POEM FOR BEARDED WIZARD 231

For a shadow-being,
it’s bizarre how you know
everything about everything

proselytizing to social media’s lower orders
smirking behind that sweet ironic
Draconian curtain

of unaccountability
and back-patting your anon-self
within the folds of your wizard’s cloak.

How powerless and idiotic we are
that we don’t know what you look like
or how old you are or even what

to call you besides that dippy middle earth
handle you’ve brought forth for yourself,
we who are so plebeian in our sloppy stupid

fumbling and swinging
at thin air
as you snicker and toss your glitter

all over Twitter and Tumblir and Prancer and Dancer,
working your magic, oh how we never fail
to amuse you

with our simple families and
sensible shoes.
And if we guess anything wrong about you that well proves

how our education failed us,
not knowing the unknown, not seeing
the unshown. Did you go

to college or were you born
this masterfully skilled puppeteer?
We are at your mercy

computer creepo with the profile
pic of Gandalf elf of the staff, please don’t
ruin your sleeve tee-heeing at us

as we cringe and hope
you’re not some dog
torturer

but merely a quarter ton dick-choker
couched in a crotch-stinking basement
writing flash fiction about a sixties tv show to

outsmart the clownish working-
class Bukowski clones too tired even
to be embarrassed for themselves,

as we hope you’re not some freako
mofo cutting heads off dolls and yanking
hairs out of your shoulders like some flipped

out gorilla
but merely a record store manager
hipster or some grade school

sub too frightened of getting your whacking-off
hand slapped by the superintendent to be up-
front online or anywhere else.

Bio-less spook-a-ninny
cramming the most amount
of arrogance and acronyms possible into

your comments and leaving
them dead and useless on the altar of anonymity,
we truly hope you’re just some zitty telemarketer

or renaissance festival troglodyte holding
a turkey leg up to your
egg-hole and not

a preternatural psychopath who hasn’t
slept in a fortnight
with a couple hundred

rat traps spread around you in a wall-
to-wall pentagram
all ready to snap.

XXXXXXXX

A POEM WRITTEN BY A CRANKY OLD FART

So very merry and raring, the millennial darlings
of American literature
lick their greasy placenta
like foie gras
and nearly faint when they contemplate
their own awesomeness.

They hop around surrounded
by pods of grab-ass homies, so pc they pee themselves
and it takes some cheek muscles
not to hurl when they throw
howler monkey shit

behind kickstarter smirks, cutesy juxtapositions
(old worn out hoodies
with brand new 60 dollar jeans)
piggly wiggly toes, student-loaned
sapience
and breakfast cereal sweetened
with corn syrup and irony.

Their poetry is a card trick
they can never get right, a skateboard maneuver
they habitually bunk
but somehow still bow and thank
their fashion mag fans
(of all colors)
self-satisfaction hovering and fuming
like bean sprout farts and clove cigarettes
in the most photographable dive bars around.

The clever scenesters catch glimpses
of themselves in storefront windows
and pretend
it’s a happy accident, practice
smug juts, flip actressy hairdos, rub their abs
like they’re hoping

a genie might jump out, search for their
asses in their skinny pants, see themselves
in tv commercials
and swell with validation,
giggle like girls at slumber parties, while even death
is a joke because they’re sure
they will never die, immortal
as vampires or zombies, the fast talking

tattooed gals of literature, the you-
never-felt-the-passion
vegan-geeks of literature, the I-spent-a-week-in-
juvy-for-ripping-off-a-coke-
machine street poets of literature, the fuzzy faced poo
bears of literature, the life-as-we-know-it-
is-dead bottle-feeders of literature, hip

as the day is dope, cool

as the slope is steep.

XXXXXXXX

Mather Schneider was a cab driver for many years in Tucson and now lives humbly and happily in Mexico. He has four poetry books available on Amazon. His book about cab driving, 6 to 6, is available from Terrorhouse Press, here.

Mather’s previous feature for us was a short story, “Everybody Loves a Balloon.”