Greetings, peeps
Salutations, shitheads
‘Sup, lady pupparoos
Top of the mornin’, infant mortalities
Hi-ho, d-bag diocesans
Ahoy, tiny synod
Whaddayaknow, quorum buttheads
Where ya headed, sexy deckhands
Aloha, Tupperware party sluts
Bonjour, manic batshits
Nu, meeskaits and putzes
Salut, Yankee Doodle fuckwads
Konnichiwa, kemosabes and associated road kill droogs
¿Qué tal? Canadian bobsplotches and your asshatted Quebecois playcousins
Guten tag, minivan brojobs creating vortexes of Fat Tuesday JewFro madness
Dzień dobry, bigged-up besties with underboobs and side cleavage walking
waffle dogs in knit booties
Hola bearded, manbun-wearing CHUDs with earbuds staring blankly at me
from the line outside the archival mayonnaise café
Ça va, cupcake jakes from State Farm embarking upon a cray-cray Spring Break
of baking at the beach
Namaste, boogers laughing at ear wax
Hey there, bingo whores-turned-horse-faced academics
Howdy-doody, car wash pandas, sassy baptism poodles and hopscotch tournament
pygmy goats
Hail, Appalachians with Yiddish-themed vision boards who paid actual money to see
“Passion of the Christ”
Peek-a-boo, Parsis speaking Farsi underneath three 19th century Irish barkeeps
swarmed by bees
Boy Howdy, dumb ass Equine Center friends You Are Everything
Cheers, hospital gift shop cashiers I feel your pain
Yo, fans of mooning during the day I am you
Whoa, Bright Eyes with lice crawling out of your neck fuzz dropping a bottle of
Summer’s Eve into a muffin basket left in a cemetery — your mankini ruined my vacation
Hold up, trailer bros — go ahead, walk into my yard and take a few cement blocks
for your own mysterious purposes. If I catch you in Starbucks again I will poop in your lattes
Stop right there, able-bodied dingleberries and doobheads standing in the aisles
who don't realize you need to move your asses to the back of the bus so others can get on — it's the snowpocalypse out there, so leave work early and get all your groceries at the gas station
Fuck off in advance, Balkan hombreros and your smelly aftershave — I knew you were up to some shit when you brought umbrellas to Bonnaroo. Would you have sex with Prince? I know he’s dead. I’m still working this out myself
Attention, Rose of Sharons — For me, the rose is a symbol of hatred. You must treat this beautiful thing as a beast. You must deprive it of necessities. You must beat it back with weapons. I’ll give you a moment to clean up the mess your downstairs parts made after you got dry fucked by my beautiful truth-telling. You’re welcome.
And p.s., platonic tomodachis and backstabbing Internet friends
brosama bin ladens and facebitch buddy-boys
shade-throwing sideline haters
heterosexual second friends
token POC pals
goyisher honky doyens and fuck-a-duck sausage nabes:
Seeing as I am way too busy these days lap-dancing for emeritus members
of the Buzz Aldrin Marriage Events Fan Club to care about the cats
scratching your cars at night, I’m saying
buonosera, figli di puttana,
buenos noches y adios, hermanos feos —
I am sick of all of you not coming to my nightly Talking Heads tribute
at the Walgreens bottle drop kiosk.
I am casting a major black magick feces spell on you and your emotions
for the entire month of August.
Until then, listen for my windchimes.
Yeah — windchimes.
Because nothing says “Greetings peeps, I hate my neighbors”
like windchimes.
Sharon Mesmer is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, and teacher. Her most recent poetry collection, Greetings From My Girlie Leisure Place (Bloof Books 2015), was voted “Best of 2015” by Entropy magazine. Other poetry collections are Annoying Diabetic Bitch, The Virgin Formica, Half Angel/Half Lunch and Vertigo Seeks Affinities (chapbook, Belladonna Books). Four of her poems appear in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (2013, second edition). She has also published three fiction collections: The Empty Quarter and In Ordinary Time from Hanging Loose Press and Ma Vie à Yonago, from Hachette in French translation. Her essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine/The Cut, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Commonweal Magazine, and the Brooklyn Rail, among others. She was a columnist for the French magazine Purple from 2003 to 2006. Her awards include a Fulbright Specialist grant, a Jerome Foundation mentoring award (grantee: Elisabeth Workman) and two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships. She teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs of New York University and The New School.
Image: “Storm King” by Daniel Nester
Pine Hills Review 