Published by The Puddin’head Press
Stapled Chapbook, 35 pages
5.5 x 8.5 inches, 2007
$8.00
Back Cover Blurb by Jared Smith
There’s something radically wrong with American society, and it’s important to have poets speak up about it.
Lee Kitzis’ poetry draws on the same raw hard lines and images you’re familiar with from Bukowski. Like Buk’s, his life takes place in the hit-fast-or-miss life of bars and empty streets and rough sex. But there’s a difference: his life also exists in stocking shelves for others at eight bucks an hour, trying to get it right for his boss so that he can take a paycheck home to spend on something of value…day after day. And he’s bright enough, like most of us, to have figured out that there isn’t much of value you can buy no matter how much money you get paid. Not when you’re trading it for life. So he’s out there looking at all the gaudy things and all the smelly things…the glasses of champagne and the bags of Cheetos…and trying to put them all together into something that can be lived. No brag there, no chest-thumping; just doing his best to find a religion that works in a culture of icons and blasphemies.
“There’s a poem in there”, as he says at one point. In all that searching. In sex with the tattooed rollerblade babe with Phoenix wings on her back. In the dark streets at 2 AM when the cops won’t come. In Jesus Died For This Job In A Liquor Store, he hits some pretty hard nails pretty straight on: “This machinery/we’ve been given/is rusty/and unfair/but/we press buttons/and call it God/’til the belt jams up…it’s not God/it’s just this thing…”
Jared Smith, Poet and Author of Lake Michigan And Other Poems and Where Images Become Imbued With Time
About Lee Kitzis
Lee Kitzis is a Chicago native and graduate of Columbia College Chicago who’s had his poetry appear in numerous publications. Some of which include: After Hours, Ink, U-Direct, The Anti-Mensch, The Columbia Chronicle, and Chicagopoetry.com. “Eight Dollars An Hour” is his fourth book of poetry.
Contents
For Jill
My Roommate/ My Muse
I Found Religion In A Roller Derby Girl
We Are Pushing
A Short Political Poem
Chicago In July
3 A.M.
They Don’t Even Shut Up at 1:45 in the Morning
Jasmine
I’ve Always (for Julie)
Eight Dollars An Hour
I’m Changing Bartenders
Another Day On The Job
To A Woman
Guarding My Post at the Retardation Center
They
How To Write A Poem
Whatever It Means
A Political Poem or Uh huh Nuh uh
Funeral For A Friend
Jesus Died for This on the Job in a Liquor Store
My Days Are Spent
Sample Poems
Funeral For a Friend
His beer gut in the air
his eyes closed to God
mumbling
tell Dave it’s over
while they strung up Christmas lights
and tried for babies
and seagulls crapped on docks
and the homeless yelled on Kingsbury
he mumbled
tell Dave it’s over
and as they opened their presents
and the seagulls flew off to sea
Kingsbury was quiet
while a poet was buried
with his beer gut in the air
and his eyes closed to God
Dave and I watched
and I didn’t tell him
it was over
for us
and somewhere
a kid got what he wanted
for Christmas
I’m Changing Bartenders
I guess you were looking for a poet
who quoted Strindberg and Shakespeare
and were probably pretty disappointed
when you saw me on my eighth PBR
watching the White Sox/Astros World Series game
and swearing under my breath
I guess you thought of classical music
and men w/ five o’ clock shadows and peacoats
and were probably pretty disappointed
when you saw me in an Eddie Bauer jacket
swearing at the pitcher and burping
and I’d like to think
when I got up to pee
for the fourth time
in one hour
you told yourself
you’d keep looking
but I am a poet
like you’re a bartender
this is the best drink I’ve got
and that is really really sad
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