The June Special Guest Poet is

Joe R. Lansdale

Please feel free to visit Joe at:http://www.joerlansdale.com/

THE WAITER

Did you really kill the waiter
with a butter knife
because your dinner was slow?

What a strange thing to do,
because he was not your waiter,
he was a cook that looks a lot like
me.

Your waiter.

SHORT TRIP

Driving along,
thinking things are pretty cool.
Being rich and having a mistress,
the wife at home,
not wanting to go with me
down to the store,
though she made me take my dog,
that she hates,
and I feel good about it all,
the way life is,
until I realize,
as I put on the brakes,
that they have failed,
and she knows about cars,
and that I have not had time
to change the insurance policy,
to remove her name,
and me and Rover,
will not make the curve.

VAMPIRE PROBLEMS

It’s funny that people now think of vampires as lovers.
We’re not really,
because we smell funny because we’re dead,
and it doesn’t really arouse much interest
with the living,
having sex I mean.
And fangs are not really sexy.
They’re just sharp,
and if we make you one of us,
you have to go to bed early morning,
before light,
and stay there until the day passes,
and you miss out on sunlight and
mid-day lunch specials,
having now turned to blood,
but missing how you used to like
sushi,
and Mexican food,
and sometimes Thai,
but no longer being able to stomach it,
and there’s that whole thing about your breath,
which is not pleasant
and all dogs bark at you,
and cats hiss too,
but worst of all,
is when you turn into a bat,
hang from a rafter in some dank
warehouse,
or castle,
and there’s little to no blood
to rush to your head,
and you awake confused,
because everything you’re looking at,
now in the dark,
is upside down.

WOLF NIGHT

A werewolf came after me.
I picked up a stick
and threw it,
and missed,
but the wolf chased it,
which gave me time to run home,
and catch a late night program
I had forgotten to set up on the DVR,
while the wolf sat outside my window,
sad,
at least until,
I slipped into the kitchen,
and then at the front door,
tossed him a bone.

Joe R. Lansdale is the multi-award winning author of thirty novels and over two hundred short stories, articles and essays. He has written screenplays, teleplays, comic book scripts, and occasionally teaches creative writing and screenplay writing at Stephen F. Austin State University. He has received The Edgar Award, The Grinzani Prize for Literature, seven Bram Stoker Awards, and many others.

His stories Bubba Ho-Tep and Incident On and Off a Mountain Road were both filmed. He is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan, and has been in the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame four times. He lives in East Texas with his wife, Karen.

Visit Joe R. Lansdale HERE.

See all of Joe R. Lansdale's books HERE.