David Fewster

AMBROSE BIERCE WRITES "MEXICO CITY BLUES"

1.

They call me bitter--

geez, who could blame me?

How much money did that

son-of-a-bitch Sammy Clemens

make?

And he lost it all, too--

what a fucking idiot.

At least they'll never make

one of MY books into

a movie starring

Bing Crosby.

2.

That Kerouac fellow is

on to something--

just write a bunch of gibberish

on a scrap of paper

and when the paper's full

call it a poem.

It doesn't even have to

make sense.

Man, all those years I wasted

writing long lines with big words

and rhymes and

plus I had to fill entire

newspaper columns.

Well, I won't be one of those geezers

who can't take a pointer

from the young'uns!

3.

I think the peyote

is helping with my asthma.

Gotta swill a lot of

tequila to keep that shit down,

tho.

4.

Pancho Villa came by today--

he wants me to ghost

his autobiography.

Exciting!

This is why I came here,

to bring the story of

the glorious Mexican Revolution

to my readers back home.

Fuck Huntington and

the rest of those

capitalist pigs.

Will start as soon as

we iron out the

screen rights details.

Pancho also said

that tequila undermines

the efficacy of peyote

in alleviating COPD,

and suggested instead

a concoction of goat's milk

and saltpeter.

Luckily, he had a dozen jars

of this in his saddlebags,

which he traded me for

my case of tequila.

5.

A miserable week.

The rancid goat's milk gave me

a debilitating case of

explosive diarrhea, while simultaneously

the saltpeter triggered a series

of huge, painful erections

that only served to remind me

of my disastrous marriage.

Also, since Villa left the other day,

I have been unable to

find my watch.

I've lost 10 pounds and

my remaining faith in mankind.

6.

I'm off to the Land

of the Tarahumara,

where I'm told there are

wild shamans who conduct

elaborate ceremonies with

psychotropic herbs that

reveal the key to the cosmos

or some such hippie shit.

Leaving first thing in the morning,

just me and a pack mule.

What the hell, I'm 72

and if I croak in the desert

it's all the same to me.

May the condors lick

the putrid flesh from my bones

and find it sweet.