Jason “Juice” Hardung

jason “juice” hardung
the blood city

Gina sold me prescription drugs while she was sinking fast
into the couch peppered with
stiff burn holes
cigarettes escaped from her hand during ethereal nods
the fields of poppies bent over in chorus
to the wind's pitch
the harp in the hands of angels goes unsung
but it's there the flash that breaks
open her bursting bladder-like eyes and
she wipes the drool from the crotch of her lips.
My fidelity was high for her
when my cheeks were vacuum sealed I shook
dope sick and kicked sadder than the blues.
Her hand in her purse was a spring mountain melt off
rushing in my chest. I took the drugs
when her palm unfolded
fingers peeled back like a lotus flower in a reflection pond.
I walked the drugs into the bathroom
and gazed while tomorrow drained from my face
as the chrome prick punched and popped
subway cars rumbling through the blood city.

literary revolution

I'll bring the switchblades.
mine has a heart in the handle made of bone.
yours is fashioned from albino tiger's teeth
this country is swelling up like a broken eye socket
black blue bruised. millions of fists
a bar room brawl spilled out in the street.
cops in helmets on horseback but the horses are still.
tear gas doesn't work on people that can't cry anymore.
let's pull the higher-ups in a back alley by their petroleum masks
shake em down and pull the priests from their pocket
flick the stilettos under the streetlight
gut the motherfuckers like wild Texas hogs frightened from the bush
hang them upside down by their tap dancing shoes.
they can't dance their way out of this one.
it's our turn
to watch THEIR blood
spill onto the soil.

we all die like dogs that never got out

The old man died slowly in his wooden chair.
He watched everyday sink behind the hill from the big window facing east.
The cheeks of his generation sunk like California was supposed to.
The bird bath in the backyard, two cherubs spitting water, went from
alabaster white to pigeon shit green like the underside of my mother's
wedding ring. A largemouth bass belly in the sun tossed ashore by a fisher
man with stars in his eyes and a cigarette hanging from his lips.
Beer cans eventually mistaken for diamonds in the reeds.

When I was a kid I climbed his weeping willow in my Keds.
It's sad hair hung in it's face until autumn when the bones
were picked clean by winter's sharp tongue. Seasons actually changed
back then. Time elapsed photography on a public channel. A stray dog rib cage
curved like an abandoned tractor's jaws growling at the moon.
It must have crawled in through the fence.
Never finding it's way out.