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Pale Yellow with Self-Doubt
The day was so tender
it almost broke (us) in two
the buds on the trees
lime-toned and ready to uncoil
the doves not yet married, nestless
A squirrel...
No Solace for Bastards
we dangle from a single thread
pendulous from the bars
on the upswing to the hot plates
on the down
to the soft shrapnel of coal
if...
Jennifer Harley
you’re insane
she says
you’re just another
one of those assholes
who falls in love
one of those fools
who rides motorcycles
through big cities
LATEST ARTICLES
The penultimate track from my forthcoming album Gradients of Light and The Destruction of Space.
Piano and video by me.
Please watch in fullscreen high-definition where possible and put on some good headphones, if you have them!
I hope you enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIWzoLMf6o8
I noticed you have a police dog in your house.
I saw its long snout and hairy prick.
It was carrying a gun and had a pot belly.
When I tried to pet him, he snarled and barked.
Jesus Christ. What’s up?
You having...
Here's the secret about war, she thinks, it's such a bore,
government shacks, feckless roaches,
harsh shampoo if you can get it,
staticky radio tuned to cooking tips,
and worst of all—the community clotheslines
with your sheets and dresses next
to a stranger's underwear
and even...
After ten and one half hours of work
and an hour each way on the freeway
I crawl into a white-trash apartment
and I lie on the floor and listen to
my drunken wife explain to me that she
isn't drunk because she only...
mixed media on cardboard, 19 x 27 cm, 2019
https://soundcloud.com/floreiii
Was a pair of trousers
With five pockets:
Strewn, wrinkled, gouged
Empty when Mom first told us
She was leaving it
To live with her new husband—
Her third boyfriend ever.
I felt guilty for feeling nothing
When she called
Yelling to come pick up all of the...
And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice...
Watercolour on L'Aquarelle Canson Heritage Block 200gsm cold-pressed watercolour paper - 51cm x 29cm
The Window
Traversing Alone
Yearning like a flower
looking to tilt its face
toward sun,
only night clutches the world
in loneliness,
when neither moon
nor stars are out.
Dark opaque clouds wrap up nothingness
into an empty package.
But I still want to open it to make me strong.
Mountains
The...
The man swallowed
480 ball bearings.
One sphere a minute during
his last eight-hour shift.
No unemployment lines
for the human anchor
sitting upright
on the floor of the sea.
The scuba diver’s hernia
& subsequent lawsuit.
The expense to the taxpayer
for the salvage costs.
The morticians’ horror
at the chemical...
Click the first image to start full-length view.
...
RIP Rutger Hauer —Jenn Zed
Mixed media on Strathmore 500 Series Illustration Board Heavyweight Vellum—51cm x 29cm
https://www.facebook.com/jordan.trethewey.16/videos/544170026359890/
Long military coat, snapping blue eyes
a flower, pinned on her sleeve,
not over her breast where it should have been.
Grey hair stuck out from her head
where it had been cut in fistfuls.
With each passing car,
she picked up a large black...
Boulevards of grass
barbered in flattops,
borders of beach sand
and rough.
I am here to prove who I am
but being a novice
the bend of the wind
is a difficult gauge.
Father feels the air
with raised finger,
says don’t over think,
you can choose the wrong club
and...
For the ruination of Palmyra and after P B Shelley
His shroud was campion in May;
a king's cape of crocus in November.
Curled olive roots held him in the afterlife
like the fingers of forgotten gods.
For two and a half millennia
blinking skies...
What the stiff breeze and the ocean have to say
remains a mystery. Who are we to
try to understand the splinters of a
broken boat that stray onto the beach? Or,
suppose the sleeve from a small jacket ends
up on some jutting...
Hilary brought mom and dad
from Ashland
where for the last decade
they’d been useful in her home
as bookends and paperweights—
we scattered them on a hillside
mom’s wish
at the junction of two toppled redwoods
in Founder’s Grove above
the West fork of the Eel River
then...
lightning bug streaks
illuminate my windshield, July nights
winding home, slow down
bone glow of tombstones, soon moonglow
the earth sips the sky, red wine sun
bobbing lower and lower, below the cool seam
of the horizon
smoke floats in a flat cloud, held
by humidity, slowly...
The sound of your shoes dropping,
...
Dickie Sweeney and David Meyer
don’t seem to care
when she sidles up
to the neighborhood boy group
assembled in Roger’s backyard
to throw a football. They also build
snow forts out of “bushel basket”
bricks in winter or sail popsicle stick
boats in the alley rivulets...
do
his suffering
in
grand style…
starting off with
beer in the morning,
then
the good wine
as the afternoon and
the memories kicked in.
toward evening
he
switched
to Grey Goose
and
finished the night
with his old friend, tequila.
it
wasn’t much,
but it was all he had…
besides,
when
the checks came,
they
covered the rent,
and
the Goose and
every now and...
Hi everyone,
File this one under "historical news."
In April I guest edited an Ekphrastic Challenge featuring the art of OAF editor extraordinaire Jenn Zed.
If you are so inclined, you can peruse the Poetry responses here:
http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/jenn-zed-ekphrastic-challenge-responses-poetry
And the Prose responses here:
http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/jenn-zed-ekphrastic-writing-challenge-responses-prose
Her artwork...
Hey fellow lOAFers!
Head on over to The Ekphrastic Review today and check out the featured responses to @Dale Patterson's piece, "After the Storm."
Cheers!
Jordan
last i heard
she was running coke
for some club owner
in Rio
from São João de Meriti
to São Cristóvão and
up and down Copacabana
to pay for her penthouse
apartment in Ipanema
she was making good
money
enough to keep her in
Valentino, Chanel, Dior
and Balenciaga
a rooftop pool
and a...
I stand on a bridge
between my two worlds.
The river and the moon
are hushed tonight.
They know innocence.
The moon bows slightly
in humility while death,
disguised by the shine,
rides the silent water.
I may yet learn their virtues
and find my place.
Crossing to one side,
a...
It's hard for me to accept things the way they are.
I want to fight for what's right and fair.
Acceptance is a part of survival.
I don't have to worry about whether
he loves me or he doesn't
or if he loves someone...
just a morceau, perhaps more so, than usual
It rains every day but there is no water.
In Chitose-Funabashi, the puddles are fine and the river runs wide,
But showers are on timers.
Take the wrappers off the bottles, keep the lettuce in the larder,
The neighbors eye our bin.
This summer,...
With no time
to spend
with my wife
and children
over breakfast
this morning,
I went
around the table and
simply pressed
the like buttons
on their faces.
I sent Bukowski some poems, one of which was “Twisted Living” (a 3-pager that later appeared in Hung). He re-wrote “Twisted Living” and titled it “I Know What Love Is” and sent it back to me. He didn’t add...
At
the supermax prison
books on the subject
of superdeterminism are,
predictably,
in super high demand,
flying off the shelves
seemingly faster
than the speed of light.
Recreated images of faces now available via EEG scans.
So accurate, police sketch artists will soon
apply for employment insurance benefits,
while witnesses are tapped like portable hard drives.
Connecting neural activity patterns to visual structures,
like those present in human features,
a step toward...
mixed media on paper, 21 x 29,7 cm, 2019
I pay attention to sunlight,
watch it ribbon in the tops
of trees.
(Kisses are not the answer.)
I'm at war with the walls
watching summer branches
bend in the breeze.
(Loving you is not the answer.)
Nothing's new but daylight
inside the secret cell
of your wanting knees,
upright.
Uber drivers drive reckless, they
loop, round and round
circling Big Ben,
throwing fade patterns
impossible to defend
selling shirts,
touchdown!
outside Heinz Field
coming out the woodwork
they dream of paper straws
covered in plastic sheaths,
soda fountains, covered in dusted,
diamond windshield glass
car crashes mapped out
in Google map grids
and...
it started by sucking cyanide from the pits
on the edge of a berried desert
brutal emptiness dripped from within
cramping confusing causing seizures
a mexican stand-off between
indigestible lies and unpalatable truth
so shut the gate and lock it
let it stack up wind-driven debris
form...
Write something cheerful, advises
my dear cousin from the early
seventeenth-century, a wretched
girl born in a nondescript town-house
down on New Amsterdam’s Wall Street. Write
something less depressing, something
perhaps about gladioli or parmesan
cheese, please, she begs.
In those days, 14th Street was
Uptown. I should...
silk
for those
who gladly
take off
shoes
wool
for those
in fear of
dancing
barefoot
One Way of Looking at Thirteen Blackbirds
with a tip of the hat to Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”
is to go
from seeing them as thirteen discrete
negotiators around the birdbath
determining whose turn it is now
and whose it...
I met a clown in plain clothes
drinking in a bar—of course.
He told me a kid once asked him
“Are you a real clown?
Underneath the make up?”
and he didn’t know how to answer.
He said clowns were angry.
They’d been demonized,
no longer booked...
We memorized poems
to pass them on,
past the strident winds
out of the Kremlin.
When I walk the avenue
lined with our history,
I trust you to guard
the ashes I can't claim.
My friends now in corners
unknown, memories enfold us
in the raw weather of...
I created this collage for an employee art show at a medical research institution. It plays on the idea of pH litmus tests for acids and bases, but the chromatic strips here, which classically range from red to blue...
“It’s an odd thing but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.”
—Oscar Wilde
Sundown sets the painted ladies dancing
on the eastern side of Alamo Square.
Clustered below Monterey cypresses
silhouettes watch dime-and-quarter fog
read bedtime stories to downtown suits.
I...
The votes are in. Mommy and the kids: 3. Daddy: 1.
They will go tonight to the Sizzler. The kids want the all-
you-can-eat soft serve ice-cream sundae. Little Tommy
likes to watch it flow on to the restaurant’s industrial carpeting.
At home,...
Frost everywhere this morning; those roses never knew when to quit.
Look at their withered petals, like peering into
my own face.
I’m inside this watering can with the spiders,
the deadness. As if something’s
coiled inside me.
When I close my eyes, I’m dancing.
Faucet...
We bought our Ford Falcon
for $200. There were spiders
in the ashtrays.
You kept a closet full of
men's XL shirts and always
used the upstairs bathroom.
The dogs slept with us,
longwise, like dogs. And
then the dogs died.
It was colder in October
than February. The...
there’s only a few stupider things to waste your time on
like avoiding death
or praying
He mouths a left-over thigh,
whines a new path in the grass, tries
to tell himself about bone, tongue-licking
the marrow to taste of the once-living.
I did not know his jaws would open-close
five times, miming news so old, nerves quiver
to announce the...
Code 1
Code 2
Code 3
Code 4
Code 5
Code 6
Code 7
Code 8
Code 9
All paintings acrylic on hardboard
(Just so you know, I usually take a walk after breakfast. And as I leave the dining room I may take a banana with me)
I see this guy walking down the street
with a banana. Switching it from hand
to hand...
i fell in love
with my former
employer
in the East Village, NYC
he owns a Testudines sanctuary
in central California
after termination
and my great wandering
i found myself
standing
on the side of a road
in Bakersfield
outside the shell
of his turtle farm
Sit Down Beside Me
Girl of Our Dreams or Nightmares
Mother of Flowers
Dressed To Kill
Self Portrait with Alterations
Beatific Vision
Girl with Polka Dots
Creation of the Universe
Sammy
Mi Casa Es Casa
mixed media on paper, 21 x 29,7 cm, 2019
.
.
.
1.
.
it's not like we'll be here foreverwe must give thanks
for the blistersthanks for
the tarps we hide underfor the shame
of being human
-like everyone elseage teaches us
tears aren't empty
------without substanceteaches us to walk webs
we didn't spin
.
********
2.
i want to carry you
into the...
Little shell of a poem,
I wanted to send you into the world
rich with meaning—mine.
Here you come back
empty-hulled.
Anyone with dregs to share, pile in.
Seaweed or champagne,
it's all the same to me,
an extra oar would be welcome.
A quest for spiders might lead to entrapment in silk threads
Palm reading: infinity is embedded in the ice crystals of hand-shaped clouds
Music vapors sing: the word smart has nothing to do with meditation
The grandmother was a psychic & still...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSz7rZzZQRM
Music and video - Jenn Zed
Cello composed and played by Yukiko Louvière, Berlin
This is a pre-release track from my forthcoming album 'Gradients of Light & The Destruction of Space'.
All animations and post-production made by myself, the main background photo...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/notes-from-the-apocalypse-iii
Birds rise
above the alleyway
there's a clamor
inside me
I can't identify
as mine or theirs.
Curtain edges
of the empty room
lighten,
dangerous visions
enter red-faced,
the waking dream
dissolves to shadow.
Death is summoned
from a brief retreat.
I can't bring to you
a fulfilling anthem,
only a hymn of light
I caught this...
The age of Trump and I don’t mean seventy.
I’m speaking of our time, our sad era, and I don’t mean aura,
although they say it is black, a dark presence.
Democracies don’t survive men who don’t need money.
What’s an oligarch, after...
Wife smoked and drank hard cider
while I got another headache on a
smoggy sunday afternoon with the
neighbors' children screaming and
banging on the wall. And the tape
recorder had to be returned for
warranty work because it was fucked
up and wife's Smith Corona...
and I stepped on it.
I heard its little head pop and crunch.
There was love juice on my shoe.
I heard love dripping in the basement and I almost threw up.
I hear love on my radio all the time.
Some people try...
usually I wear tweed
like the ageing bachelor I am
carry a pipe in an inside pocket
behave politely
give thanks
and compliments about the food
then leave early
as if I had somewhere to go
other than another drop-in for tea
where I am polite and leave...
Begin redacting. Blacking out
Until what’s left is cryptic
With knowledge only you can
Penetrate. Choreographer of
Significance. The words pirouette
At the barre. Lozenges like
Coffins of those shipped to black
Sites. Waterboarded testimonies like poems
Of forced rendition. Middle of the night
Transports. What is unsaid
Might...
behind every plan to bring her home. Like the burning bush
landmark on Tiger Mountain Road, she is a bright detail
withdrawn by the season and dismissed.
I tell her we should go back to where fireflies bumble
through the humid dusk and...
you’re insane
she says
you’re just another
one of those assholes
who falls in love
one of those fools
who rides motorcycles
through big cities
If I were to begin licking now, I’d probably be finished
by midnight. I’d like the opportunity.
Or you could sign up for our monthly pass,
in which case, I’d drop by once a week to suck your toes.
It’s up to you....
waxing their cars on Sunday afternoons
plodding towards darkening horizons
pushing their prams
eating their leggings at the back end
and stuffing a Gregs into the front
all of them fucking miserable
last week my dog Maisie got sick with Parvo
they catch it by eating...
He gave her a book that was navy blue and hardcover and had a strip of numbers taped on the spine.
“You’ll like it,” he said. “You’re like me.”
Jenna was sitting in bed reading when she saw him coming across...
mixed media on canvas, 22 x 27 cm, 2019
Amber bridge
A footpath and bridlepath that was once a proper field road leads down steeply to the river. As well as the footbridge there is a ford crossing for horses and they can splosh through the water to the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQUY6g0aRos
mixed media on paper, 21 x 25 cm, 2019
Last Word
Before he left,
his finger on my arm
drawing something,
I said it quick: blossom,
but it felt like goodbye.
Lesson for Gluttons
I didn't
know how to devour
passion fruits
'till he showed me how
to swallow the seeds.
Perfume(d)
Sometimes
I ask which one
is sad:
the patchouli
or my shoulder.
Suffocation
Let
me try...
The technique is called blockout poetry, a type of found poetry. I used selected words from a page in one of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. You can faintly see some of the page coming through in the background. —Dale Patterson
mixed media on canvas, 22 x 27 cm, 2019
come at me, Chef
get yourself within my radius
I warn you
I’ve armed myself with a corkscrew
and a ballpoint pen
my cocktail tray is a Spartan’s shield
and your paring knife
frankly
is laughably small
my apron is draped
over your precious
ventless
frying hood
defiant
and I am not afraid
to...
There are voices in me so old, I cannot
decipher. Like divers they speak to each other
under water. They bubble up grains of sand--
a burnt-out planet. I turn the hour glass
discovered in a Victorian bed-and-breakfast where
my wife coaxes me to...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uceoCDf9JGA
and I have given up naming cars, waist length hair
and wishing for a horse. I do not believe I will live
in a spare, but gracious pod, that my modest house
will do anything but comfortably decline, or that my cat
will...
Applaud the blood;
Sort the crash later.
Babies fill the place
With sparkling wealth.
Applaud the crash;
Sort the blood later.
Wealth fills the place
With sparkling babies.
Applaud the wealth;
Sort the babies later.
Blood fills the place
With a sparkling crash.
Applaud the babies;
Sort the wealth later.
The crash fills...
The last time at the office of the otolaryngologist
I had smartly typed my next appointment
promptly on my smart phone screen
at the same time it was read to me
by the lovely admin,
Marcie,
who said to me today
when I arrived right at...
My Father carried this with him in a leather board case in the 50's and 60’S working for the Atkinson County Citizen newspaper along side his family in Pearson, Georgia.
—Thomas Yarbrough
when it has come and gone
as so much has already,
this too will be a distant memory
unreal to us
then, we will sit on the porch you will build
outside the country home we only dream of now.
I will say
Remember when I...
In memory of Harrietta Lee Watanabe, 1944-2001
She was born in Volcano, Hawai’i and so we put dwarf palms
around our patio. That will do, said mother hurriedly.
Harrietta descended onto the platform like she expected waves
to tickle her ankles. Her Sears...
Oh, you tubby lubby of mine
You big boss man fire me
Tie me to your tree and stretch me
Make me scream mon petit carrot cake
Swim on me
Breast stroke all over me
Drive me on your beautiful golf course
Take me into your tower
My sweet...
Is it found in
the thickets
that line the paths
through our minds,
or in the simple
words that form
so easily
out of our mouths?
Words like
"good morning,
sweetheart,"
or "you are beautiful"—
those soft words
we use to build
our nests where
we lay our eggs.
After 70, certainly 60, the parents have done
All the harm they can do.
It’s time to relax, time to see the world.
Spend some dough, especially when they have a ton.
After all, the building is finished. Get out
Before the rot sets...
I keep hearing them at night.
Maybe they have already died, but beautifully,
the way a fire can be gorgeous as a red berry-
stained mouth, luscious and not sinister, unless you fear
blades and teeth, and you won't. What I'm hoping for...
it's an obscure
ornithological fact
the lifespan of a
common hummingbird
is 20 to 25 years
and i know hummingbirds
i feed them
equal portions water and sugar
hung in a red-tinted mason jar
my cat likes to eat them
but they're hard to catch
she stalks them for hours
then...
mixed media on paper, 21 x 29,7 cm, 2019
The cawing started in the morning at no particular time, unlike the trills of songbirds that started at dawn. Instead, the cawing began with the flits of sprinklers, raspier than any alarm.
“I’ve never seen so many crows,” Ginny said....
Who tells the bird it’s time to fly,
what is far beyond a horizon,
where is a cloud going,
why did a branch split there,
when will next not come?
I don’t know.
Yet, still, I marvel
at the splendor
I can feel
but can’t comprehend.
Rita calls.
She's coming over
for a girl's night-in
because she likes
the name of the wine—
Yellow Tail. She says,
I like tail, and laughs
till she chokes.
She doesn't knock;
she just comes right in,
heads straight
for the bathroom,
tells me she's like a dog—
has to mark every...
don't look now
we be at the bottom of the hole
with the butterflies
and pony shit
they taught us
to shoo gnats when cameras were around
because it was unpopular to be poor
a new policy of sorts
(hate yourself because we hate you)
no more black...
She is so new,
I am not sure which swimmer is her.
With caps and goggles
and sleek bodies,
I am surrounded by porpoise pleasures,
until this one pinches my ass
reminding me
this love demands beaching.
— george roesch johnson
He had tended the garden
pruning stems and branches
with long-handled shears
melded to his hands.
He returned that winter,
cradling a plant
in a clay-colored pot,
a plaid sleeve dangling
where his left arm had been.
I want you to have this, he said.
Since I can’t work...
Being the hybrids that we are, neither
fully prey nor fully predator, we make
our rounds each night, closing windows
and locking doors.
We are more like hyenas and jackals—
opportunists, who understand the mind
of the night stalkers, like the wind's despair
and the moon's silent wails.
Each...
Sun Bather
Lady in Blue
Friends in Free Fall
Taking on Water
Take the Baby and Run
Cityscape Through Frost Covered Window
A capella rendition of a song by Gillian Welch, in memory of poet Cheryl Leverette.
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/lb3
the clench in my brain is like
imagination on speed
ghosts fly behind my back
my mom's sweet white hair
the door ajar
her eyes peeking through
the pale blue casket
like an empty sky
more than once a day
I have something to tell her
she listened
even if...
—for Cheryl Leverette
Life gets lost
in the top right drawer of my desk.
Those three pairs of scissors once purchased?
Stuffed there way in the back.
And here's my relation with the brilliant
woman poet, jammed
behind some stamps.
In the curve of her neck, there’s longing for the man.
In her closed throat, fear.
Through sheer will
she freezes the waiter’s sleeve mid-air
as he presents the bill to her lover.
Stop, let me bend back the hour,
I haven’t been abandoned in...
in my eyes, we’re ageless
in my eyes, each exploding star
dust Pangeal atom
that conspired in our conception
has always existed
we have always existed
the galaxy flashes
in reverse, condensing
to the root
the seed from which the bloodless heart bloomed,
unfurled its violent existence
tell me what...
Let's unwind the world a little
for you and the curly haired girl
in your class. For your parents, your aunts,
your cousins and neighbors, for the tan and white
dog that comes to everyone's door. For me.
Let's count firetrucks at night and...
Encrypted Message
Joint Venture
Stainless Brick
Garage Still Life
Street-Wise Bands
Tarpedo
Green Redecoration
Paint Pirate
The Euphoria of Koi in Springtime
Is it possible to create a haiku with form and color rather than words? Something to strive for.
Could You Put Down That Damn Phone for a Minute?
Another 8" x 8" styrofoam tile in the...
She wants me to calibrate against
the wing-beat of searing fluorescents,
the examining room bright
with her skeptical forbearance.
I tell her since I've never been flayed
or broken on the wheel, we can agree
that 10 is right out. I am tempted
to claim 9,...
In the meantime, I'm here and they're not. I have learned one thing, because I get treated very unfairly, that's what I call it, the fake media. It bears no relationship to the truth. I get treated so badly....
The last days of Acme looked like the end of the world or maybe a food pantry. Mostly empty disgusting cream and brown shelves except for a few items in boxes and everybody more worried about clearance deals like...
It came from the depths of the sewhers of New York:
Pasty faced
Flaming orange hair
Highlighted, feral raccoon eyes
Swamp Thing
Decades in the making
This instant horror classic hearkens back to the Golden Age
...
Ink on Paper
I tried to catch a snapping turtle
in an old tin pail.
She ducked and dove. I hopped and turned.
It was to no avail.
Half in, half out, she flopped about—
refusing to be snared.
I could have grabbed her by the shell,
but I...
Harmeet prefers orchids
Violetta finds courage
Two tough gals
Theadora
As the days draw in
I will head south,
past the lake’s glacial blue,
up the curving road
where the mountain shines,
beyond the musterer’s hut
on whose walls names are etched.
It is always better here:
the light is clearer, brighter
and falling leaves are
tumbling russet and...
I found them there
in a still spare spring
under cottonwoods grown
in unnaturally straight lines
in small-eyed ducks
and a young girl balancing
on the lip of a fountain
in the toddler on quivering grass
running ahead of her mother
in lanky angles of a man throwing
a...
a
reporter
for the student paper
asked me
what career i would take
if
i wasn’t a writer.
i
looked at him
and said:
at this point in my life
i guess porn star is out of the question.
the
poor kid
looked at me.
he
didn’t
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NMtWcxW6Tw
My college buddy from years ago, the brilliant keyboardist Curtis Kendrick, met me in a NYC practice room and we bashed out basic chords, melodies and ideas for an homage to the late Beatle George Harrison (known as "The...
So when he left
I longed for the old
house I had. So often,
late summer in that
house, marigolds
on the steps for a
lost weekend.
One year I raked
maple leaves until
I passed out. The
long shadows,
the long space
where his body
was. Only the hand
print on the...
Oil on canvas, 3'x4'
We will speak, all wind and hail
icy tambourine of tin roof or nights
I sat on your bed folding warm
towels, pairing socks, still
inside out with you, still
marveling at the emptiness we tuck into
Emptiness is the hole punched through plywood pantry
door,...
I’m not hungry. I appraise
the contents of the office fridge
anyway: a carton of soy coffee creamer,
three sack lunches, a four-pack
of flavored coconut water, someone’s
bottle of sriracha sauce & a sealed
plastic bag of organic cherries
I noticed three mornings ago.
I tear open...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsPi3hE640o
Guitar and video - Jenn Zed
Cello composed and played by Yuki Louvière, Berlin
This piece of music is a pre-release from my forthcoming album - Gradients of Light & The Destruction of Space.
Please watch in full-screen high definition where possible.
jaded by the complexity of it all
sometimes it's best to focus on a single thing:
the tops of your shoes
we just keep walking, though
traffic whistles pass
and the neon trails waver slightly
before they leave us
After the Violin
Gypsies from Spain cause their own heartbreak
Anthony Bourdain said
I don’t know what that means maybe
we all cause our own
disasters in search of something to brace against
As a tango dancer as well as a photographer I wanted to find a way to combine my two passions, so I experimented with composing still life photographs featuring tango shoes and other personal items. These are the top three images...
She tells me I am panicking, to try to take steady, slow breaths.
I wasn't panicking when this started, I was asleep.
Asleep sitting up, of course, but unconscious, undreaming.
I open my mouth to say so and a moth flaps out,
like...
Water in toilet is frozen.
Shit piling up on top
(took a good one this
morning,
though I don't know
from what).
Mop bucket of water
harvested ten days ago
to flush toilet is
frozen solid.
Four-inch icicle
depending
from kitchen
faucet.
Pissing in kitchen sink.
Piss frozen.
Sink nearly full.
Kitchen sink
of frozen
piss.
Met a howling,...
The Albany Public Library Foundation celebrates poet and teacher Lyn Lifshin this year as a 2019 Literary Legend, together with author Peter Golden and poet Dan Wilcox. Please tell friends, and consider joining us for the gala in October...
After a long period of introspection, I have come to believe two things: 1) that human intelligence is vastly over-estimated and 2) that human communication has broken down. Not much else examines this so closely as this poly-polar fraktal...
This year, Submittable raised its prices by over 100% to publications that previously received literary journal pricing. In our case, this price hike went from $187 to $444 annually. We refuse to pass this cost along to writers and artists,...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/z0001186
Jhonny Flaymz wuz tha mos’ baddass rocah
in da sevun sounze districk dountoun dadda.
Cum bak to da flatt wun nycht hardon
mynd trubbled extreeme ubout Jadah Queen,
hiz wunce apon uh mattress 2 tymer crunsh.
Jadah plejj ta him fuh lyfe ez wee...
One night,
as they stood outside their cave,
the stink of smoked leaves and
urine still choking their breath,
they had visions of mushroom clouds.
Terrified, they ran back in,
trampled over bison hides
covering snoring bodies,
grabbed all the stone tools,
and smashed each and every one.
.john threatens mary.
.attempted murder.
.there were traces of blood.
.hiding the body.
.the confession & doing time.
.john reflecting on his behaviour.
On the last day
a homeless man
offered a woman with a briefcase
a lecture on living
& she listened
& the man with a daisy applique on his t-shirt
rested his leaf blower on a lawn
look up
no one is ready to call it a...
The IRS said: By law we are prohibited from releasing
hatchling barracudas
hiphop
trains into the tunnel
Screw’s censored 2013 wall calendar
footage from the show
a profile of the terrorist
what he claimed was art
the transcript of what he said
90 puppies to be gassed
assloads of...
Oil on hardboard - 100cm x 51cm
Sometimes a discussion helps.
Sometimes it doesn't.
It won't hurt to give it a try.
I could lose those 10 stubborn pounds.
You could harden a muscle or two
if it makes you feel better.
You know I love you
just the way you are.
Then I...
Acrylic, pencil, chalk, ink on Kraft 280gm corrugated cardboard paper – 30cm x 37cm.
After an image by Kent Williams.
Standing on a stump,
he talked of Peru
and the mountains
that pierce violet clouds.
I am the hawk. Watch me soar.
He spread his arms and spun,
his poncho whirling,
his hair sleek ribbons
in twilight.
I belong there, he said.
I want to go back.
Raising his arms...
The first thing I noticed about the golden eagle
perched in our dead acacia tree was its shadow
falling over mine like a pall. The second was
the cactus wren, still alive in its right claw,
eyes bright with resignation. I didn't care
that...
I worked hard
to callous my hands
so I could touch her.
I worked hard
to strengthen my arms
so I could hold her.
She should have known
she was raking her spurs
across my heart.
I sold her horse
because that sad excuse
for dog food was taking her
where...
A wallow started by the hippos
is the haunt of warthogs now.
The sounder’s trine of little pigs
raise holy heaven, godly grunts
as though flung mud will make
them categorically popotami.
Wise baboons shriek and grin—
they’ve long already learned
that all the aping in the...
The reason for writing will come.
Birds will peck at the lime outside your door.
The solid gray density of fall along the coast
will someday make summer again.
There's no way to repeat
those moments on the stage,
or out on the desert with...
From T.S. Eliot’s “Macavity.”
Master criminals of the world, beware
of blood on the seat, and prints on the stair.
There’s no malefaction you can circumvent:
Lockproof is on the scene, and onto your scent!
He’s known to solve the most serpentine riddle
as swiftly as...
I feel a pull at my trouser leg while I wait for the light to turn green. I glance down to my right and there he is. He has the bluest of eyes and a full beard, and surely,...
She started
taking small steps
that grew longer
until she reached the end
and bounced
her sleek body rising
as she arced
her arms outstretched
before slipping into the water.
Later she did the same
her hair loose
her body straight and slim
as she sprung from a ledge
floating above waves
for...
He worked as a framer,
sawing and nailing
rough-hewn boards
for rooms made of drywall,
climbing ladders
until he blew out his knees.
We have nothing in common, she said,
but you make me laugh.
And her eyes became slices
as he poured her beers
and slipped her big,...
Girls called her Skinny Legs
taunting her in gym
and pulling off her towel
to see the galaxy of sores
erupting on her back.
I can’t eat, she said.
But my parents make me.
Flapping her paper hands
she uncrossed the tangle
of her gray brittle legs
wincing when...
One day in the torridness, they were riding the railing
in the white shadow of the arches,
and laughing forever.
He was hot
and so was I.
Reset
The Humans loved to burn things up—witness what they did with Mars eons ago. After they torched Earth’s exquisite atmosphere, the cold blew in from beyond and even the heartiest of them died. Our race waited under the surface...
john ordered mary
to make his hot drink.
later mary killed him.
the first failed attempt
by mary to kill john
under the guise of sport.
The images presented here represent a portion of my series "ConTEXTnaTURE," developed in 2017 and finessed in 2018. The impetus behind this project is a focus on the beauty of leaf structure, surface, and geometry. I chose to portray...
There she goes, through the sultry,
the murky waters,
her name in dainty handwriting
on a dark stern of Swahili mangrove—
Allah’s signature in blue on the bow—
as I watch from the sides
where a tide of passion recedes
to let her go.
The Dark
I am not afraid of the dark.
Sometimes
it purrs at my feet,
in a puddle,
round and still.
It oozes along the floor
and climbs the wall
and hovers there.
I feel its warm breath.
I am not afraid of the dark.
My dog and I go...
throughout my life
i held them responsible
for the haphazard way they
went down their roads dragging
us along, but now that they are gone
and I wander down my own
dimly lit paths, dragging
my own along, i now
see the blindness
that guides
us all
“How Deep Is the Ocean,”
his solo like Buddha
preaching, telling us
what we didn’t know
we knew. When my son
was born, I stopped
judging my own parents,
my mother practicing
cello each morning at 6,
my father’s jealousy.
Every family is tiresome
in its own way. When the set...
EXPLORE
Apocalypsis
On the last day
a homeless man
offered a woman with a briefcase
a lecture on living
& she listened
& the man with a daisy applique on his...
