Saturday, July 28, 2018


On A Hunger: At Bottaio

reading slowly, precisely, these
exquisite hyperreal sentences, images

like Dalí’s ink drawings found in 
that remote Catalan village

or dream paintings, dissolving
time, or an enlarged nightmare, 

story, all process and
excellence of materials, stories 

about materials themselves
a joke on the expertise

as it were, yet moving
into a thing indescribable

and then I wake up


copyright © 2018 by patrick o’hayer

Sunday, July 22, 2018

police story: a fragment

(for clancy sigal)

my ex-cop brother screws me over, so i go to his saloon, at foster and oakley, to have it out - we exchange words - i decide to punch him in the head, and start to walk around the bar to do so - his goons (regular customers) grab me and spread-eagle me on the pool table

should we fuck him up, danny?

nah, just throw him out

they throw me into the yard behind the joint, a weed patch filled with bricks, broken glass, and dog shit - i pick up a brick and walk around, planning to break his storefront window - i change my mind

instead i stop in the joint across the street and within 30 seconds i'm slugging it out with the asshole owner and land out on foster ave

i head home, foster ave bus to the L train - i wake up at the end on the line, at howard st, and start insulting two chicago cops, there on anti-mugging duty - i am taken into custody and deposited in the drunk tank at the summerdale station, down the street from the saloons - i use my phone call to contact my asshole saloon-keeper brother, home asleep after closing

he arrives in a cab, which waits, dukes the watch sergeant (whom he knows, or knows how to talk to), and i'm released into the night (no arrest record, no bail, nuttin') - big brother sends me home in the cab after he gets dropped off

this is going on your tab, is all he says


copyright © 2012 by patrick o'hayer