGSU. In the 80’s he moved to Michigan where for many years he has kept bees and taught at Ferris State University. Currently he lives a bit further west, purchased a few horses to keep his dogs company, and continues to teach at Ferris. His poetry has appeared recently in Grist, The Milo Review, Bicycle, and IthacaLit. His chapbook Town Crazy won the 2013 Slipstream Chapbook contest and the title poem received a Pushcart nomination from Slipstream Press. He can be contacted at cullenj@ferris.edu.