Ryan Masters

Gasworks Park

Wasted wet we smoke we bruise
The sky is full of fishing hooks
We puncture meat we flow the juice

Shield votive Bics our hands a roof
On this bent spoon hot prayers cook
Wasted wet we smoke our bruises

Fungal sprawl in Puget gloom
I'd shoot myself too if they took
My punctured meat and flowing juice

We get high in ones and twos
Molding slowly your eyes look
Wasted wet like smoky bruises

I love it when our words sound true
Rain is rain and not fishhooks
We puncture meat we run it through

I love it when our words sound true
I love myself better than you
Wasted wet we smoke we bruise
We puncture meat we flow the juice

Ryan Masters' poetry has been published in a wide range of literary journals and anthologies including The Iowa Review, The Pedestal Magazine, California Quarterly, The Absinthe Literary Review, and Poetry Motel. A chapbook, below the low-water mark, is available from Pudding House Publications (2003). He is the editor of The Bathyspheric Review and The Anthology of Monterey Bay Poets (Chatoyant Press, 2004). Masters teaches writing at Cal State Monterey Bay and is a Staff Writer at The Monterey County Weekly.