Rick Lupert is a friend of mine who lives and writes poetry in Los Angeles.  A lot of his work is funny as well as meaningful, something I’ve always admired about him.

Rick has been involved with L.A. poetry since 1990. He is the recipient of the 2014 Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center Distinguished Service Award and was a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets for two years. He created the Poetry Super Highway and has hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading since 1994. He’s authored sixteen collections of poetry, including The Gettysburg Undress (forthcoming from Rothco Press) and Nothing in New England is New, and edited the anthologies Ekphrastia Gone Wild, A Poet’s Haggadah and the Noir anthology The Night Goes on All Night. He also writes and draws (with Brendan Constantine) the daily web comic Cat and Banana. He is regularly featured at venues throughout Southern California.

http://poetrysuperhighway.com/
http://facebook.com/rickpoet
http://www.catandbanana.com/

***

August

“August, die she must…”
– Paul Simon

 

I don’t trust August.
After the sweet promise of May.
The deliberate joy of June.

The eye-blink of July.
August wants you to trust it
but pretty soon it slaps you in

the face with September.
You’re left feeling like a
school boy in heat.

Wondering where your
summer underwear has
gotten to.

Oh, August
you are a liar.
You pretend to be summer

but you might as well be
the first half of October.
You’re a broken down

rail car. You’re
rusty and hot, and not
in an attractive way.

I wouldn’t recommend
your affections to a homely tree.
Now that I think about it

July, I’m not sure
you’re telling me the truth either.
I could swear I saw

you and August holding
hands at the stock exchange.
You’re making it so

I got to the store and
the only watermelon left
is a sad one

from the Depression.
I just want it to always be
the third week of June.

I want to still feel
the distant spring on my back.
I want anything that even

looks like a sweater
to be imprisoned in Australia.
Oh, August

you make my face hurt.
My swimming pool melt.
My groundhog apologize

for coming out too early.
I don’t trust you.
Never have.