Groin Toss on Midnight Boulevard: Poems

By Al Ferber

What a mess. You had to be there.
And you’ll never know unless you read the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664146563

Al Ferber

Al Ferber a septuagenerian going on 13. Born. Regrettably… A North Philly kid. Survived education at Temple U., Penn State, Villanova U. Alcoholic 30 years. Sober 23 years. Indenture servant to Catherine the Great 34 years. Learned to love and appreciate cats and one dog. Authored 30 books of poems, 2 novels, 3 chap books. Poems in Magazines in U.S., England, Scotland, France. Still alive, on the downward path of the sliding board, as of this writing. An undocumented alien in the world. Resides Ocean City, NJ surrounded by water with Cathi, Luna, Mitzi, and Opal. So there.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Al Ferber.

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.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/07/2020

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

823650

CONTENTS

Dreams Are Shit

In the World if not on Film

Sex Come’d Alive

A Pomedy

Old Poems

…And Sticking To It

0swap Water

Brief Unveiling

The Operatic House…

All Night Theater

The Picture Frame

Ambient Light

A New A Gain

Auto Encrypted Notes

Big Noise in Marmora

Blunt

Boonies of South Jersey

Break Away

Buddha’s Back

Captured on Video

Crazy in the World

Dancing Somnambulist

Queen of Hearts & Diamonds

Italian Binding

Its All Done

Juliette of the Spirituals

Keep Thinking

Leisurely Stroll

Look Homeward Anglo

Madness Not Withstanding

Madness vs Sparkling Water

Midnight Stood Still

Murphy’s Missives

Myanmar & Liberia

Nimue Nimrod

No Nor Better

Notes from the Bunker

Odds on Favorite

Off to the Side

And Then

One Block Past Zoo Plaza

One Trick Pony

Out in the World

Mary Lou Sinclair Cornell

paul lutton

Wandering Shoe Story

Play it as it Lays

Plexiglass Ceiling

Point of Contact

Prior to Exorcism

Proscenium Arch

Scatterlogical

Steel Workers Union Hall

Stormy Tuesday

Sub-dirt Tunnel River Cave

Swallow Fog

SwampWater

Sweet Spot

The Heart the Death the Deal

The Jazz Singer

The Meek & the Dearth

The Needing Times

Opposites Subtract

Toasted Peanuts

Trash-Lands

Two Contexts

Uncommon Courtesan

Welcome to the End Game

What is There

What Kinda Bird

Wind Reeds

Octagenarean Ragweed

Any Time

attic for let

Away Station

24" Black & White

A Piece Of Theater

A Shrouded Image

Across Broad Street

Another Brick

Beating Dead Horses

Dante’s 9 Circle Motel

Driven to Imperfection

Dresden

Drum Thumper

Eating Breakfast

Fires a Little Too Big

Footlights Backdrops & Stage Props

Goddam Balloon Man

Gray Day at the Compound

Great Together

Gone In-cog-ni-tO

For my Father

Heaven Hell & Purgatory

High Rent District

Hot Running Blood

I Did not Climb Trees

Deep Wounds

Love. as Inconvenience.

Marlene

Miss Ladybird Solilo Queen

No. Not the Airplane Guy.

Olive’s Drab

Organ Donor

Residents

The Heretic (Or Just Ecumenical)

The Filth of the Gutter

Passion

The Plate

The Prego Jar

The Shroud They Turned In

The Sunderstorm

Coming to You

Things

To the Brink

Tunnel Underground

Were You There When

Wood chipper / Buzz saw

Word Play

WTF

Ye Olde Sumptin Syndrome

Verrazzano - Narrows

When the Machine Breaks Down

Who said That !

Whose Name

Wire Crossings

Opposites Subtract

Octagenarean Ragweed

Parking Spot

Unwarranted Un - attendance

Up the Down Chute

With Emphasis on i am

Word for Word

Words. Sparingly.

Words

Years Later

The Size of the Laugh

The World’s a Busy Place

The Year of Living

There and Abouts

At the Planet Diner

Tree Shaking in Foul Territory

Under the Influence

Uniquely Human Fantasy

Unnatural Immunity

River Dolphins

The Rabbit Hole

The Pendel Girls

The Other Side of the Looking Glass

The Only Show on Earth

The One Without Legs

The Adventures of Suzy Q

The Love Boat

The Lead

The Iceman has left The Tool Shed

The Heavens. They are Pissed.

Cowboys and Indians

Dark River

*JIGSAW London UK

Absolutely no delicate way to tell this

Cirque du Cootchay

That Just Fucking Tears It

Still Life

Blue

A Box Of Expletives

No Wonder

Speedway

Spittoon

How I See It

Before The Boat Went Down

The Rain

Liberal

The Blender Had To Go

Utter Grimness

Subterranean Homesick Shoes

Carriage House

Things

There Was a Time When

Now or Some Other

Henrietta and the Unicorn

Bottle Caps and Baseball Cards

Beneath The Wheel

Everything

Cobwebs

Oh Crystalline my darling

The Myth

Swapping Spit

Black Magic

The End. The Beginning.

Knit Pickers Like Me

The Secret

The Photograph

Coffee

The Earth

Scythe

The Rapture

Opus 62

From Top To Bottom

Sylvia

Stick In The Mud

Long Day Journey

Spank the Monkey

Meat Grinder

Mood Ring

Un-love

Rage

Scoring The Play

Stress by Joanne Gorman Klein

666 by Hop Wechsler

Intergalactic Stew

The Mistake Of Your Life

Tom & Viv

The Bottom 10%

Damn This World

Astigmatism

Headlights on Wet Streets

At Midnight

Reflection

All Washed Up

Dung Beetle

Obituary 2020

The Opposing Thumb

So It Begins

Some Sick Pleasure

The Night that Muzak Died

Head On Collision

Evening Sky

Strange Invention

Chaos

Election 2012

Cleopatra

My Friend

The Ringing Aspen Leaf

Baseball Card Park

Death

In Bad Taste

What Time Is It

Rabbit Hole

Bent Twig

The Mornings After

Blinking Caution

The Edge

Off to the Side

Fire at the Box Factory

What O’Clock Is It

The Bottom of the Shit Pot

Grandfather the Painter

Forgiven

The Abominable Theater

The Idiot and the Oddity

Rites Of Passage

Pink Sunglasses & Feathered Hair

Muscle & Bone

A Moment of Madness

The Magic Is Gone

The Drenching Sweat of Living

Shit Name

The Sound That Fits 2020

Punks In Paris

I did. I would.

Erotic Bobbi Jene

Out of Context, Out of Place, Out of Line

Sunshine Superman

Testing Testing

On the Sidewalk

Got ‘Em All

Global Psychosis

The Soft Science

Genius & Whiskey

Kind of Going Down to Clown

The Bloom Right Off the Rose

Sinner

Rot Till We Get There

The Heart

Daft

Myth America

Lean Cuisine for the Soul

The Whip

Report from Ocean City, NJ:

Its All About the Mission

Early Morning in Hedonist Township

The Crowded Closet

Fire Escapes and Dancers’ Underwear

Crash Landing at Gelhart’s Ballroom

I Know Nothing

The Storm

Groin Toss on Midnight Boulevard

The Rose that Grows through Cracks in the Sidewalk

23 Years Sober

Detente

Birds on the Elephant’s Back

The Mirror Stole My Soul

Remembering

Mood Strikes

The Stars

The Village Squared

Sometimes The Shit Falls Right Where It Should

Pink Gold

The Swarm of Giant Bees

Death On The Island

Who Leans Against The Stained Glass Window

My Name is Mr. Fester

So Many Times My Fingers Got Sore

Playing the Margins

Ethnic Lineage

Next to the Airport

Atheist

The Window Frame

Straight No Chaser

Phoenix

Self Portrait

15 Minutes of Sainthood

Fir Ball, Dirt Ball, Dung Beetle

Personal Hell

One Shot Deal

The Moment

Slivers and Blotches

It Seems In Dreams

Testosterone & Poetry

Reconnoiter

Stroll Through The Badlands

Drug Addict

Black & White

My Left Foot

Hats On

Walking on the Bottom of the River

Cheers, Jack

Off to The Side of The Road

Out of The Shadows

Big Frank’s Beat

Curbside

Curbside - 2

Purple Suspenders

Hope. No future In It.

Smokin’

Debauchery

The Sperm The Egg & The Dirt

This Shit Life

Our Houses

My Shoe is a Step Up

No 2 Shits About It

Beef Stew

The Darkroom of Laugh

A Terrible Fiction

And Through The Woods

The Witching Time

Don Quixote

Beach House

Curbside 3

He Don’t Play Well With Others

The Lake of the Sword

Rethinking This Age Thing

Dark Tunnel

Nominate the Sewer Rat

Skeevy

Totems

Artists Talking

The Coming Week of When

Midnight Boulevard

Three Doors Up

Cats Dogs and Other Creatures

Her Whole Head Melted

Reprobate for the Ageless

Zorro

Sensuality

Save The Children

Exploring Other Estuaries

The Final Round

The Bible Study Book

After The Meeting

The Penny Dreadful

My Ass Turned Toward the Sun Again

I Am A Camera

The Politics of The Fellowship

I Thought I Thought

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

The Groin Toss a Profile View

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Poems contained in this collection have previously appeared in: Berkeley Poets Cooperative, Painted Bride Quarterly, La Fenetre (France), Jigsaw (England), Gnu Gnus, and Mangle-ezine.

Reprinted here with permission of the author.

Al Ferber

DEDICATION

for Cathi

my once and always

love and

hate and cell mate.

Hop

my coconspirator.

for all who I have not,

as yet, alienated.

DREAMS ARE SHIT

Gus said dreams are shit

an exercise of subconscious

or ethereal bait & switch

beautiful sensuous dreams

promising sexual

euphoria take a sharp turn

into the forest of cruel

disappointment and tragedy

always unresolved

leaving dreamers weeping

in their sleep

nightmares fulfill the worst

of conscious

and subconscious deadliest

fears

when we know just what

should & could

be done to avert imminent

catastrophe

and never get it done as

catastrophe

reins supreme

we are ultimately rolled out

the back door

of a 1940’s black sedan

onto a cold and less than

innocent sidewalk

unceremoniously

and abruptly closed the

show

and he pees on the sidewalk

in his own bed

My painting is an ongoing portrait of everything I don’t know about the world and myself.

My poetry is a vast biography of facts, fantasy, and fiction.

Buddha would not go for all the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the Dalai Lama.

Oh, I’m not finished. I got lots of gas left in this tank. I’m pushing this envelope as far as it will go. Cause I’m a mean mother fucker and I’m driving this train straight into the wall.

Do I look like I’m kidding ?

IN THE WORLD IF

NOT ON FILM

believe it or don’t

makes no matter to anyone

not even you. sad sorry ass.

the facts change hither

and over there

fantasy painted on ash cloth

whole or semi precious

Alfonso Satre

and Juan Pablo Camus

face off at an upstairs poker table

a showdown centuries

in the making

no love loss between these two

quick draw

philosophical dream merchants

start off with an ante pasta

of lead base paint

oh holy nitric acid

the ventilated skull of Hemingway

hanging on the coat rack

the dancing blow up dolls

with vacancies still up for grabs

no credit cards. cash