Catfish McDaris

Mexican Wall Poems floating down like sweet snowflakes,marijuana bricks building a wall to Mexico, anine stone William S. Burroughs break dancesin a bed of dead batteries and bullet rain Sounds, thoughts, images, and secret Oulipodust sprinkled through this magnum opusof words. Edgar A. Poe and Dylan Thomas armwrestle. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin play Scrabble. I thought of when Cheech and Chong got pulled over, the cop says, “Youreyes are red, have you been smoking dope?”Cheech replies, “Your eyes are glazed, haveyou been eating doughnuts?” Pelican Bop "Two degrees in bebop, a PhD in swing, he's a master of rhythm, a rock 'n' roll king." Lowell George A buttery sun painted the walls redher fingers shadowed the tuneran circles all around the ivoriesher bullfrog bass never hitting on the nosenotes traveling high messages in the skyloop de loop an inverted Jenny bringing it homewhen the quiet grew the light faded to black. Pork Chop Giving life a hard timeher inviting smile wasa proposition, a porkchop for a hungry dog She was a beautiful bearuntil her long curved clawsgutted me leaving mewhimpering and bloody. Catfish McDaris won the Thelonius Monk Award in 2015. His work is at the Special Archives Collection at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is listed in Wikipedia. His ancestors were related to Wilma Mankiller from the Cherokee Nation. Currently he’s selling wigs in a dangerous neighborhood in Milwaukee.