The Last American Poet: Volume 2: Now and Then

By Nicholas Conlon

THE LAST AMERICAN POET, VOLUME 2, NOW & THEN is the second installment of the trilogy. The raw elements of the writings are poetic renditions of true stories and past experiences representing the life and times of a mostly obscure Chicago-based artist. The reader might ask then, Why? The answer is the work provides the reader with knowledge of a man before the world takes him away and rips him apart. Before the ridicule, before the judgments, before his soul is lost in stories that may or may not be true, the reader discovers what hes really about. In todays world, we find out so much so quickly, yet we know too little too late. In the case of Nicholas Conlon, The Last American Poet provides an open and ongoing investigation of an artist. There is no hiding. There are no lies. The book is a skeleton key to the master lock. All you have to do is turn the page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493179237

Nicholas Conlon

Nicholas Conlon was born Nicholas Daniel Farelli in 1975. Without elaborating on that too much; He was born in the infirmary of a penitentiary in a “town” that didn’t exist. 10 years later he was adopted by his step-father Patrick Joseph Conlon. Before the adoption Nicholas grew up in Chicago raised by a single mother, his grandma and grandpa and older sister of 7 years 364 days. He has been painting and writing for over 30 years. Growing up in Chicago, Nicholas learned everything on the streets in a meat and potato, beer and shot, Guns, Gangs and Athletics type of atmosphere. Nicholas was also well educated in the Catholic and public school system including a brief stint in a Benedictine Boarding school in Arkansas, finally finishing his education majoring in Theater at Southern Illinois University. The type of work Nicholas Conlon does is beautiful from afar but up close it’s dirty, torn, ripped 2 dimensional, back slash demented and it’s all over the board. Not one theme, not one style, not one medium. “If I could talk like I write, if I could sing like I dance, if I could paint like I screw, I probably wouldn’t be here right now giving my own artist’s statement. I’d pay some slag a few hundred quid to make me look good. But I can’t. So you got this. If I could only act the way I imagined.” – Nicholas Conlon Original cover photo: Paul Monroe Back page photo: Michael G Michaud

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Nicholas Conlon.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4931-7922-0

                eBook            9781-4-9317-923-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 04/22/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

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CONTENTS

NOW

CHAPTER 1

Status Update

A Good Team

At A Glance

Dear Republicans

Get They Cash

I Also Have A Book

I Hope That You Survive

I Just Watched Comedians Driving In Cars

I Like To Go To Dinners

I Must Be Different

I Want To Be At The Batting Cages

I’m Panic King

It’s Not A Drag

My Testosterone

Nickism

Ok I Lied

Push Notifications

Sex And The World Around It

Southport Ave.

Stocks In 2008

That’s A Full Day

The Grandson

There Is A New Horror Rising

They Say Now A Days

Why Do I Have To Scream

Wow I Now See

CHAPTER 2

Sauganash Edgebrook

A Christmas Story

All The Devils We Greive

Cold Coffee

Futile And Dumb Gaze

Girls Like Boys

Gotye

I Can’t Keep Things Nice

I Felt Left Out

I Sit Here In A Daze

I Wonder If You

Identity Theft

My Chin Quivers

My Life

Oh No

Old Notebooks

One You Flounder

Roses Are Red

Rusty

She Wore Red Suede Pumps

Sorry To Burst Your Bubble Zeke

Temper Trap

The Blame Game

The Puerto Rican Door Bell

Wild Thoughts

CHAPTER 3

As We Go Along

100 Bucks

A Kid Panes Bread Café

All The Stories Are Incredible

Biting

Call A Spade A Spade

Colors Are Beautiful

Deadbeats

Drawing Pen

Gay Is The New Black

Hipsters

I Got North Face

I’m Stuffed Fat Full

James Bond Sucks

Room Tinted Pink

The Anatomy Of A 35Yr

The Thing Is

To Me Too You Too Busy

What Came First The Dis Or The Orgy

When The Reward Is So High

Your Facade

THEN

CHAPTER 4

A Kid

Back In The Seashells Of My Mind

Battle Leaning

Bullshit Without Bullshitting

Cat Dorian

Cat Dorian Ii

Cat Dorian Iii

Chicago 1984

Club 1995

Dick Named Harry

Fill The Hole

I Believed You

I Can Not Hear The Ass Beat

I Live In Chicago

Last Dime

My Dream Self

One Big Question

Start Stop Keep

Stay Like This Forever

Suicide Is Not The Answer

The Hippo Book 7

There Sat Five Men

Try

Where Do I Start

Yes I Like Em Legs

You’re Fault…

CHAPTER 5

Little Pieces Of Paper

3 Short Poems Found

As I Continue To Cry

Chicago Goes West

Columbia College Girl

Deep One

Deep Too

Heard Ya Last Night

Hey There Girlies

I Am Not A Player

I Guess

I’ve Never Been So Afraid In My Life

Kill All The Brothers Named X

Lava Clean

Little Pieces Of Paper

Old Yellow Papers

Rose Boss

Sametime

Simple Said Or Done

Start You Engines

Sting

Sting II

Such A Good Kid

Tailored Relationship

Tan Man

To Bad Bro

Torture

Willing And Able

With Pedro

Young Devil In A Stale Ass Town

CHAPTER 6

Sunset And Crescent Heights

A Daydream And A Date

A Gift

Bmw Car

Kept Man All Alone

Love

Nightmare

One Of The Last Things We Said

Pain

Tanya Gomez

The Contract Poems

The Emmys

The Last American Poet

The Last Hoorah

What A Great Time To Take Over

Will It.

Wonderful Dream

Thank you.

There are a lot of questions in this book.

Not all of them are marked, appropriately.

Make it up as you go along.

We always do.

—Nicholas Conlon

CHAPTER 1

Status Update

A GOOD TEAM

Having a good TEAM is the goal of anybody that wants to get something done.

Win a championship, learn something new, get deals done.

I’ve always known that and I said it from day one.

The smartest thing that brother in the white house ever did was

Wait for it…

Wait…

For…

It…

Joe Biden

Close second is the woman running around the world

Talking and taking your shit

No not the tall black one, she was already part of the package

Real nice move POTUS.

Big Daddy was part of the deal too.

The music blaring from that apartment

Sexy phones and all that Harlem going on

My old friend Gary Whitehouse

Looks like Santa Claus

He said it best in talking about the orchestra

If the cymbal bangs out of turn

If one little piece is fucked up the whole thing goes to shit.

So for well-oiled machines it needs to all fall in line.

It’s not forever. It never is. Nothing is.

Teams break up its part of the progression

The idea that maybe

If you go here and I go there

And then maybe we meet again or maybe we just remember.

We will be the best ever of everything because a good team is above all crucial.

Not saying you can’t do anything by yourself,

Solo is just solo

We gotta do much more than believe if we want to see the world change

Gaucho by Dave Matthews

Go be part of a good team today.

Go create your own good team…

AT A GLANCE

The 70’s 80’s 90’s and aughts to be dead

But it’s not

They’re not

I’m not

I’m alive and breathing life into art and now you don’t give a fuck

So I don’t give a fuck

It’s the story of anybody who cares

Why won’t she take care of me for the rest of my life?

Is it my disease? My age? My ego or my lack of confidence?

The wallpaper on my apartment’s apartment

All a part of what I meant

Downtown in ’81 or ’91 or aught 1

Ha, ha, ha,

maybe one and one

Keeps on flying by like a cloud not a drone or a drain

but it is

It’s all just a drag and boring and all your shit is boring

ALL YOUR FUCKING SHIT IS BORING

THINK ABOUT IT SERIOUSLY. SERIOUSLY?

Ha, I wish you were high cause when you got low you’d see

That’s the only way it happens I guess.

I Calvin and Hobbs, I Girboud, I Z Cavaricci

I live in the old days and maybe that’s why I don’t work well

I work but I don’t REALLY work.

I wish I had a martini that tasted good and not just a tini mind that wanted it

Gray is the new body language and nobody is going to tell me different.

Spray paint and heavy amplifiers and poems suck I guess.

Again.

Coping with flaws of where when and how but nobody asks why

And when they do it’s because that’s the rules of the class

First it’s pilgrims and Indians and then It’s why always why

I felt like a fly in a microscope

A germ

A toad dead with pins in it

And nobody is going to look at your book do you think you have a pink one?

It has me walking all over the ice all over the water like Jesus and it’s all

Rudimentary

The most important thing in life is that they have all this digital and stills

You can get a disposable one at any dime store in the world like the army

Go get ’em kid.

It’s no longer plush

It’s the new Millennium Park

Your tush right here.

It’s going to be an incredible ride.

70 80 90 0H boy 100 would be perfect. It ought to be

It really ought to be 2000 something.

DEAR REPUBLICANS

Dear Republicans, (insert The Simpson’s Nelson laugh here)

Please reply with what American car you drive.

Ahh the old timers that must be rolling in their grave

Not Ole Ronny either he could give a shit.

Here comes the crack at the Olympics in L.A.

The old white lady saying NO on Monday night football.

Obama did it…

But Osama was Bush. Wait what?

Inheritance

The call of the party

your party, your boat, your store, your house

Good work being born!!!

Legalize it with some papers roll it up with some shit.

Tell me how it is . . . How it goes… How I should understand.

How much I just don’t understand.

Doh!!! Eat my shorts!!!

Seriously you rate the times table by bringing more and more down.

Trickle baby trickle!!!

I ran a 4.4 40 today

Sing it…

Nooooooobody knoooows my troubooooww!!!

Camp town races sing that son… Wait that’s black

Ouch.

Can’t believe that shine is a 1 percenter!!!

Way to spread the love around

As you pick ’em round by round

Whys I gots to have Sanchez

F that dirty wetback I’ll take Tebow

Just cause he’s well you know . . .

Jesus was white right? Right?

As the white boys sing The Clash…

Know Your Rights.

Ahhhhhh. The English

Bloody hell

Where’s my piece of the