2 poems
By RJ Walker
FireCracker
They boy held the firecracker
like he would have held a gun.
Irresponsibly.
He lit the fuse
cocked back his hand
and threw it
in his mind.
But, out of his mind
in reality
the firecracker
exploded in his hand
immediately next to the side of his head.
The force of the tiny blast
was enough to push
his eye
out of its socket.
I scooped his eye up
and took him to the hospital.
To this day,
whenever i see a young boy
act like a tea party republican
I am reminded
of Firecracker Face.
And I Laugh
as my eyes
hang at the corners of my dumb mouth
by the meaty tendon
thinking
of all the people I had loved
who also had blown up in my face.
Show and Tell
Before I was born my great uncle shot himself in the head with a shotgun. A spray of lead angels and bloody devils blown right up into heaven. Dad always said that room in grandma’s house
was haunted. But it was never the room that was haunted.
Look everyone this is the shotgun I was born holding.
I brought it to show and tell. I carry it in my spine now
sometimes in my forearms or in my skull.
If you look down the barrel
you’ll see my great uncle looking back at you like a periscope.
All Vietnam and wailing like his mother
so loud you’d think it was loaded.
Because it is.
When you aim down the sights,
you can hear him.
“It doesn’t matter what you’re aiming at.
What matters is how you feel when you aim it.”
See the notches carved into the barrel?
Someone was punishing the shotgun in their arms
for not being wings. All those cuts have the same last name as me.
Bet you wanna know why the stock is shaped like a bottle.
Bet you wanna know why the hammer is shaped like a lover.
Bet you wanna know why the trigger is shaped like nothing
but a trigger.
Sometimes at Night, I shiver so loud
all the shotgun shells fall out.
They all have my name on them.
RJ Walker
RJ Walker is a performance poet and voice actor from Salt Lake City, Utah. RJ Has performed at the national poetry slam numerous times, representing Salt Lake City, and Sugar House Utah. At the Individual World Poetry Slam he was a showcased poet on final stage and placed 6th overall at the 2017 Individual world poetry slam. RJ won the NPS Spirit of the Slam award for organizing the first Compliment Deathmatch event. The next year he placed 4th at the National Poetry Slam with the Salt City Unified team. He is a winner of the button poetry video contest. He is the host and operator of The Greenhouse Effect Open Mic, SLC’s longest running and most popular open mic style event. His poem, Deceit & I, received viral reception on youtube and imgur, published in journals like A Plus, EMS1, and EMSWorld with over 500,000 cumulative Views. His most recent collection, The Ghost Was Always The Machine, is available from Blue Sketch Press.