Mike Perkins

 

Mike Perkins is a 52 year old father of four, two still at home, residing in Columbia, Missouri, with his wife.  He teaches at a local liberal arts college.

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Two Poems (July 20, 2010. Issue 19.)

Beat It

allen ginsberg penned two sonnets
this one is my third, one more than that bard
wonder if he would howl or think it queer?
an unknown veteran of rejection slips
besting him by one Portuguese poem
of dubious value and metre
or beat it with Kerouac on the road
like dharma bums looking for an angry fix
until rescued by william carlos william
the official physician of poetry
or perhaps escape like the wild boys
to eat opium in Kansas fields
we all want the dubious electronic box
to cure our self inflected addictions

A Convertible at Night

relief from a corrosive sun
nothing like it
in the summer

driving with the top down
on cursive roads
full of turns

night bugs splatter glass
contemporaneous chorus
cicada sacrifices

black darkness cloister
rocking in the curves
comfortably