The Hangover Continues

(Inspired yet again by the amazing work of my friend, Jeremy Nathan Marks)

The Hangover Continues


This is no cinematic experience.  This 
is not the morning after.  There is no 
pill to rid us of our pregnant horror.  
These jokes sour in our mouths.

We’ve already missed the party and still 
the vomiting goes on.  Still the nausea 
without relief and every pill to calm 
is yet another emetic.  Every treatment turns 

to the oil of serpents.  A stinging unguent 
of reptiles squirms in the bottle.
Every one proves to be the cheapest 
rotgutmoonshine with a handful of 

healing botanicals tossed in as an 
afterthought to cover the burning 
of the grains, the torching of the crops.
The fire on the corn transforms the heat 

and sweat into blood and fire fed back 
and fed up and poured down gullets
too slack to gag, too full to feel feedback
from the feed bag gulleys until the streets 

run red and blue and black and still the 
vomiting goes on, still the hangover proves
incurable, still the hangover hangs over 
and over and over again and still hopes 

dangle like clouds of cotton candy for
monkeys struck dumb and stuck in cages
for another round, another spin another 
spill upon the pavement and it doesn’t 

matter how many times you stick your 
finger down your throat there is always 
more to come up.  The i.v. is still in the vein.
The feeding tube comes in the back door.

The surge is ass-backwards and the purge 
is impossible.  The source is a spring of sour 
fluids.  The water table is set.  The setting’s on 
spin and the spit itself is spat upon.