PATRICIA CARRAGON

Patricia Carragon is an ad executive who moonlights as a poet at night. She has featured at several other venues including the Telephone Bar, the Galapagos Art Space, the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, the Cornelia Street Cafe, the Bowery Poetry Club, the Spoken Words Café, the Moroccan Star, the Nightingale Lounge, A Gathering of the Tribes, The Vault and The Back Fence.

Poetz.com, Rogue Scholars, Soul to Soul, Flutter and Poets Wear Prada have published Patricia's poetry on-line. Her work can also be found in the following poetry journals: Nomad’s Choir, the Park Slope Poetry Project's "Erato," Poet-To-Poet’s “Medicinal Purposes,” SOS ABC NO RIO’s "Stained Sheets," Mobius Magazine and “Where You Live, What Happens Next #29”, a magazine anthology of poets and artists. She is the author of her first book, “Journey to the Center of My Mind,” which was published by Rogue Scholars Press.

She co-hosts and curates the Brownstone Poets in Brooklyn with Evie Ivy and is one of the hosts for the SOS ABC NO RIO Sunday Open Series on the Lower East Side.

PMS PIZZA

God hates women!
Pass the chocolate to my hips, please…
Before I kill you tonight.

Hormones go postal,
Estrogen pulls the trigger –
My body is target practice for pain.
But first, order me a pizza
With extra cheese for my cellulite
And a pepperoni phallus sliced for pleasure,
Because a hungry woman is dangerous
When her mood swings like the reaper.

PMS writes a postscript
For a rendezvous with my butt.
My tampon's sex drive,
A Pap Smear in drag,
Alerts me that the salsa is ready
And I want to die…

Maybe next week, I will crave something different,
Like love sandwiched in mocha mousse
Topped with Hershey Kisses.
But pass me another slice of pizza, please…
Before I kill you tonight.

Patricia Carragon October 2004

A HO FOR POETRY


I’m a ho for poetry –
a slut for the spoken word.
I walk the streets for free verse,
hang out in cafés and clubs
looking for a pickup line.

Let it be a haiku quickie
or an all night prose.
The Open Mic, a catnip cocktail –
this kitty’s on the prowl.

I adore holding the mike,
imagine what words can do
when I squeeze its handle.
The mike rises to my mouth,
my saliva blesses its tip.

It’s hard and stiff,
more pleasurable than flesh,
when the volume vibrates
and safe sex screws with words.

Yes, words give me orgasms –
they can keep me up all night
and never mess my sheets.

Oh words of wisdom,
words of brawn,
I submit to your bondage.
Tie me up to the pen or keyboard –
give me S & M with the muse,
give me pain,
give me pleasure,
give me joy.

I confess that I have sinned
in the eyes of literature.
heir priests will condemn me –
the fire awaits my arrival.

But I’m a ho for poetry –
a slut for the spoken word.

Yes I am and so are you!

Patricia Carragon January 2006

DOG DAZE OF SUMMER



These are the Dog Daze of Summer:
it’s time to go to work!
Leave by half past eight
and the tin can snake is late again
doing its snail’s waltz on rails.
Play Solitaire in your head,
waste time underground,
anticipate another day in hell.

Reach your destination,
walk through a labyrinth
sprayed by derelicts’ piss–
their eau de toilette wakes you up
faster than the gentrified caffeine
in your upscale paper cup.
Fade into the urban circus
with the rest of the clones.

Grilled shit and trash
give the sidewalks character,
and the stench ain’t much better.
Cabs and bikes want to kill you–
they need the money now
and you’re in the way.
Robots, armed with cell phones
and brief cases, bump into you
because you don’t exist–
the city has a fuck you attitude
and the temperature is rising.

In the cubicle maze,
work for corporate rats
and sit in your designated rut.
Your Mickey Mouse title
keeps your ass glued to your seat.
Bosses send more e-mails
and deadlines were yesterday.
Brown bag lunches
lack power to impress.
Eat alone–
your phone and computer
keep you company.

Your salary’s generous–
the rent and bills thank you,
yet there’s no money for travel.
You dream of summer love
and the past still screws you,
and sex stinks like stale fish.
Your gender’s in name only:
why do anything
when you’re anonymous
like the flowers on your desk?
Watch their dry petals
fall by the minute
and the clock says six-thirty,
and you’re on overdrive,
and the workload is tireless,
and that report is overdue,
and you almost forget to pee.

These are the Dog Daze of Summer:
it’s time to go home!
Leave by half past nine
and the tin can snake is late again,
and the a/c is out
like the one at home…
your home sweet microwave
beneath the asphalt roof.
Your thoughts predict the future–
playing Solitaire with your body,
wasting time on an empty bed,
anticipating another night in hell…

Patricia Carragon October 2006