Kevin Ridgeway

HARRY DEAN STANTON

was a poem come to rugged life 
and I’m waiting for him to come back 
from the dead to repossess the poetry 
he exhaled without effort with whiskey 
in a tumbler and a cigarette always lit,
a man of countless movies cast in 
the role of a hip guardian angel to 
barflies in search of his hangdog light.


 
 
BRUCE WILLIS

whenever I’m watching 
him roaring in heat 
opposite astonished women 
or machine gunning the heads off
astonished movie villains 
cussing worse than any grandfather 
in the history of badass
I think to myself this punchdrunk 
bulldog is not a shabby fellow:
there is a visceral grace that 
shines in his each and every 
yippee ki-yay motherfucker. 
 

 

BIO: Kevin Ridgeway is the author of "Too Young to Know" (Stubborn Mule Press) and "Vacancy" (Alpine Ghost Press), among other titles. His work has appeared in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, Cultural Daily, San Pedro River Review, Into the Void, Plainsongs, The Cape Rock, Trailer Park Quarterly and The American Journal of Poetry, among others. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.