Sideburns in the Sun

By Nathan Payne

The original book, copyrighted in 2004. Contains all the sickening hits.

Includes early, rambling pieces such as "Rat Food/All You Can Eat" (which title eventually inspired the album "All The Diamonds You Can Eat"), drugged-out mid-period indulgences like "Cough Syrup Soup," and finally culminating in 2 psychedelic masterpieces, "Zen as Fuck" and "Cartoon Angels in a Fictional Paradise."

Aside from 4 hand-bound & painted chapbooks that were gifted away years ago, Sideburns in the Sun is only available as an eBook. Check out the greatest hits collection of the same name on Bandcamp.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nathan Payne
• Release date: Jun 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476156460

Nathan Payne

Nathan Payne was born on Patuxent River Naval Air Station in 1973. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a Bachelor's Degree in English in 1997. His first solo album, Angels on Fire, was released in 2001. He is the leader of Nathan Payne & The Wild Bores, a psychedelic rockabilly band with several chapters throughout the United States and around the world. He has 21 homemade studio albums to his credit, most of which are available on Spotify, Pandora, and other online platforms. His entire discography is available on Bandcamp via private download code. http://www.pablosmoglives.com http://www.soundheartrecords.com

Book preview

Sideburns in the Sun

collected poems

1998-2004

by

Nathan Payne

© 2004

Smashwords Edition

© 2012

www.pablosmoglives.com

Table of Discontents

1998

Sain't

Postscript to an Unwritten Suicide Note

Jesus, The Terminator, and Me

Yo Te Amo/What A Wreck We Am!

Last Rites of an Idiot

1999

The Bath

A Foreign Country Called Home

Happy Dick & Drug Bunny

Rat Food—All You Can Eat

2000

Chinese Handcuffs

Poem for Crazy Amy

Today I Yawn Underwater And Kill Fish With My Laughter

Day at the Beach

Ladies' Room

White Trash Heav'n

2001

Love and Brimstone

Song of My Self-Loathing

The Nowhere Mind

Grapefruit Spoon

The Prosperous Life

Night of the Banana-Crème Robot Aliens

Foolish Blood

Suck on This Town

Poem on Ringo's Birthday

Fried Hotdog Sandwich

Popcorn Lions

The Weedeaters

2002

Poetry is for Idiots

Cough Syrup Soup

The Donkey Palace

Control Freaks

Hello, My Name Is Christina Ricci

July 1, 2002

2003

The Clown Room

A Junky Manifesto

Zen as Fuck

Soap Dick/I'm A Rat

2004

Cartoon Angels in a Fictional Paradise

The American Ideal

1998

Sain't

I need a shower not a confession—

(too long subsisting on wine & sun-dried poetry)

prefer cities

to the brutal nudity of nature

ev'ry shower a confession

—I feel like I love yeah

you

right.

crying

in obnoxious freedom cities

under bridges of streetlights,

O Glory!

my only audience a wedding cake laced with spermicide,

I urinate rainwater

into the sink

and bask in the steel rooves of rainbows, automatic.

—towel wet

with sin and sweat,

I wring the wrath of a hotwater God

Into the drain at my feet,

hell

September 1998

Sestri Hotel

San Francisco

Postscript to an Unwritten Suicide Note

Ah, but it's good to be alone—

it might as well be,

since I'm going to be alone anyway

mosquito bites and blood on my cigarette butts,

she's nowhere in sight

and the sun wears a uniform,

but I'm sure I could catch a disease to keep me warm at night

—I'd rather die in the arms of a steamroller

take communion with two tablets of alka seltzer,

flesh of my flesh,

filth of my filth,

I dig an altar,

an ashtray six feet deep,

and toss sleep into an oil drum

to be burned as fuel for the bums,

as tomorrow I don't care to know

I have bored it seems even God

September 26, 1998

Ocean Beach

San Francisco

Jesus, The Terminator, and Me

I was always childish, even at the age of ten

drawing spaceships,

writing candystore operas on my homework assignments

and chewing bubblegum with my toes

poor kid

I once heard my aunt say to my mother,

as if there was something wrong with me only everybody else

could see,

I have since learned to laugh at the overweight personalities

of grown-ups

in sixth grade the fat girl was in love with me,

in eighth it was the one with the big mouth

in ninth grade it was the seventh grader

and in twelfth it was the ninth grader

I was born with no sense of rhythm

in my mom's family I was my father's child

and on my dad's side I belonged to my mother

they have tried to pawn their fear off

on me like a family heirloom—

set it on the mantle,

keep it in the family,

breed the master race of losers.

my father marries demons and blames them for it

and I have male friends with more motherly instincts

than my mother

dreams are the delicious impotent feast we sit down to

at the holidays...

not this year.

I have been my own father

and will be my own mother

I will no longer sleep for your amusement...

...playing dead to avoid losing baseball games

and throwing berries at rockfights

I will not be your sideshow centerpiece,

am I not more valuable than a marshmallow on a stick?

I am much more valuable than many marshmallows

I will scream until my lungs explode

and my words take flock like fireworks

in this monochrome sky

my lover and I

will leap fences easily as birds

and twice as high

I have polished my magic carpets like copper

I have sold my mother's paintings for gallon jugs of hot dogs

your obdurate perfection will be succeeded by luckless mistakes;

the only way to win is by not caring if you lose

I smoked the last cigarette of my childhood,

and was pleased when I coughed

I have narrowed it down to Jesus,

The Terminator,

and me...

everybody needs parents

October 8, 1998

Chicago, IL

Yo Te Amo/What A Wreck We Am!

here's how ya thduit—

eucalyptus girl

in apocalyptic lipstick

on m'waukee talkie

I don't believe in the pilots of biplanes

looking at you I wonder if that's true

October 8, 1998

Chicago, IL

Last Rites of an Idiot

I am bored with cardgames, apologies, and the three-penny arguments of millionaires

I do not need your insulin sunshine, devout flypaper kisses, or mornings digested by

radios when dirty socks are good enough

I do not want your advice on my anarchy—publish yourself with spraypaint

and then we'll talk

I do not want a receipt for my salvation

I do not want a parking lot under my sunset, caffeine in my jizz, or a haircut

I want sand in my teeth and a photograph of your voice and six dollars in change

for washing machines in the desert, restrooms

I want wine lodged between my teeth and hangovers condensed on the roof of my

mouth

to consume cleaning products and urinate rainforests

baby tree nurseries to replace the old folks' homes of forests

cockroaches in my busfare and $15 a week in pesticide addiction

to swim in linens and bedsheets under a sky of plain pale plaster

to construct sundials out of erections

to hunt magazines with rifles shaped like clocks, glue newspapers to television sets, and

make long distance phone calls to graveyards

to overdose on health food and be prescribed morphine and doritos

to domesticate the homeless and the occupiers of prisons and get a tattoo on my

breakfast cereal

to holdup convenience stores with bad breath and an empty wallet

to build an origami army and declare war on the manufacturers of burlap underwear

to sing along with the 10:00 news and write letters of temporary insanity to garbage men

and politicians

to stand starving alone or filthy in supermarkets full of payphones and white people

to insert razor blades into the halloween candy of the soul

to devour paychecks and plant bomb threats in the flimsy skyscrapers of kindergarteners

to paint businessmen on