Stoned at Fenway

Game 162 at

Fenway…1997

Boston, 20 games out

of first place

Mo Vaughn swinging

for the fences

and swinging for a new contract

he never received.

The 3000 fans that bothered to

show up knew that

this might be the last

time seeing Vaughn in

a Red Sox Uniform.

Platt and I are sitting

in the last row of the

right field bleachers…

Smoking character—tying to

figure out how they’ll be in 1998.

Asking Rudy Pemberton if he would

like a hit…

Mo strikes out in the bottom of the eight.

One more toke from the joint in honor

of the Hit Dog’s last at bat.

As we leave to go to

The Cask and Flagon, Platt sums

up the whole day in four words.

“He’s no Ted Williams.”

Faded so Tight

But I’m One—

Pete Townsend

Aghast, anxiety

ridden…Unable to

take the shackles off

my ankles—torment

tempered within

private prison screams.

Defined by jaded DSM-V

textbooks.

I might be one, I might

also be two, or three

or the tenth million customer

who failed to walk away.

Could not walk away…

And god knows I tried…

Odd, stranded frown pasted on

my face…

Legs too thin, gut too

fat.

Loser plastered on my

being…

But, as I fail escaping the chains of

calamity—I still cannot recognize a

cause of destruction…

A stare into dankness…

Detained

within

myself…

I Forgot to Read the News, Oh Boy

The non-perfect hunter

on a pussy search

Among the lost mirrors

of beatdowns and low

rent scams…

I told myself not to drunkenly stagger

as I walked down slut row,

looking for submission from

a low rent champ.

She spittled out of her mouth…

Ten bucks for a blowjob…

90 pounds tops…

Begging for some dough

for another fix.

Towering over her…I began

to rain, wanting to feel her

agony of waking up on

a clustered sidewalk…

All I could muster is some slurred,

drunken pity…

Asking her before I broke down…

“Are you a reason that coke is bad?”

BIO:  Dan Provost’s poetry has been published both online and in print for a number of years.  He is the author of eleven books, his latest three Under the Influence of Nothingness released by Kung Fu Treachery Press, Rattle of a Realizer published by Whiskey City Press and One of theCrowd Always Bleeds from Alien Buddha Press are available via Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  He also had a chapbook published in 2020, The Curse, by Roaring Junior Press and another work, The Green Room—available in early 2021 by Analog Submission Press. Provost has been nominated twice for the Best of the Net and has read his work throughout the United States.  He lives in Berlin, New Hampshire with his wife Laura, and dog Bella.