MOST POPULAR
there is something about circling
a neat balance of the grip that pulls
and the calloused hands that push
around we go — the natural cohesion
holding us in place
our eyes accustomed...
Earthly Remains
When my time comes
just flush my ashes
down the toilet
I told them
and they were shocked
poor dears!
taking me so literally!
not all at once
I explained
just one scoop...
LATEST ARTICLES
I feel a returning
and a graphite full stop
Pounding on my skin
a door balanced on a hinge
If I drag the pencil a little
it becomes a...
oh you know rum and raisin
the type that chokes you surreptitiously
the type that gnaws slowly
at your organs
until they cease to function
or the mint and...
Synopsis
James tells the story of James Armistead Lafayette, an enslaved man whose intelligence work during the American Revolution proved essential to the defeat of...
Too much talk of revolution
makes me hungry, and there
is little in the fridge that makes
one believe in a better world:
strawberries growing mold too
soon, asparagus...
Those who are said to be
'no-nonsense' and will tell you
they 'suffer no fools' serve
a harsh creed. Suffering
fools is the true comedy
of fellowship and nonsense,
the...
Prologue:
a. Three More Midnights
New Year's morning -
here in eastern standard time
I'm privy to the future
and half-jokingly
try to warn those still in the past,
Don't go!
b....
Brown polished wood tiny cupped
in grandad's big hands, the bowl almost
dwarfed by his thumb, his fingers
in the plastic pouch turning the loose
shredded tobacco before...
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Editor's note: This poem is a "ghazal", an ancient poetic form originating in 7th Century Arabia.
each morning
I awaken inside
two narratives
one—
coffee’s dark perfume;
bacon hissing in the pan;
eggs sliding
sunny side up;
my wife’s smile
spilling across the table—
all of it,
home
the other—
unseen,
a cold pressure
behind...
The slideshow automatically advances at a five second interval. You may stop or advance the slideshow using the controls on the screen. The title...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_LqCWr6OTw
i tell your girlfriend in front of you
in French
i want to embrace her, kiss her,
spend hours in her arms, spend
hours with my mouth on...
show me how you do it
and I'll drop everything
in your absence I enjoy everything
making made from nought
feeling like an an animal man
tonight, grimacing
I don't...
The meth-fueled
lab rat is utterly
insatiable.
Can’t refrain
from self-seeking
behaviors.
Has no
frustration
tolerance.
Can’t delay
gratification,
never sleeps.
Has zero
impulse
control.
Is in a
constant
frenzy.
Wants every
morsel the
other rats have.
Attacks
them
to get it.
But enough
about the
President.
Let me tell
you about...
I'm telling you this now because I want to say it all at once:
Your poems suck.
Every one of them.
You haven't written a single line...
Dis- engage
Feed the birds
Laugh as they play
Bake a cake
Hold hands by the open door
Warm in this moment
Just a moment
Just a day
Just this time
Soon to...
Photo Copyright my dear childhood friend @Becky Gwynn Stroud
A bruise of sky threatened snowfall
Crows threatened murder
Laughter threatened joy
Your body arched threatening intimacy
And your love...
When Clapham Rick stayed with us for a week
we concealed our little silver knick-knacks,
those which might be pocketed unnoticed
till cleaning later when a lack...
Ignore the alternating dross and gold
which we insist on judging—one thing good,
another not. Where is zen'aku-funi
when we really need it—
every new behavior wins...
Mom cut my bangs,
but never too short.
She trimmed
my little sister’s, too,
but never got them
quite straight
since Janie got scared
of the barber shears
and wouldn’t sit still.
Sometimes,
Mom...
I used my sister's footage and audio from "Tennessee Tiger Frogs..." to work with this poem:
Home
“Let’s see if anyone’s home,”
I’d tell my daughter as...
throwback . . . watching Jack Smith's Testimony got me all worked up
This series of photos was taken near sunset on 21 January 2026 from my backyard (near Corpus Christi, Texas). It was quite a remarkable...
On coastal paths before dawn
I’m almost overcome by the urge
to walk into the dark
toward the hiss of surf
collapsing over stones and sand
I’ve walked forest...
Brick porch. Oz books. Ice water.
That’s what I remember
Of a cross-the-street friendship
That lonely summer.
Inside, her mother, white-faced and silent
By the cold fireplace. Susan said
She...
I’m reading the paper
on a Sunday morning,
coffee going cold,
headline doing that thing
where it pretends to be neutral.
A federal agent shot a man
in Minneapolis.
Thirty-seven.
A citizen.
Videos...
stands opposed to love
as an antagonist
against our person.
pinching flesh between its claws,
clackety-clack;
drawing bloody gasps.
as yellow
as fretful lasses
outmaneuvered by bumblebees.
driving me into corners
until I become...
These long sessions
water pushed up into the building pipes, these long sessions
no hoping for what comes next, the future
in other times the future is
the...
My dog is sitting at my feet
staring at me. I am sitting
in my recliner staring back.
We are both quiet.
Her tail brushing the carpet
sounds like...
Paul cupped my face in his hands
and swore he would be as loyal
as snow is to winter.
I blushed. He stammered.
He promised to meet
mama and...
a tune you can’t recall……..
it lifts from the eaves,
slips through the loose nail in the fence,
finds the place behind your ear
where names once waited.
You...
Que Sera Sera.well educated, well read, retired
binging, on Turner Classic Movies.it was a song she sang
in the movie..the lyrics had nothing to do
with why...
Honey in my coffee
pray without ceasing
the yearly tonnage is no joke
the ghosts of World War One aviators still desire the young French women
in the...
saw you fallen
&
photographed you
yet could not save you
nor
any of them
you are a metaphor
when I was a kid
My dad had a crush on Linda Rondstadt
I thought it was funny and weird
I don’t know, he was lost…
toward the...
Nobody ever called this place the Big Easy
when I lived here a couple of hurricanes ago
on some street I’ve forgotten.
I’m back, and taxiing down...
My black lab, Wilbur, bone in his mouth, shakes the cold off at the door and proudly saunters into the house. I give him...
that I didn’t want to waste it, take anything
for granted
but I wasted much of it anyway
What am I going to say—
that some days I...
I sleep with the sun at night
with the moon all day
swim in the desert
walk across oceans
wordless when I should scream
weep when I should be...
I’m tired
of listening to trees
so forlorn
being picked at
in every season
whinging
like what’d you want
you popped those
cherries,
plums,
pears,
and apples
stepping on rot
you leave everywhere
like you’re asleep
and all the...
sadness doesn’t have to be everything
or the greatest part of anything in this world.
you needn’t be overwhelmed
by the passing of days
or the movement of...
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ANXIETY
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. LOVE BIRDS
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3. I AM WOMAN
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4. YOU ARE THE STAR OF MY UNIVERSE
***
After lunch, I bury the cat in a pretty spot near the back fence.
I pull debris from the dirt and rock-line the hole,
the light-as-air...
Click on the white play arrow in the video below to listen to the author read this poem.
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I saw my Love sit small in...
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Pigma Microns on mixed media paper, 14x17 inches.
not the pine cone
nor the slight blades pushing skyward
but the vague shape of trees
in the morning mist
the softness of smouldering oak
and how the words...
(All photographs by the author and Joanne Murphy)
December 2025
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Nonacademic writers choosing to discuss aspects of a particular masterpiece of art history must remain cautious...
This collection is from the Open Arts Forum Archives. It features seven pieces of art of various media by Hang Mai, posted on OAF...
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Winter Storks
They come stay with us to nest winter to early summer. Lovely birdies.
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Winterscape
There is something about the patterning that draws me to it....
The spider weaves a complex web
beyond my kitchen window.
What stems and leaves befoul his work
he gathers in a canopy, avoiding sun and rain.
My light...
What's in your hands?
does it stain, does it bleed
and pool in canyons traced
on your palm?
You really ought to cover it
with a dishtowel
or hide it...
This afternoon is a journal
left open on the patio;
the wind licks its finger,
flips to where I'd written
Never in my youth
did I consider endings
On the shore of a song not yet written,
there I sit down;
there I imagine a lush life, lusher than lives lived today.
There I imagine...
I was gifted a pair
of all-terrain slippers
on Christmas
a new man, I go everywhere now
doubt, worry, & fear
far, far, behind me -
for no one can...
I press my fingers to the cold glass,
third floor, the window humming like a held breath.
Interstate 45 slides below—
a gray artery, all intention.
My print...
As Night Falls
Abstract expressionist piece where night as it falls is resisted by the people and places of the day, but will cover...
1. Peace
No peace for me tonight.
I’m caught beneath
the long slow walk
of stars above
these days in which I wait.
2. Fog
In beach cities, fog
is a prayer...
On the rooftops of Kyiv we master
the circle dance, the feel of wood
that can still support our weight.
We sing Hava Nagila and Oh, Marichka,
especially when the power...
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Rotring Isograph and Pigma Micron pens on mixed media. Image size: 12" x 9".
So much light spilling through the spider's web at dawn,
So many filaments strung between grass blades, each holding dew,
So few moments we stop to...
Grandmother stands
in her garden
picking
green beans
for the winter.
Her home
splinters gray as it
leans toward the sun.
In the cellar
she pulls on a string
to throw light
on her life.
Termites...
If my mind truly is broke at least
I’m the only one holding the pieces.
That’s a rare claim around here, owning
something outright. My own people
never seen it...
I sense outside this entwined, closed in tall.
Before the Long Cold I gather tussocks
and twigs together. I have eaten all
I need to see me...
Hello! I hope you find solace
attending my funeral.
I’ve arranged
to have my hologram
deliver my eulogy.
Thank you for coming.
As you know,
I’m in a better place.
When I...
Hover your cursor over any thumbnail to see its title. Click on any thumbnail to see it full size and launch a slideshow.
...
in life's rivers
rounded stones
shaped & smoothed
by time & tides
water glides past them
over beds of gravel
those further from the flow
on banks & in fields
expose sharper...
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now. – Chinese Proverb
I notice my parents’ aging as...
come by our islands
effortless circles of life
lick your pork-greased, buffet fingers
park your passenger ships in little harbours
~hashtag thumbnail paradise~
more ideal than the brochure descriptions...
I open the paper and it greets me
like a motel sign buzzing in the rain:
Democracy Dies in Darkness.
Which is funny because
we’re not in darkness.
We’re...
Mr. Schneider always said he taught history the way a man might carry a hot pot across a kitchen—quick enough not to get burned,...
There are no bluebirds in my heart.
No chickadees
or starlings.
Just an empty
cage, with dried
blood and feathers.
Someone
crushed the thing
bare-handed, twelve years ago.
On purpose, not like Lenny.
I...
Litany
A maple leaf is
impaled on a rusty barb-
wire fence and the wind
has been muttering, under
its breath, all its usual
drunken litany of threats.
Pawn Shop Window
I...
he waddles down his narrow drive
to his dirty front door
fumbles for a few minutes with the key
some people say he is a drunk
others that...
You may not see us again in this place,
noshing on this bright juiciness that glints
a starlike pattern to our hungry pace
amongst this manmade feast's...
Last night I had a conversation in my head with a friend.
I told him, if the person you'll grow old with
needs too much care...
I must have been twelve that summer—the age when a boy is old enough to be handed a task but still too young to...
Each morning I arise to a world subtly
changed. At breakfast I thank all that
labored overnight to keep me alive—
bats, insects, roots digging their
tongues into...
A Brother’s Grip
I saw your shadow play
on a silver slide
in the corner of my room-
could almost hear
a solo glide
under my pillow.
Hours until daybreak,
with a...
I once slept in a beautiful bed.
Under an array of finely stitched samplers,
quilts and frilly things, made by my fingers alone -
starched, perfect bed...
_________________________________________________________________
Mixed media on paper. 20.7 cm x 22 cm
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Digital Art (iPad)
no snow
no rum pa pom-pom
no rum
it’s all crap
and the rain
is burning
in my eyes
the only good thing
happening for anybody
I’ve heard about
is Uncle Cork
down golfing
under
the Florida...
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Artist's note: Been posting my hand drawn xmas cards here for the last 7 years. You’ve all become my favorite acquaintances, Merry Xmas! My...
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Photographer's note: A contrast of shapes and shades. Snow makes for magic. Even though the scenes are often monochromatic it makes up for it...
it’s december 23rd and i’m doing the only liturgy i still believe in:
standing in a line.
the line is at the post office—
the place where...
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Mixed media on cardboard. 17.7 x 25.3 cm.
I lift down the pistol box
brush off old spider husks,
dead houseflies and dust,
take the heavy Webley,
a tin of pewter pellets
then step into dawn’s
desultory half-light
to...
Texas heat lay on the patio like a wet dog. The boards sweated under bottles. The fans pushed the air around and it came...
My father flies down the street, that’s it, that’s the dream.
As far as recurring dreams go I think it's fabulous, whenever I think of...
This is a time for bravery.
Not the human-cannonball kind.
Not the free-diver nor the free-soloist.
Not the malign puppeteer with his rifle-bearing puppets,
nor the wind-up dolls...
I'm speaking in an ice age idiom
all along the whole mass of non-existent roads just trails
other women took the place of my mother
to do...
O wild cat, flat on your back with
head on my arm, old-man belly
exposed and legs occasionally
twitching in their natural dreams,
your serious claws knead the...
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Artist's note: watercolor & pencil 8" x 8". The colors really are this vibrant thanks to Holbein. Some patches of sun are reflected on...
What does it mean to break the ordinary
to lift a pen like a chisel against stone,
knowing the first stroke
may draw blood from your own...
Culture you bastard
You unforgiving French fry of a God
give me a fuckin commercial break
I know you well
You had my soul in a plastic bag
from...
The sanctuary was hidden deep in the glaucous forest, a place where the air smelled of earth and sky. Every tree seemed to hold...
edit in S4&5 - thanks @Mike Casetta
The End of the World
I was driving to my new internship.
Alarms were going off. I was a...
The clock has become a slow pulse,
yet days are somehow shorter
as dusk bleeds from the firmament.
The north wind arrives as a prophet
bringing stories of...
It's the finite nature
of the scene one reaches
to capture:
the rainfall steady
as a wristwatch
keeping time
at bay
a little longer,
the streetlights
double glazed
in the wet pavement
like ghosts of...
it isn’t the bitterness
of the flesh
or the bright slant
of roofs
it’s the feet
with soil around them
and the gentle howls
rising from the canopy
oh we will feel...
My 3 year old son's
first car? A racer!
It had everything:
a plastic windshield,
a front seat,
a horn Harpo Marx
would’ve envied!
rummm…rummm..
he’d say, the ignition
turning over.
Without...
the sun glowing gold
under still pink glass waters
speaks through the chattering
first-hunt-of-day terns
punching through your mirror-face
you are not worthy
...
This sunrise breaks spells,
lies born from shadows, and God’s
hands are wrapped in smoke.
Life is stranger than fiction—unknown
We watch or read about monsters
from novels, myths, and legends—
Medusa, Mr. Hyde & Dr. Jekyll, Grendel,
Frankenstein, Dracula, Pennywise.
We fantasize about...
Always more comfortable among the strange,
prone to jump the garden fence at any startle,
I tossed no flowers upon my father’s grave
as he tossed no...
Photos taken in Kew Forest, Queens, New York.
Click on any image to launch a slideshow.
He was there
in the tomato aisle,
mumbling to cans
of puree and sauce,
saying a few words
to the San Marzanos,
his ragged nails
lingering on labels
before he moved on
to...
Within, I chomp softness,
shed my selves, walk into warmth,
without, navigate scent as I rise into air, find him,
dig into succulence, lay globes of light.
Rise...
And the state of your socks
Whether you are warm enough
Do you still have that green sweater?
What about the blue pyjamas
Did you eat the polka-dot...
I suppose resilience
is me standing here reading
poetry,
looking around
for lightning
and then buying
time
which I know
to be scarce.
Someone else
in my place
would have been destroyed
by now,
if it meant...
You are here
Not here, but still here
like a meandering path or
a bend in the beach or
sun coming up over mountains.
Here
you are a lazy memory
relaxed...
Original poem/drawings for the 6-year-old son of a dear friend of mine many years ago.
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_________________________________________________________________
The...
The doors breathe open.
Lou comes grinning,
patting his gut.
“Stage Four, baby.
Liver lit up like Christmas.”
The ward claps.
Hands on his IV pole
like it’s a prize bull.
“You’re...
our tea was always black
at first loose leaf
three teaspoons full
and one for the pot
strong with milk
in flowery porcelain teacups
on a flowery saucer
because fat funny...
________________________________________________________________
A photo of the author's music playlist "once taped to geetar" when he was a street musician in New Orleans, ca. early- to mid-1980s....
The Wormhole Killers is a piece of fiction by Grady VanWright. The author has created a video of a reading of the short work....
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Sunflowers in Segovia, Spain.
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Photograph and Poem by Tom Strong
collapsing under a dogwood
white flowers falling
heaven fluttering
Let's not sit around waiting for friends
who'll never show up—not with those soldiers outside.
Wave them all in for a gin.
I'd like to leave before...
If the poem sees how hard
you are working for it
it will work even harder
for you.
Gears of fire fire the place where
rats go to party...
horses in the sisters tales of the farm, pouring down the town streets like milk words up
turned from the churns on a cart they...
The sky burns low
as night exhales its last.
Stars fade —
I keep them breathing
in the hollow of my palms,
their heat a pulse against my skin.
Your...
whose stars are these?
abandoned to the cosmos
tethered by forces
never seen
but two young stars
clutched dancing together
in celestial rhythm
and permanent darkness
yet burn inside
like the tail of...
My granddaughter
hurries ahead.
“This way, Granddad!”
She’s sitting in a black sling
—a swing— shouting
“Granddad!”
Is there any better demand
on my time than “Higher!
Higher!”
She’s a stunt pilot
headed for the...
Today a moment of epiphany
like falling headlong down a flight of steps
announced itself all glorious and bruised.
Should we redefine what we call ‘music’ –
reconsider...
Look how the sun
shines this morning.
Hasn’t blazed like that
in a long time.
You wake up without
a care in the world.
Outside your window
the world is waiting...
A white crane about
the size of a small single-
prop airplane is just
now dropping down out
of the big blue nowhere and
coming to a rest
upon what...
when streets I once knew screamed in languages I no longer understood,
And people waged wars for which the weapons I did not know how...
everything on the wooden table
sprouted feathers & flew away
the table reared up on its hind legs
& galloped into the forest
to be with its kind....
I have been chasing Hemingway’s ghosts around the world. I’m inspired by his love for culture that is explored in his stories. I’ve visited...
Our heads buzzed with talk of escaping
dead-end jobs, family dramas, and towns
that held no surprizes. Our heads buzzed
with talk of pilgrimage, of travelling
the slow...
There were days when Hywel stood knee-deep in muddy water, a snow-capped mountain in his path; days when every passing flock of storks croaked...
...
so today
as I tiptoe into the first night
that guides me into
the first day of a new year
and offer heart and hopeful promises
and time I...
_________________________________________________________________
Pigma Microns and Ohuhu Pupe color markers on vellum bristol paper, 14" x 17".
crows in a murder
on a birch tree limb
while sun screamed
through half-opened blinds
painting my body
in warrior stripes
I rose to the window
exposing myself
to the ancient oracles
and...
I found another of your ghosts.
This one, an unanswered email,.with its genial demand for a speedy
reply. Did you call me, as usual,.right after hitting...
I stand steady,
stone in the stream,
current breaking
but never breaking me.
My silence commands.
My presence
settles the room.
They lean in—
without knowing why.
Beneath,
a furnace hums.
The quiet masks
a hunger,
an...
Calcified words
unable to break free
from the chains
of those that came before
sit helpless
before the wall
that demands precision
and become documents in the trash
as a new blank...
Violetta taught her lizard
to sing
a libretto
Alfredo’s script became
a passion play on morality
better a whore
than a bore he sang
and sunlight struck
his draconian scales
and he fought
with...
For the promises I never made, or kept; for the
friends I wronged, or let down, or lost touch with;
for doors I failed to hold...
give something today
not just get something
look for that something
around certainty
give yourself wonder
find that thing to comfort
celebrate the mystery
of life without purpose
drop those things
run outside...
From a distance, amber scores
Alerted our fight.
It's a particular beat—
Threatening thumping.
Toussaint, Jean-Jacques, our dark wings
affirmed our blackness,
Vulgarized by sugarcane,
As fire stalked the land.
Once I had to constantly remake home
when it was destroyed. I patiently made
restrung each strand between brightnesses, honed
each line for those who reluctantly stayed.
Now,...
Before the ascendance
the darkness enfolds
seamless, soothing,
then from it
rises
the moon
and shadows descend
to rest on the shoulders of night
infinite mystery
illuminating insignificance
with eons of indifference
__________________________________________________________________
Hover your cursor...
It sits with legs elevated
to help the fluid drain
into its empty chest cavity
skinny, skinnier, then bone thin
as an Xray transparency.
Fading into the itchy couch
yet...
I'm spying on Annie B. and Baby Ray Carter gassing up their bikes in front of Eldredge's country store, watching them squat half-naked in...
I slept under a sturgeon moon
the breeze came swiftly
and with it
the dream I have
so often, the one that guides
an ever-changing map
of a future trampled...
Hover your cursor over an image to see its title. Click on any image to see it full size and launch a slideshow.
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Photographer's Notes:...
We’re more than a week in and people are still saying it’s already September as if there’s some injustice involved, as if it’s their first time...
after the cops left
and the ambulance had gone
and i was home again
with nothing but silence
and the leftover pad thai
that no longer looked festive—
i found...
An old woman
black lace veiled
kneels at her pew
hunched in solitude
crooked fingers
tremble
through a string
of beads
with Four Mysteries.
Bead by bead
fingers and thumbs
rub their tempo
of whispered prayer
into...
I name one stone Granger. I name the other stone Wayne. Neither has a housemaid. Both have birthdays.
Their father's name is Hays. Their mother's...
i was out in the field this morning
trimming the spent blooms
from the most beautiful flowers
i’ve ever grown, lisianthus &
larkspur in blues & the colors...
i was halfway into a pint of ben & jerry’s
and halfway through a bowl of blue dream
when my sister called
voice like a weather alert:
lance?...
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***
Birch Bay, Washington. Spring, 2018.
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i. Lens: EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Image Stabilization II
I might be the
only person
you know
who’s bought 2 refrigerators
in one month
And the reason why
is less interesting
than the fact I sprung for
a sleek, European
monolithic design
Because...
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________________________________________________________________
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***
Ink, pencil, and watercolor
Your flight delayed, you scroll your photos app.
There is the dog you just adopted, eyes alert
and energetic. There is your son roughhousing
with him on...
I am not sure
if the hushed noises
above my thin-walled condo
are real or porn.
The unit across mine
is now vacant
after a night raid
by a camo-uniformed squad.
The...
I just read that insomnia has become a public-health emergency.
Unless you’re mainlining or planning a murder that’s bullshit.
I had an insomniac summer when I...
I perform tricks for the children
at the roadside attraction—mannequins,
bedpans and teeth being the main of my draw.
It is unpleasant work but must be done,
for...
i was filling out a survey for a five-dollar gift card
when the news broke like a mirror in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom.
“the president has terminated...
I am crying now.
Finally the gates opened.
I look for my heart.
I am in trouble
I know love
when I feel it
I will keep it
to myself
I’m not good
at being dragged
into someone
else’s life
sometimes
they just up
& die
It’s not that
I’m...
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Pigma Micron Pens on Smooth Bristol paper, 18x24 inches.
Like that dream where you're pulling out a wild hair
and it keeps getting longer and longer until you have
great piles of it all over...
I'm gonna drink a lot of coffee when I get out of bed
because I'm ravenous of memories
- you know what I speak of, when...
a mound of vesuvius
clothes on the floor
tripped
on the orange extension cord
found the toothpaste
in with my underwear
the brush
dipped in my after shave
okay gonna be
a good...
quiet joy always makes me curious
so do yesterday afternoons recently purchased
peeking out the top of a tote bag
carried around with a destination in mind
by...
Halfway through the night, alone in my bed, I breathe out
with a dying man’s last word on my lips— Believe.
Let belief fill up my days....
at one time in my foolish past
i cared.
i really did.
i marked up papers
with comments like
“awkward phrasing” and
“what exactly are you trying to say here?”
i...
There is nothing new to say about rain.
It has already been likened to tears,
or a cover for some secret grief;
the sky has long been...
“you ever seen a man drink himself backwards?”
i asked the barkeep, who looked
like regret in a vest,
polishing his way toward minimum wage.
“because i’m halfway...
Art class:
where mistakes
become discoveries,
where mess
means
learning,
where every child
is
Picasso
and
Einstein
rolled into one
paint-stained
possibility.
I heard he only
spoke Russian to horses and
only when drinking
real Russian vodka
or maybe some god-awful
home-brewed concoction
made from various
herbs, flowers and weeds that came
from his...
- for WKK
daylight a prism
of worry, night an eerie
chandelier of stars
my dream life
has you up, dressed
and walking
glint of resolve
air deprived and hidden
inside this verse
nail...
An Old Dog Reads Keats
I read Keats’ biography.
Muse naps.
We're both “old dogs”,
nagged with illnesses.
He naps as the 5:20 express train
clatters past,
trundling towards Gilroy
while I...
I have counted her footsteps
for thirty-seven years
the same path worn
into my slope,
the same pause
at the thorny ridge
where she catches her breath
and adjusts the
weight on...
The birds prefer seven and then again at five
Sun flowers
A pile on each four by four
That’s right
Orange kitty eats on the rug near the...
In a bold move that redefines both "art" and "history," the National Portrait Griftlery has appointed a new director: former real estate tycoon, reality...
First, cry your eyes out,
into a pot of unpeeled potatoes.
Chop 2 large onions furiously,
crying copiously.
Potatoes want lots of salt
to be savory.
You don’t need exact...
The finches of the land stood sentinel
to grazing flocks of black-faced sheep.
We drove roof down, your long hair pony-tailed,
through crumpled fields like kicked off...
________________________________________________________________________
Photograph taken in Segovia with an iPhone camera
“fuck off,” the old man said
as he heaved a black trash bag
into the dumpster behind the Safeway.
karsten blinked.
“well damn.
i just said hey, man.”
we were...
Her sky
is the ferns, and the dew sick flowers
opening and closing their gums
for the toothless promise,
for body to memory.
She thinks of the leopard she...
Click on the white arrow to see the video and hear the author reading this poem. The text of the poem is shown below.
_______________________________________________________________________
https://vimeo.com/1025342547?p=1t
Picnic
Jane...
They brought me in on a six-week contract to “optimize client contact channels”—which, in plain English, meant building a phone system so soul-destroying that...
"You know what drives me crazy? It's all these people talking about how great technology is, and how it saves all this time. But...
With fake gusto I work through
early morning exercises,
a song on the radio turned up
loud enough to stir the house,
to get the windows grinning
and prime...
Hover your cursor over an image to see its title. Click on any image to see it full size and launch a slideshow of...
your mouth set just so
sitting at the window
watching the storm pass
lightning & thunder relentless
I try to carry silence
in the lining of my overcoat,
but it is everywhere, in hiding,
taking the shape of everything.
I fear I might become a...
CHARACTERS
LCPL. JACKSON TURNER African-American, 21, from D.C. Athletic, disciplined, quiet. His father was laid off from a federal agency during a DEI restructuring.
PFC. RICARDO...
Running through the palace of rabbits
begins with finding one.
Pull your car to the side of the road
and peer under bushes with a light,
eventually you’ll...
At Gary Goldenberg’s retirement party, someone brought a chocolate sheet cake that said “Congratulations!” in blue frosting, the kind that stained teeth and clothes...
In Manila,
I watched them toss coins
into a canal slick with waste—
sailors and Marines laughing,
like children on leave
from war.
The kids dove in
as if they’d waited
their...
Hover your pointer over any image to see its title. Click on any image to view it full size and launch a slideshow of...
_______________________________________________________________________
Oil on paper. 30 cm x 30 cm.
They told him in March. A manila envelope full of scan results, a half-hearted handshake from the doctor, a lot of words like “advanced”...
________________________________________________________________________
Artist's notes about this painting:
"This is a painting of a Japanese fox mask (273 x 220 mm) on F3 panel board. It was done...
adrift,...
Unfinished but complete
Media: alcohol-based markers.
________________________________________________________________________
2. Untitled
Media: Pigma Microns on mixed media paper. 9x12 inches.
**********************
when the bombs drop
I will catch them
then fasten them with love poems
and my wife will attach her recipe
for homemade nutter butters
and even Scurry will...
_______________________________________________________________________
Acrylic on Panel. 24" x 36".
arose a rose without spikes, unshaded
softness
scattering delicate dreams through the air
tickling
veiny leaves, mundane bees, an undesired
fondness
predating papa bears, and heinous hares
tingling
with such profane heat,...
In an era of information overload and media fragmentation, this experimental typeface transforms discarded newspapers into a powerful expression on how we consume news...
...
corn's happy
hip-high in May
unravelling cornucopia
of broad, bright leaves
in preparation
for longer
hotter days
the swelling days
the days of ombre silk...
days of black beetles' creep
and the ravages of...
“I want you to delete all the pictures of me,” she said.
I was sitting in the tub with my feet sticking out like two...
Inside the giant rabbits warren of the Newbridge Center dwarfing its vast, lovely coniferous acreage, the deer and turkeys sidling up to the doors...
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More
Dylan Thomas’ Boathouse and Writing Hut at Laugharne, Wales
Exterior of Boathouse
Photographer's note: I visited years ago. His writing hut is just above on a cliff overhanging the boathouse. There is a narrow track...
