Parental Indiscretion (by Cee Williams)

Cee Williams — photo by Chandra Alderman

Parental Indiscretion

I once saw my father lick turkey gravy off the back of my mother’s calf

she had on these black stockings
it was Christmas, maybe thanksgiving
maybe just a Sunday

I remember thinking, gross

how gross

my father just licked my mother’s leg and I just knew she was gonna slap him
but she laughed instead

my mother didn’t think it was gross
she thought it was funny, so did everybody, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins

everybody except me

I thought it was embarrassing
and after all the laughter they kissed

this is how I grew up

spontaneous grossness

Cosby shit without the sweaters, and the degrees

* * *

“Parental Indiscretion” comes from Cee Williams 2013 chapbook My America: 9 Poems for Sister Lucille, published by Crisis Chronicles Press.  It is available for $6 from John Burroughs, 3344 W. 105th Street #4, Cleveland, Ohio 44111.

Cee Williams‘ other chapbooks include 12 Poems [2012] and Bus Riders in the Storm [2013], both from Crisis Chronicles Press. He is the founder of Poets’ Hall – The International Fellowship of Poets and Spoken Word Artists, a community based venue for creative expression, which he operates in his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania.

Love Stinks (by Cee Williams)

 

 

Love Stinks…
and
I don’t know what’s worse
the smell,
or the fact that I
keep sticking my nose in it–
stinks like
some poverty stricken diabetic
has been dipping his gangrenous
toes in it,
stinks like
there’s some yet undiscovered
fungus that grows in it
my old spores carrying amor
find their way
up nasal passage ways
to the dank dark
corners of my brain
the parts that thrive off pain
and the thankless search for
a festering odoriferous pile
of rot, covered in mildew,
(I love you)
love stinks
I know this, I do–
heinous as it is, I’ve found
I can’t live without it
forever bound by
my romantic demons’ unwavering persistence
lashed to a floating turd
called love
adrift in the sewer of
this terrestrial existence.

* * *

“Love Stinks” comes from Cee Williams 2012 chapbook 12 Poems, published by Crisis Chronicles Press.  It is available for $5 from John Burroughs, 3344 W. 105th Street #4, Cleveland, Ohio 44111.

Cee Williams is a poet and spoken word artist residing in Erie, Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in the poetry and visual art journal Bathtub Gin (Pathwise Press) and in the Dwelling in Possibilities anthology edited by Berwyn Moore. In 2010 Williams was named as a finalist for the Erie County Poet Laureate award. He is the founder and director of Poets’ Hall: the International Fellowship of Poets and Spoken Word Artists, for which he was the recipient of the EMBYP 2011 award for Business Innovation.

Cee Williams performs T-Rex and other poems at Snoetry 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBk-p02Wiu0

Erie poet Cee Williams performs several poems including “T-Rex”

Filmed during Snoetry: A Winter Wordfest — a Lix and Kix production
at the Last Wordsmith Book Shoppe in North East, Pennsylvania on 16 January 2010
(photography & editing by John Burroughs, a.k.a. Jesus Crisis)

Visit Cee Williams on MySpace for more: http://www.myspace.com/ceewilliams