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Best of RVA Missed Connections November 28-December 4

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Hey there, lonely people… are the holiday blues getting you down? Are you looking for love in all the wrong places? Well maybe this week, missed connections is the right place for you.

This will be especially true if you’re a manager at a pizza place, or someone who’d proudly call yourself a redneck. And if you want to meet the man you could’ve been, well… you just might be in luck there, too. Just try not to overuse the exclamation point key too much.

Are you a manager? (Grimaldi’s)

What a beautiful guy. My cheese pizza was “overstretched” lol but you can slice my pizza any day. Hit me up.

To the man…

…I could have been.

I’m too far gone to change now. All the wrong choices along the way, all the epiphanies that came much too late. All the attempts that were made to do better that never found roots.

It doesn’t matter now. Coasting to the finish; full of regret, rage and internalized self loathing.

Sometimes it’s best to accept you are the villain in your own story.

Cute shoes

There’s probably no chance that you will ever see this and it’s probably inappropriate, but…I said that I like your shoes and that I very well may have a foot thing. We both laughed about it. I want you to know that I think you are gorgeous and wish I could see your sexy feet and more.

You broke my heart (NN)

You broke my heart when we broke up! I thought it was due to me being broke! What broke the bond was my refusal to “have a sleepover” with you and your BFF! I’ve changed my mind, please take me back! I’ll “hang out” with you both for now! Or if you’ve found another bloke, the news of that would make me choke! Let’s get together, talk it out, I’d be glad to buy you a Coke, or have a smoke, or take a toke, or we could even sail my boat! Just make me smile, say yes for a while, oh baby when I say to you, that I’d be glad to make you 2, if not then I will be so blue, but I will find a love anew. She may not have a friend like yours, and if that were true life would be a bore. But we would have to face the facts, and just go home and do it!

pool n darts (Richmond)

you were playin meat puppets and of montreal while playing pool/darts. seemed like your tinder date wasnt going so well. would like to hang sometime. u rock

Redneck in white Chevy at 7-11 (south Stafford)

You were leaving as I came in you nodded to me. I’d like to check out your truck and see what’s under the hood and check that big thing out.

lonely girl

I get off at 6

wanna hang out

xooxoo

Missing you Christina (Hopewell)

I miss you. The times we spent listening to music and talking about deep, deep stuff. I’m sorry of how everything went, I was scared of falling for anyone that soon after my divorce. I know I hurt you, and I didn’t mean to. Every time I go to mun cheese I think of you. Or when I listen to pink floyd

I saw you looking

If you ever want to chat or get together, let me know. I saw you sitting on your front porch indian style like you do every day smoking a cigarette. It was early in the morning and I was wearing my shorts and a t shirt and I was adjusting the good ole morning erec… while standing on my porch. I saw you looking through the cars. If you liked it lets talk.

I spanked you – prior military M4M (Stafford)

We met about a year ago, you answered my ad about spanking. I came to your house in Spotsylvania. You prior military guy, str8 but with kinky side. Similar here. Had great time, up for a repeat. Hope to hear from you.

The Sunday Reader: The Most Beautiful Girl In The World & Other Poems

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Today’s Sunday Reader comes from writer and musician Ryan Kent and is one of the many poems found in his most recent anthology titled This is Why I am Insane.

 

98. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD

she told people she was           v e n u s

collected rocks and other silly shit

said this one was good fortune

this one was for testicular fortitude

gave them and a few more to me

i threw them in her front yard

as i walked back to the car

she called me drunk at 3 am

about making dandelion tea

said the stars were aligned

and the moon and the gods

and the seasons wanted

us to dance naked in her

front yard where she saw

me toss the handful of rocks

told her i’d be over in a few

n o w         she may have not been       v e n u s

but it’s not like i’m royalty

                                            e i t h e r

 

24. THERE WON’T BE ANY STATUES

her married name was a city in italy

she had yellow purple green bruises

on her legs and arms

track marks

encore

 

thinking of that girl and another one

as i sit next to strangers in brooklyn

drinking corona alone      l o s t      c on  f  u se d

 

no intention of going back

or being asked to turn around for that matter

                 that’s ok

 

one of these days things will be different

 

until then i’ll slink by

breathing at one bar

and breathing at another

holding my breath

in between

 

119. A HORRIBLE DISGUSTING HABIT

the last girl wasn’t around anymore

i spent three days drunk with

some redheaded b i r d

up in her bed       her little    d o g    too

            then it began to wear off

and wore off quickly      f a s t

    like cheap varnish flaking from

            cheaper wood

    then i dropped a house on her

little vintage shoes

                                pointing up

      then there was this town

      then another one      &       g i r l s

girlsgirlsgirlsgirlsgirlsgirls                           g i r l s

now i’m walking up these new stairs

a place where i creak

but the floors

do not

 

141. THIS IS WHY I AM INSANE

she has that curly hair you

can only get if you were to scalp

some unlucky son of a bitch

wore dresses      like carmen m i r a n d a

smoked cigarettes          drank bourbon

could fit on the back of a     sport bike

she collected knick knacks

and cats and skulls and dead bugs

had some knives and custom guitars

the hairs in my five o’clock shadow

have started turning gray now and

everything is too damn loouuudddd

i lie in my bed      on my    b a c k

ask my feet if i was right

was i right to leave her

wait for them to give an answer

but just like me

they got      n o t h i n g

 

26. THE FOX

must have given her number

to forty men that night

she was new to this stretch of road

from somewhere out west

everyone wanted to know her

even me

eventually she made it my way

blinking her eyes

stirring at some drink

wearing some strappy dress

talking all kinds of shit

while i filled an ashtray

on that wooden patio

clever women

cover all their bases

no one wants to be caught

looking over the fence

when standing

ten feet from

the bag

 

82. RED FLAGS IN A PRETTY DRESS

she turned over that time in her bed

back and mermaid hair to me

didn’t like what i’d said about love

i counted her boxes of shoes

her scarves and ties and necklaces

and dresses and hats and purses

from my exiled side of the mattress

her cat hopped up       purred on my chest

made little kiss faces at me

that’s when i knew i was finished

and that’s when i knew i was glad

    oh       we muscled on for a while

but we were already a dead m o u s e

that was no longer fun to toss

             cats sure got a hold on

this reality thing

most of us play dress up

 

112. SPIRIT THAT BEAT THE JAPANESE

he said we had wooden dreams

that we were foolish stubborn boys

real men get out of bed before 7 am

they don’t wear seatbelts   e i t h e r

said christian academy would fix us

knock us down a few pegs

spent years proving them wrong

sleeping through the afternoon

flying under the radar

ignoring all of the gods

our own private suicide missions

now we’re poor drunks

and at night we remember

that we love our fathers

no matter how much

we hate them

 

 

Find more of Ryan Kent’s work HERE.
If you would like to submit writings for consideration into The Sunday Reader, contact us [email protected].

 

Ryan Kent’s latest poetry collection finds truth in loneliness

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If you know who Ryan Kent is, it’s probably from his role as a vocalist in several bands around town, most notably southern-fried metallers Gritter and brutal thrashers Murdersome. As a rather talented lyricist, though, it wasn’t much of a stretch to move into the poetry game, as he did with his first book, Poems For Dead People, back in 2014. Since then, he’s continued writing at a furious pace–he even mothballed an entire book’s worth of poems that he decided weren’t the right thing for him to release at that time. However, he has finally given the world another volume, in the form of This Is Why I Am Insane.

This collection, admittedly rather thin at only 64 pages, is nonetheless jam-packed with poems, which often appear two to a page. Each poem is numbered, then placed into the collection out of order, in a sequence only clear to the author. The numbers are as low as 04 and as high as 151, and while not all the numbers inbetween appear here, enough appear to make clear that this project is the result of a sustained burst of creativity in which Kent cranked out a great deal of high quality material.

He didn’t lack for inspiration, either, and the crucial inspirational factor is made clear by the opening lines of the first poem in the collection, “Flicking Her Heel.” “Well/I signed them/like the attorney asked/and like everything/else that fades away/like the hairline/and pride/and teen angst/so does love.” If it isn’t already clear, this is Kent’s divorce book. The subject of a failed marriage comes up multiple times, but the stronger focus of this book is the life that remains once the marriage is over–tales of a loner lifestyle involving too much time at bars, or sitting home alone.

A lot of This Is Why I Am Insane‘s best moments aren’t even drawn from first-person observations, but instead from those little snapshots of someone else’s life a person catches by sitting in one place for a long time, paying attention to everything at once and nothing in particular. Poem 129, “Fwends,” tells the story of a car accident in which the drivers recognize their acquaintance only after they’ve collided. As the two women in the poem sit on a sidewalk crying together over their destroyed cars, Kent, watching out his window, thinks, “The ones you know/are sometimes the/ones who wreck/your shit.”

Image may contain: 1 person

This is, for my money, the most striking moment in the whole collection, but there are plenty more to be found here. Kent has definitely developed a love for odd typography, placing large spaces between words, throwing down lines irregularly across the page, even sometimes s t r e t c hing out a word, or drrrrrrrraawwwwwwing it out across the page. At times, this works quite well; at the best moments it reminds me of Emily Dickinson’s many dashes of irregular length. However, at other times it almost feels like an obscuring device, like it’s being done to divorce the writer from the immediacy and impact of what he’s writing. The problem is, this protective device can also shield the reader from the full impact of the words. And they do hit hard.

Really, a great deal of this collection’s poems would work best read out loud. This makes a ton of sense in light of Kent’s day job as a vocalist–he’s used to converting his notebook scribbles to spoken, sung, or screamed language. Fortunately, he realizes that this talent still has value where his poetry is concerned, and will be harnessing that gift by doing a reading at Chop Suey Books in Carytown on Monday, August 28 at 6 PM (click here for more info). Whether you’re a fan of his previous poetry, someone who’s rocked out to his bands, or a total newcomer, this reading is worth catching. Ryan Kent may or may not be insane (personally, I found him eminently relatable–if anything, I’m a little worried about the guy), but he’s definitely talented. Go see him at Chop Suey on Monday night, and pick up a book while you’re at it. It’s worth the trip.

Follow Ryan Kent’s poetry at facebook.com/Poemsbythisfool.

RVA’s Raycizm and Yogamuffin’s ‘Raised by TV’ evokes 90s nostalgia with a powerful message

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“What’s up doc?”

Raised by TV, the new album by local Richmond artists Raycizm and Yogamuffin, speaks to the twisted emotions of millennials experiencing 90s era nostalgia because they just realized the world is a lot more fucked up than they knew when they were kids.
[Read more…] about RVA’s Raycizm and Yogamuffin’s ‘Raised by TV’ evokes 90s nostalgia with a powerful message

Ryan Kent’s Poems For Dead People Is Full Of Haunting Insight

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Ryan Kent is a poet, which makes sense because he’s probably better known around this town as a singer. The lyrics he writes for his band, Gritter, are probably similar to a lot of lyrics, in that if you separated them from the music and wrote them down on a piece of paper, they’d look just like poetry. But Kent has more to say than what can easily be set to a metal riff and a pounding backbeat.
[Read more…] about Ryan Kent’s Poems For Dead People Is Full Of Haunting Insight