GAS Featured Poet: PW Covington

 

PW Covington writes in the beat tradition of the North American highway. He is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and has featured at San Francisco's Beat Museum. Covington's most recent collection of poetry, malepoet. is published by Gnashing Teeth Publishing.

Liver Spots

I have been watching age spots
Appear on my arms and hands
A few more
On my neck and shoulders

Like both of my grandfathers
Testimony
To days
Spent outside
Under violent ultraviolet
Radiation

I’ve scraped and scratched
Sloughed them off
Yet, they return
Like blemishes
During a criminal history
Background check

Concealable, still
Yet indelible
No longer worth the effort
They tell the story
In liver-tinted tones
Of summer days at sea
Sunbathing on prison concrete rec-yards

Of living a life uncovered
     unscreened

Tanning my flesh
In tiny, speckled,
Aftermath

Side effects
Of inescapable
Exposure

Off Screen

The things we love
Or hate
The most
Prepare us best for death
Unseen, off screen
To just the right or left
Valium nights and
Even the dog needs

Thorazine
Learn to let go
As it gets torn away
A chorus of a million horny angels
Kicked off AM radio
By angry men with
Steel-strong fists
Iron lungs

Inhale
And know
There comes a time
When the air will no longer
Be able
To sustain you
Entertain you

Hitting marks, unseen
Off screen
To just the right
Or left