Doug Draime's More Than The Alley

Doug Draime’s More than the Alley has been published by Interior Noise Press this year and is a full-length collection of straightforward, hard-knocks poems that many fans know and love. His poems are inspired by Bukowski and the grit of life, below I am happy to share some samples:

Red’s Tavern

Pete’s stab wounds
were a badge of honor.
Pulling his beer stained
Dodger t-shirt up
showing me
a 5 inch scar
across his huge
beer belly.

That’s something, man
I said.

He jumped up from his stool
turned around and
with both hands
pulled his t-shirt
up to the back of his neck

revealing a large, imbedded
nasty looking gush
in the middle of his back
clear down to
the cheeks of his fat ass.

He turned around with a goofy
drunken smile on his face
pulling his shirt down. “The ex done
that with a broken beer bottle the
night she left and went to Tucson.
They say I lost 4 pints of blood.”

That’s something, man
I said again and bought him a
Beer for that one.

I love that this poem talks about the battle scars of relationships and that it shows that men aren’t the only ones who are violent. The older I get the more I learn that relationships can be brutal for both sexes and while women may compare emotional battle scars it is interesting to read a poem where men show off physical battle scars of relationships. No one gets out of a bad relationship without some scarring and the fact the poet buys him a beer for “that one” of the battle scar stories makes me smile. Women might buy their lady friends a cocktail or treat them to a mani-pedi, men buy each other beer. We all have our way of coping and of comforting our friends, or fellow hard-luck strangers.



Someday I Will Write A Poem That Will Flood The World

And I will own all the
arks, boats, ships,
rafts, and canoes,
and tug boats, ferries—
all forms of water transportation.

People will have to come
to me for their means
of survival.

The stubborn and destitute ones
will drown in my poem
sinking to the bottom
screeching like anchors on
rusty
chains.

The rest of humanity will plead
for cut-rate discounts. But fuck them.
I’ll make them pay out
the ass. No rainbows
this time.

This poem makes me grin, what writer hasn’t wanted to write an epic of some kind that grabs the whole world’s attention? I feel that way when I’m experiencing writer’s block or read someone else’s work that is so great that I’m immediately jealous that I cannot write like that. This poem is my own selfish indulgence to share with you all, I simply love it. I wonder what the inspiration was for Mr. Draime for this poem?



Burning Bag of Shit

She found the last 50 poems I wrote
in my notebook, cut them out
put them through her office shredder
twice: once lengthwise and then
width-wise. She told me all
of this, as she was standing
screaming and crying on the stoop
in front of my apartment, with the pieces of
my poems in a small paper bag. She
took out my Zippo from her ass-tight
jean pocket, lit the bag, waited for it
to get going good, before she
dropped it at my feet and turned
still crying and ran to her car. I watched
her drive away and walked back into
my apartment, letting the bag of words
burn like a bag of shit on Halloween.
I made a cup of strong black tea and sat down
at the kitchen table with a new notebook
and I started another poem…
just for fucking spite.

This poem makes me laugh, actually. Maybe that’s cruel of me, but I feel like saying “that’s what you get for snooping!” Mr. Draime is like myself, what we really feel is written in poetic form and most of those poems aren’t left out for public consumption, it’s in a journal/notebook/private space of sorts. This poem is the ultimate example of such a scenario and as true testament that Mr. Draime is a writer he goes right back to writing more poems after his notebook is shredded and then burned to a crisp.





To be honest, there are a half dozen more poems I’d love to share with you but I limited myself to the ones that made me grin big. If you enjoyed this review, you may purchase a copy of Doug Draime’s More than the Alley for $15.00 at:
http://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Alley-Doug-Draime/dp/0981660665

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow…