Jeff Lair lives in the Seattle megalopolis where he writes and performs poetry up and down the Puget Sound. Jeff Lair turns out poetry’s pockets for the spare change of consciousness that clinks against the keys of life’s dissonant chords where he discovers the sweeter harmonies hidden. If Jeff Lair could write a bio, he wouldn’t need to write poetry. Self reference in the third person makes Jeff Lair sound like Bob Dole. Jeff Lair finds this disturbing. Better you should just buy his books: TALL GRASS (210 pages 22 illustrations 55 poems 20 bucks--includes postage in the lower 48 U.S.) and BUCKING AND BRAYING AT THE DARK EDGE (166 pages illustrations poems 20 bucks--includes postage in the lower 48 U.S.) contact: JayLair@gmail.com

coffee, tea or free will

la flaca

last call

coffee, tea or free will? (May 20, 2009. Issue 5.)
(From his new book: Bucking And Braying At The Dark Edge)

your captain
has turned off the seat-belt sign
and you are free to move about
the cabin.

there used to be a blurb in there
about smoking
but now
when I fly
I try not to think
about that.

moving about
if you can really call it that
is a claustrophobic
exercise
contorting down narrow
aisles
dodging flight attendants
& beverage carts
to and from too few too small
restrooms.

for what it’s worth
your captain grants you this
freedom.

back and forth up and down
click-crash open overhead doors
magazines empty cups & wrappers
crumpled on the floor under seats
shoved between cushions &
in the aisles where invariably
some frequent-flyer leans an elbow
on the back of someone’s seat
and too-many-mini-bottles-loud
favors them
with banal travelogues
of heroic-middle-management
commuter-shuttle-self-importance
fantasies
before the jostling squeeze of it
finally sets him
snoozing in his seat
again
until the plane lands in Chicago
Denver
or Dallas Fort Worth.

we seem to be able to move around
a bit
in these bodies of meat and skin
hurtling through space
on this warm wet breast of a planet
and even to make a mess of it
all the while
as if a flight attendant
might clean up after us
as we move and move
spread out crowded together
lay waste to it
loiter &
harangue each other
with our own self-important-true-lies
about it
smoke cigarettes & exhaust ourselves
then doze away the rest of
the trip
pretending not to remember
this flight doesn’t land
anywhere like
Chicago
or Denver.

la flaca (March 26, 2009. New Moon. Issue 2)

la flaca in a mannequin suit on high-enfeeblement-heels
digs designer nails deep in her painted back-door man in black
foot-long Ozark-goatee tattooed sleeves &
buttoned cuffs says: you don’t know from bright bulbs
& sharp tools just get me past level yellow now and
then he goes off about a home-land back-street deal
sealed in switch-blade blood on the tracks down
the arms of Jesus Mary and T-rex on the methadone-dole
drinking down free crap-coffee & McCounseling nuggets
for the fear and loathing consequences of truth
or dare games people play: kiss & tell bang bang yr’ dead
kick the can then kick the bucket a body gotta do
what a body gotta do but she ain't havin’ none of it: c’mon 
she said &
he did. 

balding Bob-Marley-Marlboro-man red dread-locks
locked-up thirty-days let go noon fixed-up now down 
two blocks at the Blue-Banjo black-tar noddin to some 
Budweiser-wisdom Chopper spews to bar-stool pews 
what all his daddy said about a gospel plough & 
fallow souls mulched in sin leans in &: 
hey you got any vicodin 
but Lola’s only holdin cee-oh-el-lay cola & hand-jobs 
under the table dances Jackie dances juke-box chain-saws 
drunk flashes ass & tiny-tits & all the balls keep on breakin 
gettin racked-up backed-up against grafitti walls Billy-bob 
blow-job bargains one more day on Lenny’s twenty-plus 
bloody-nose interest dribbled crimson urinal-cookie IOU 
one for the road to perdition jumpin-Jack flash-back Nam-vet 
field-jacket John-Deere hat burns Camels back
to back killin pints of steady-hand & shots of easy does it  
flips a semperfi zippo says:
kids these days &
red dreads
nod.