Venere on the Road
Digital elaboration, 14” x 11”
Matteo Bona
BATTLE OF THE BANDS
—
MK Punky
When my band the Phree Radicals
opened for Interesting Pollen
before they sold out for arena-level fame,
all of us had a crush
on their lead singer from Chile
who back then still used
her full name
and hadn't yet discovered
as I had
how helplessly in love
you could fall
for another girl.
Backstage in the green room
at a VFW hall rented
by an ambitious college boy promoter
known for booking
quirky indie acts
with lofty aspirations,
I stood beside her
at the catering table
strewn with packaged snacks
and some sliced fruit on ice.
She flashed those dark eyes
at me and asked
with that contralto growl the world loves
woo jew like a jogurt?
That night onstage,
knowing she might be watching from the wings,
I beat my drums
with the wild fury
of a feral cat
calling for her mate.
MK Punky
The author of many books, most recently The Unexpected Guest: How a Homeless Man from the Streets of L.A. Redefined Our Home (Diversion Books), MK Punky serves as poet laureate of Vista Street Library in Los Angeles.
Matteo Bona
Matteo Bona was born on January 1, 1997, in Asti (Piedmont, Italy). He studies Foreign Languages and Modern Literatures at the Università del Piemonte Orientale. In 2018, he published a graphic project for Cold Mountain Review called “Die Vernichtung,” which won the Appalachian State University Readers’ Choice Award. In October 2019, he received the Roma Tre Academic Prize “Apollo Dionisiaco” for figurative art.
Matteo Bona