Steven Schroeder

4 poems

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All Those Villains in Missouri


Bay-toe-ven? Our street’s Buh-THO-ven.
Those German noisemakers used
Enough rebar in their garage to prop up

A Mississippi levee, not a Mizzou-ruh
Hoosier tooth. But when you take the kids
To an arthodentist, look out, or he’ll plant

Socialist medicine in their heads, and metal
Transmitters to say Goodbye Sammy Smile,
Hi Sammy Spy. That’s what I said,

Bunny Bread. Self-checkers in the ghetto
Schnuck’s only work for scabs who buy

Tallboys on Tattoosday, or for certain
Welfaricans. You know the ones I mean.



Note: I stole the title from Unforgiven

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They Just Gave Me the Number When I Was Young


Thirteen rolled on loaded dice for luck
....Thirteen heart tattoos in red and black
........Thirteen nooses not enough to hang

Thirteen leaps across the Colorado
....Thirteen talents bottomless in pockets
............Thirteen days concocting fireproof jackets
................Thirteen nights asleep in a tornado

Thirteen grown coyotes fought and pinned
....Thirteen scars from fourteen different battles
........Thirteen doorways barred by trickster riddles
............Thirteen rattlesnakes as a hatband

Thirteen lives revived by age thirteen
....Thirteen lies believed by line thirteen



Note: I stole the title from “Thirteen” by Johnny Cash

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Death Is Math


........Head plus bread equals eat
....Head plus meat equals teeth
Head minus meat equals stovetop

........Danger plus opportunity equals crisis
....Stovetop plus danger equals international no
Stovetop plus opportunity equals fine fat goose

........The inverse of Mother Goose equals hawk
....The inverse of Chicken Little is greater than goose
Hawk plus Chicken Little is less than half baked

............Lies plus damn lies is greater than statistics
........Lies plus meat plus danger equals E. coli
....Anecdote minus antidote makes one equal zero
Anecdote minus antidote makes goose equal cooked



Note: I stole the title from “Cuckoo” by Larissa Szporluk

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I’m Your Huckleberry


That game was You’re Funniest, this one
Name That Bone—tee hee, poke poke—

Hip, collar, squeaky. Yep, your puppy’s
A scrubbly lop. Your hands knit together
Pinned by mine since you’d rather do

The laundry, your taxes, a polka, time
In the pokey, but you’ll escape and crop

My face from photos that we haven’t
Even shot yet. Your skin phosphorus
Plus friction, mine papery as if I’m eighty,

And when I say I may die by Saturday,
It’s foreplay. Your next confession preview
Sends You’re from the Devil to overtime.



Note: I stole the title from Tombstone

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return to sawbuck 4.3

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Steven Schroeder's first full-length book of poems, Torched Verse Ends, appeared in 2009 from BlazeVOX. His poetry is available or forthcoming from New England Review, The Journal, Indiana Review, diode, and Verse Daily. He edits the online poetry journal Anti-, serves as a contributing editor for River Styx, and works as a Certified Professional Résumé Writer.