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Muddy Water Woman
https://soundcloud.com/user-417500652/muddy-water-woman
Muddy Water Woman
Down in Missisisippi where the catfish grow long
I found her and I promised her someday I’d write a song
About a rebel woman...
LATEST ARTICLES
I wish
I could write
happy things,
stuff about
daisies,
moonlight,
a first kiss,
or a mid-life lover,
the greeting card stanzas
that warm us
like a puppy
or a big furry cat
laying in our lap.
I want to
shout that
Emerson thing,
sound that
Thoreau vibe,
proclaim a little
Whitman,
and allude to
that Ginsberg guy,
by envisioning
a transcendental...
according to webMD
for three weeks every month women prefer men
with feminine features as they are more likely to be committed and nurturing
for one week every month
they prefer men with strong jaws and cheekbones
and a sense of humour signifying good...
He needed nothing for Christmas
but fishing was in his blood
Just to feel the sea breeze
the smell of the water
the pull on the line
The last time he was able to fish
he caught nothing
except the memory of a sad stray cat
that...
condemned to die
but in the meantime
we can watch free movies
looking
at the mountain
with its
stationary stare
and seemingly
vacant thought
it is
tempting
to assume
absolute ignorance
a mere
feature
within a mute
landscape
but this
could be wisdom
at its purest
this lack
of a need
to
express
what is
There is a shark in the bath water, a frightening
fin making late night calls titled, “Bye-Bye America.”
We listen, but the dialogue is scripted in heavy
red murmurs, the spin of a rotary dial,
Russian roulette with a rhythm like
BOOM, BOOM… BOOM,...
One day when I was fourteen
watching TV in our basement alone
my father
who could do everything it seemed
design buildings
rebuild car engines
make his own bow arrowheads for hunting deer
and who would die eight years later at the age of fifty
came down...
Dean wrote
his heart out
often out
of his mind
hitchhiking
the back roads
riding along
with any muse
who stopped
to pick him up
safety
be damned
he was
not afraid
to bail on
an indulgent
poem
careening
across the page
or to stick out
his bruised
& bloody
thumb again
simply put
& he’d agree
Dean fucked
every muse
he met
his poems
are all bastards
mounds of paper, pens
that never run out of ink
to write, write
watch squirrels bend
low branches, bend
not break, my back bends
over the desk
kink in my shoulder
the words keep
pouring out, water runs
over paper, tears
falling, ink blobs
words unreadable
I need all this
time to let...
Dear Jame,
you're right in the other room but in this sickness you are very far. the angels are tickling me. i have the Phillies on the radio. the white noise of the ballpark and the relaxed voice of the...
all I can do
is go outside
with a cigarette
when my wife
is on the phone
talking about hurricanes
and how much
we’re in debt
I sit there nervously
puffing away
I keep my butts
in a big flowerpot
looking at it I see
my worry has bloomed
day of small things,
slowly steadily worked
as we rest the dust motes,
shine as gold.
I look at my watch,
its round deadpan face.
The second hand
helps move the first.
Without it
it’s harder
to tell time
is passing.
fallen leaves cover the ground
bird on a branch looking everywhere
two birds on the beach searching the sands
for something to eat
a woman comes to the temple
sees all the prayers for sale
touches one
touches two
The last breath
are words that share
a heavy weight
with those few words
that are impossible to comprehend
meaning both everything and nothing
a finality beyond final
It seems there should be other words
that follow to justify them
or to honor them
but there is no honor...
I think
I’m going
to want
to kill myself
so I can
call
the suicide hotline
and
have
someone
to talk to
The heart has a stone—
the weight of its master tied to it
going down to the sea depth.
We are given a double dare—
a dagger, daring us to take another step.
Sometimes we listen, but sometimes
we seem to have lost our minds.
America’s fucked
I want to go to America
I can’t get to America
If I get to America they won’t let me back
I can’t stay here
I’m fucked
At least Trump showed the world just how fucked America is
American people are nice
What the fuck...
ascend
the mountain
gathering
descend
the mountain
scattering
I had to light
a second cigarette
I was too anxious
science says
smoking makes you
more anxious
screw science
I know what
calms me down
I pictured our
rickety old waitress
coming out
saying you know your wife
is waiting for you in there!
my anxiety and guilt were scolding me
it pissed...
Words circle an elusive center of meaning
as wolves searching for warmth stalk fires
on the coldest night of the year
and aurora borealis
dances in awe of the futility of words and wolves
while the stars go on ignoring their own.
mycribso
closetoyo
urcoffinIb
arelyhadro
omtobreathe
post-menopausal
my feet get cold
really, very cold
so i bought a pair
of fleece woven
house boots
soft rubber memory soles
made in Iceland
my hair doesn't get
greasy anymore
my skin is dry
my mouth is dry
i feel chalk white
against a clay wall
under a Mesolithic
Spanish sun
dry
i was oily
on...
There must be some mistake
I can’t be that old
Check the ledger again
The ledger is correct, sir
It is never wrong
And while you’re here
Here is your hourglass
Remember it is just an estimate
Based on our actuarial tables
But don’t worry
Your life is insured...
light came, we saw the green ness of it all. we live in the country.
I asked Dad
what he’d been doing lately.
He said he’d been having
nice phone conversations.
I asked who he’d been talking to.
He said Jason.
“Who’s Jason?” I said.
Dad’s eyes brightened.
He released one hand
from the pocket
of his corduroy pants,
his crooked fingers shaking
as he talked.
“Jason....
I may have been a child once
I cannot recall young legs,
bright cheeks, smooth skin -
mirror reflects truth, aged
tired eyes, silver strands
of hair no longer dark brown
always string-straight, never
held a curl after sleeping in
pink sponge rollers that hurt.
Bounding upstairs laughing
back...
Do you remember when we planted the garden
I tilled the soil and you followed behind
carefully making lines for rows
then lovingly placing each seed
about a half-inch deep
and covering it with your delicate fingers
arugula, kale, bok choy, and tatsoi
In late November...
the river flows and flows
the castle walls have been breached
a dinner table heaves
on the ramparts of our friendships
crows, bearing news
Luck is that way
rain falls over picnic
dropped vase, water
dribbles ankles, floor
slippery, rivulets
run driveway cracks,
car has a new dent
flaked with red paint
crimson tears on gray
I said the wrong thing
humor not taken such,
even though laughter
covers my ache at times
tears mingle with...
Someday someone I love
will find everything I have left
hidden in boxes
filed in cabinets
hung on walls
or even buried in rubble.
It may simply be thrown away
and forgotten
as the living must do
with the clutter of death.
Unless I leave
anger,
a bad memory,
harsh words,
the smile...
There was a bus driver who had driven
the very same route for fourteen years
and never been able to get through
the last five lights on the green
until one night he finally
glided, dived,
swam though those last five
like there was nothing to...
I found a room
through the classifieds,
down the street
in a clapboard house
not far from my job.
I met Dale the landlord
on my lunch hour.
He led me up a wind
of three flights of stairs.
“It’s partially furnished,” he said
“Take a look.”
Dale caught his...
I wonder
what the opposite & equal reaction was
to my loving you
I know
it doesn’t mean that you loved me
as much in return
the heavenly motion
of our two bodies proves there are no laws
of physics for love
if there were
the gravity between us...
He wasn’t a poet who woke early
and wrote of distant trains drumming
under a late blooming moon.
He was much fresher than that.
But reading his new poem sure enough
there was the moon banging away
like a breakfast chef in a dining carriage,
and...
Doctor told me today
that I am cancer free.
Then Albert Pujols hit
home runs 699 & 700
in my honor. My very
special, good news day!
didn’t
see poetry
as anything special.
it was
just a part of him.
a
part of
what he did...
every day.
he’d get up in the morning,
have his coffee...
walk out
with the dog
and
write a poem.
he
never went back
to correct or change a line.
they
just were
what they were.
he
said he
learned it
from the dog,
who...
I wandered around
after Tim shot himself
in the basement,
the place where
we made out and
watched monster movies
after high school dances.
“I like you,” he had said.
“But I never really love
much of anybody.”
I thought that would change
when we graduated,
him pumping gas,
me clerking at...
f I could only fly
he sings,
serving up his marrow
like the hors d'oeuvres no one takes,
graciously enough
to ache in front of strangers,
to miss somebody openly
while guests just pivot and revolve
and sentence pretty verses to the ether,
oblivious to certain death.
You know,
sometimes...
you are taking
everything from me
overcoming me
with you
I’m like stars
running out of light
succumbing
to the sunrise
I’m on the street
shielding my eyes from you
till there’s nothing left of me
but your blaring
Lean out of this convention
of age with your coffee, your
blue humor and your explanation.
I might even back up and laugh.
I got here, too, you know, scouring
each Kodak black and white
for a date and a reason in logical
monochrome.
I'm fine, if...
now we are just passengers
at best something, a shadow, comes within grasp
the music continues to play
on the rails the wagon proceeds
meditation had been such a true lesson
healing
the keys of the thumb piano
ring
a dance of light weights
iron fluttering about ankleted
there...
flyaway umbrella
upside down
fills
with rainwater
frogs
move in
mosquitos
for dinner
tadpoles ensue
hop away
pool dries up
umbrella skeleton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUN-pcmhd8w
I can't call you Paul. I'm on my sickbed. and when I'm not there I get up and wander the night with my phone and cigarettes in hand wishing they would help. I'm way too sick Paul. pray for...
thankyou and say it is only temporary
balanced or tied with string
though overnight decided to use the glue gun
I listen for context,
willing myself to make out
the space between
that one phrase I caught
and the air
trapped behind it.
I know the words
are all there as is
the telepathic nod
to a joke made
a second late.
The trouble is I can't
hear well and you
talk...
Daniel J. Flore III
marked himself safe
from himself
was it during an evening walk
in contemplation of the sinking sun
that its illusion whispered sex burn destroy
or during all of winter and spring
did you brace against the prospect of summer
the toy that arrived annually broken in its box
perhaps you...
On the day
my father
was buried
it didn’t rain
and
a friend
of my brother’s
used up
all the tears
I couldn’t shed
so I became
an umbrella
for the
downpour
flowing
down his
chubby face
I noticed
how crooked
his teeth
had become
there was
very little
to be said
or to be done
it was all
so very amusing
the mouth
of my father's...
I have a hunch
about this course of angsty little scenarios
some over which I have no control
but could better handle tra-la
Others I relinquished
to my idiot version of self
My id
the fucker
so now I have a lunch on the 4th, a looming...
I
was
sensitive
but
they
pulled
the
petals
off
one
at
a
time
now
I
am
a
naked
madman
just
standing
there
whether we write a poem
or pull a trigger
we all go on daily
flushing our piss into the earth
like to be quiet, speaking
only
when you asked the question.
not sure why i came.
i think you invited me?
My neighbor Bill wanted me to meet some of his friends.
I was a little apprehensive because I thought they might
be part of a religious group and I had no interest
in growing closer to God.
Bill said he wanted me to...
recycled on a garage floor,
the six months before you almost
had a handle on.
It’s not telling anyone.
Rewashing everything
on the bottom layer
when twice a year without warning
the washer leaks and floods
everything that made sense.
It’s the cockroach
that everyone calls a water bug
but...
how many
times must
the seasons
change before
they get it right?
life in suburbia,
where the dogs sniff the grass
and sniff again
and the men of the households on their riding mowers
shave perfectly straight lines
in the perfectly square yards
and there is no fenced line to know
where one yard begins and another ends
someone...
there is a dusty old box
in the back of my mind crumpled and damaged
from all the things piled on top of it
sitting alone in the back of the closet
and each time I moved it moved with me
to the back...
Stop the push.
Go and look.
Outside
flapper girls flaunt their street gold.
They know nothing of decay
of hanging on, see J. this tree
it's a jazz festival.
And once I do I can't
unsee spaces
as pauses for yellow
for the budgies that still sing.
Canned peach will...
yet when
she said my friend looked pretty
&
that I smelled nice
I sagged a little.
later that day
i found a message
request
from a soldier in the usa
holding a puppy & a rose
calling me a beauty
There is no proof that William Carlos Williams time traveled
back to 399 BC to ease Socrates’ painful death from hemlock
but when amateur archaeologists found a poem in an urn in
1996 under the Old Lyceum in Athens it was signed...
Her 1st thought on arrival was she wouldn’t be staying.
Now on the 4th day of her 3rd month she is comfortable
putting her tongue on the window and licking it clean.
On warm afternoons her attendant rolls her steel chair into
the...
while out on a longer walk,
met him and he explained to me,
about walking there and back again
I removed my towel
and wiped away the fog
to check the progress of lines
on my newly shaven face,
but things turned metaphysical
and I asked why I should care
that the left side has dropped
more than the right.
This body is not me, after...
She is thick-bodied and heavy-boned
a fleshy peach-of-a-gal
whose tugboat frame nudges
and pushes until things move
in a positive direction.
So no big surprise she is tied
to a ponderous barge of a man
who spends his nights drifting
from sand bar to sand bar
until he...
Halloween was a non-event
maybe it was because I closed the blinds
and turned off the porch light
I didn’t have any candy
being afraid of the demon breath
coming from kids
I have avoided that for three years now
no reason to take that chance
their...
duck egg blue
the ironmongers in town
at three seventy-nine
we can walk there and back or there
and bus back you see
Sometimes the cat
is just an avocado branch
scratching against the side wall
in an early evening breeze.
we camped out in a friend’s backyard
surrounded by nothing but cornfields
and neighboring yards that stretched for miles
a bonfire lit the pitch-black sky the night before
it was a late August morning
just before school was back in full swing
my clothes were...
Escaping their dictionary prison
the words fall
scattered on the floor
Finding old friends
in the lines of a poem
their new prism
They are cats lying in the sun
Waiting for critics
to come chase them away
You're the poison
I'd rather not
Seek an antidote for
Every pill
That kills the cells
In my veins pains
But I'd rather risk myself
And have you
Than be sick and not have
Any of your kick
They said pick a struggle to go through
And I know
I'd be...
small village, mayhap a hamlet, named,
one forgets the rules with all that has happened.
nice to be out, to see the neighbors’ houses,
to see what has changed while i have been working
The hammock is hung
between aspen and oak
which means one day logic
will flutter its pretty fingers
and fall on its head. Our rescue
dog sleeps nose to tail, but only
on the maple side. She's dreamed
in butterfly yellow all her life
and knows the...
I’m floating on an inner tube
in the middle of Lake Erie
miles away from the shore
where no man should be floating on an inner tube
but it is calm enough
and blue enough
comfortable enough
the sun is…
well, you know how when you walk...
Ancient Rome became like that alligator
with its mouth open wide, swinging
east and west at a pack of lions
surrounding it near waters.
How long can you stay out
near the shore
and defend yourself
against hungry enemies?
It's you or them,
and somebody has to eat.
If...
deciding to get started
I left the destination
arriving
when it all looked familiar
but, this time, recognizing
everything I missed
a dear friend
recently died
unexpectedly
voluntarily
taking with him
some of our pain
and most of
the answers
leaving us with
all the grief
the
night
is
wide
open
legs
a
woman
on
the
bed
with
tarantula
calves
a
wine
bottle
on
the
dresser
with
your
conscience
Oh, the silliness continues, the messages keep coming, and the receiver keeps reading them, and reading stories written long ago
A shop in a neighborhood, boys that are now girls, chats and giggles the open door welcoming
I wrote and wrote prolifically —
But what’s a girl to do
While sitting in her room all day
When visitors are few.
Because I felt compelled to write
But not compelled to share —
I thought they’d take me literally —
So no one was...
my mom looks at me
like "what do I do?'
I am only 11 years old
my mom-
fun as a bag of Doritos
I give her advice
it exhausts me
we are both depleted
after the divorce
but give more than we have
to each other
-it's the only...
"Today 1% of the world is a barely livable hot zone.
By 2070 that portion could go up to 19%.
Billions of people call these lands home. Where will they go?”
-NY Times article on climate change and migration
Southern winds bring...
Old tree is barking at the moon
Squirrel is telling a tail of balance
Fence is fighting off the neighbors
Streetlights are glowering at the dark
Fire is thinking of an old flame
Autumn is falling over itself to get here
Sea breeze is blowing...
I loved you, you know.
Never mind that I was nine
years old and couldn't get
on by myself. Never mind
the velvet hat that flew
off, the long fidgety trail
of riders, the bus horn
and the bolt. I love you
even now. I mean that.
If...
At the funeral I do not want to be the one in the coffin.
I will surround myself with flowers,
go to a meadow
& lie down on my back.
The wind will flutter my soul like a flag.
I am already at half...
if you take the 101 west,
out past canoga park
round the bend
past the sign
Pepperdine
you can literally smell
the $$$
the desperation
of sick people
not the people who are ill.
the sick people.
Mom asked
if I could bring her
a few things.
I said maybe.
“I just want
some Hostess fruit pies,” she said.
“Apple.
And berry.”
I heard the crackle
of her cigarette
in the receiver.
“For God’s sake.
That’s not too much to ask.”
I stopped at 7-11
and got three apple
and two...
It’s quite comforting to know that I wake up on 100% of the days that I’m alive
and odds of fighting for yet another day
are higher than burying myself
under a pile of comforters.
I brush my teeth with Colgate
as I brush...
Monochrome greens recede
like the shorter day
into a longer night
for a pageant of pigments
on a runway sashay
down a fall fashion stage.
The finale
a strip tease cabaret
dropping attire
piece by piece
with every trombone slide
of northwest wind.
unafraid to be seen
gesturing naked
on a freckled floor.
slide down rosewood
creaks behind the song
solo mandolin
the slot allows you to see the next roll for free
sometimes that next roll is a winner
but you gotta sit there like a crackhead
so you fit in
checking game after game after game
forget the slot closest to the register
the employees...
sorting over the bones
that had meaning when
flesh was on them
flesh is long gone now
meaning remains
the back road was
littered, rather blustery.
today
clouds blow in, leaves
crake and groan.
i say again, a darker hue
she is sitting 5 feet away in her wheelchair,
back to me as always
she says often,
“Oh well, it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
she tells someone, never me
she has no quality of life
but does nothing to make any changes
I try conversation,...
rice falls
like confetti
from my fork
lands
on the table
the plate
the floor.
I wander
through rooms
going nowhere
wait for the meds
to kick in.
I’m shaking
confused
repeat the same words
as a prayer
this is not real
this
is
not
real
Praise Sammy Tepper with the fiery red hair—scapegoat for bullies who taunt and tease to hear him squeal. Praise Etsio Goloni, Gas-station Joe, for his kind and toothless grin. Praise his wife, who makes red, white, and blue 4th...
You think you are in control of your reality
But whatever you have done
Is remembered differently
By those who saw it
It’s not what you did
It’s what they think you did
You fling handfuls of words
Across space
Dry grass in the wind
Meaning something to...
Open Arts Press, LLC is pleased to announce the publication of Daniel F. Flore’s “Homeless Poems,” a self-printable trifold broadside containing a collection of new verse from Dan.
That black jacket I’m wearing in the picture is the actual jacket...
damn not again
this improved wax
from killer bees
was not supposed
to liquify as easily
but i can see now
i’d flown
closer to the sun
once again
happy-go-luckiless
my feathery fall
more dramatic
gone viral
more famous
a new idiom
in my honor
“don’t let your wax melt”
Human me-ing
lets ego drive.
Human be-ing
lets what-happens drive
with ego
in the passenger seat
gaping out the window.
What’s happening to you, my dearest? Tell me
why your streets are lately full of blood. Yesterday afternoon
rain washed it away from a sidewalk and into a sewer.
Many once alive are now corpses with eyes like dead fish.
We know that...
we did not grow up with buttercups and daisies,
delphinium cascading the landscape
of some palatial estate
we had pachysandra
and a burned out tree on the side of our house
you could not smell the ocean breeze from our seaside deck
but on a bad...
It’s not so much
that I have changed
as how much I
am rearranged.
I would not have chosen
to fall in love.
She told me her heart
was mine whether I
wanted it or not.
I couldn’t help myself.
It was then I began
to disappear & show up
in...
letters of words
expressed—
pixels of a thought's
photograph
Summer slowly succumbs
to its fate of allotted days;
its strong bond with the sun
waning ever so politely
with some days of warmth
still gifted, as though
they were the final
kisses goodbye
between parting lovers.
Our little brown dog,
in his final years,
whimpers for help
to get onto the couch.
My wife picks him up
with a mother’s compassion,
rubs his tired bones
and flea bitten ears.
And I wonder
if her hands feel a loss
as she holds him
or if time is...
This started as my college project in the late 2021. It was a difficult time for me to learn a whole new technics. This is a generative, multi-step processing art project. Sound like something relative to AI art, but...
Stroke began process;
prostate cancer
finished the job.
Now I recline
home hospital bed,
scattering truffled wisdom—
buried but pungent
for those with the nose.
Dig; uncover bon mot;
share with others.
Learn by mistakes…
making them mine
alone.
asked me who will be afraid of our ghosts
ghosts of humans
when we are gone
Strange Things at Very Low Temperatures by Zed-Point
I've said goodbye a thousand times before
we are right in the middle of your sadness
I've said goodbye a thousand times before
we are right in the middle of your sadness
the blank sky is hiding how we come together
who's the complicated...
She had scoliosis which left her with one hip at 2:15
and one hip at 2:35,
one a summit, one a foothill.
No one talked about her disfigurement:
It was like someone having a wart on her chin or bowed legs.
It was just...
Five years after
she walked out,
leaving me behind
with a drunk dad
and no way to reach her,
Mom called,
not to see
how I was doing,
but to see
if I’d give her
“52nd Street,”
the Billy Joel album
with “My Life.”
“Can you do that?” she asked.
“For me? Your...
I have a bird in
my heart too.
I realized it in 2004
when your poem
came across my desk
in the form of an assignment.
I’ve often wondered
how you would feel
knowing your work was used
in pretty university classrooms
where fresh faced liberal arts-ers
furrowed their brows...
her voice low on the phone,
she tells me
about trying to die.
I squeeze the phone
try to block out
what I hear
she’s sobbing
I let her cry
tell her a secret
from boyhood
my voice soft.
at ten I tried
to stab myself
stabbed a dish liquid bottle
instead
the thick...
The children flew
and snow-hush fell
upon stone
and of a morning
the soft tattoo
of feet on felt
froze
pitter-patter meaning.
He bends and raises
replicas,
remembrance
of past faces
shovels, brushes,
signatures
December’s
masterpieces.
The dead leaves on wet grass
have no memory of the wind
that blew them there
or anything else they endured
As the broken cow skull
looking down with hollow eyes
has no memory of seeing them
laying in their eternal autumn
Only the living are burdened...
Black tea cools,
bitter cup;
sun sets
soon;
little lemon wedge
drowned at the bottom,
sunken yellow crescent,
solemn, sour moon.
With eyes closed I see snapshots.
Flipped in chronological order
I see myself changing. It’s all
black and white but I wish
it was color, imagine
blue sky and a red
paisley shirt.
Looking out my window the world
runs away. I mean no one appears
to be...
you know those people who come around,
give you free drinks,
well one lady's dreadlocks latched onto me,
spiraled around my leg like a snake,
pulled me outta my seat
and drug me around the casino
till i tipped her a dollar.
i was then out...
Their smiles
are bleached
from the photo
baked brown.
They escaped
from the homelands
that wanted
them gone,
erased, dead,
forgotten.
A soundless escape,
taking only
the disruption
that clung
to their skin.
Their absence
displaced the air,
replaced it with
ocean wind.
back in the early
days of the plague
I drank Coronas
in protest of the virus
my wife and I
were told we
would have a
quarantine baby
I wore a George
Washington style
covid cut
like a patriot
at war
my mask like a bayonet
I wore unending sweatpants
I barely
showered
and I tried...
he ate pork skins
with hot sauce
on the sagging brown sofa,
drinking beer from a can,
watching NASCAR
in faded blue shorts
and a wife-beater T,
yelling
to cheer on
the young driver
with the shaved head
who was in second place.
he grew weed
in the woods
by a small creek
which...
My father once threw
a bottle of ketchup
at my mom’s head,
then a fork
that stuck
in tainted wallpaper
until the hot dog
he hurtled next
knocked it off.
I thought all dads did this
so I helped my mom
clean the wall,
both of us kneeling
to wipe the red...
i believe in little gods
who gather at doors and windows
looking in
waiting for a gap in
each entrance, a portal
festooned with trinkets and
amulets offering safe
passage or luck on the journey
while filtering out all the
empty shades and ghoulish
echoes living between
fibres of wood...
white collared loons
question existence
claim enough faith
to tip toe on water.
fog clings to the shore
smothers reeds
remnants of fire
smoldering tinder.
a wooden boat
drifts in a circle
I mumble a prayer
wait for the sun.
Shattered bottle
on sidewalk;
city birds
ingest diamonds.
this one ended up sounding softer. i think it was the keyboard player i was working with. his chords were kind of rich sounding, and i based the whole thing on that.
—Scott Douglas
https://soundcloud.com/skaadee/worry
in the interest of full disclosure
striving for transparent honest
searching for beauty and its
friend with privileges truth
disclosing the process a
dangling sentence fitted with
dangling phrases glued together
by invisible commas and semi
colons requiring a reader to
decode first and in the process
achieve awakening...
I was thinking about Bukowski the other day
while taking a shit. I used a week old Merlot
as mouthwash while waiting.
I stood up with my pants around my ankles
and watched the turds orbit the bowl
and disappear.
I can't remember why I...
This is the process of my painting. I start my work like this. This is how I gradually move forward.
—RamyaSadasivam
https://ramyasadasivam.com/realistic-face-drawing/
“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne...” —James Russel Lowell
We are all mourners now, our clothes
funeral shrouds we tear off our backs
when the time comes (and it will come);
in one pocket we carry brushes for tidying
the...
do we describe what we see or maybe
tell the tale inside
round the corner on the wall
are the bullet holes
Trees listen to the quaking of all other trees
I know this because my tree told me its secret
it knew I was listening too
It hears Colorado aspens shaking in the mountain wind
the cry of those burning in New Mexico
and the...
Sara’s real father,
while drunk on wine
& ebony thighs,
jumped ship
in the Mediterranean
during the winter of ’54
& started a second family
with an olive toned
Greek girl in Athens
who comforted him
with mythology
& compared him to Ulysses.
Sara memorized
the only letter
her father wrote to her.
Dearest...
Released on 09 April 2022. 12 track album. Credits: Co-producer - @Roger Fizzerton. All guitar, bass, keyboards, lyrics and vocals .. myself. I hope you enjoy —Jenn Zed
I have plans for more EPs, I have at least 3 EPs bubbling under the surface right now...
https://soundcloud.com/skaadee/doctor-rife-16
In class I sat
with a Loreley with goldenes hair.
At five she told K.:
"Our sandbox is full of witches' teeth."
K. talks about that till this day.
I stop digging for Australia
and circle the edge after her.
She shrugs,
all the other kids will...
one had stringy long hair
he drove with bare feet
and once came over to see
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
he laid on the bed as we watched it
with my mom
like a parasite
one looked like a twizzler
and produced too much saliva
he was...
tip toe tread
bone crunch chime
eggshell dread
all the time
Listen I don't care if you're unreliable and obsessed
the bad has to go somewhere I've dodgy perspective and since I
virtue rescued again this week we both know I'm not the one
who's going to live it.
I will lick your feet...
I don’t want to be numb.
Crying, screaming, pleading-
for-their-barely-begun-lives
little kids bleeding out,
shot to death
in supposed safe places
where they go to learn
how to behave
in a fictitious civil society.
But I think I am—
from reading dismissive thoughts,
bullshit prayers. If not numb
to slaughtered innocents,...
Last time you arrived
at the airport
I came drunk to pick you up
fringed jacket
ripped jeans biker boots
some beat
this time please take a cab
I don't drive at night
No chance for love poems now.
Maybe we'll find another way to say it.
I'll be so glad when it's over,
when he finally allows it all to be destroyed.
I was so foolish. Wasted so much time believing.
I tried to make the...
https://soundcloud.com/tater/just-let-me-bleed
Had to bite my tongue, swallow my pride
Tryin’ to keep you, satisfied
There ain’t no need, to sugar coat
That bitter little pill, you shovin’ down my throat
You ain’t never cared, ‘bout nobody else
Go ahead on make it lite on yourself
Don’t...
* Be an asshole (they're interesting).
* Spill a drink on the page.
* Eat shit for breakfast. Write about it by dinner.
* Waste some words just to show off.
* Get down all the dirt you can and cry till it's...
he said
no fisting friday
gotta keep that pussy
in top shape—
long weekend ahead
baby
girl
middle of the night
again at dawn
his toes seek my shin
under the covers
making sure i am still there
.
He helps me to pronounce Anne Hedge and calls me kid—that old
Casablanca dream.
He has a lot of women who love him: his sisters, his mom, his cousin, a second one and I
put myself in the hollow of his arm.
Pheromones...
All night while the rain fell
you turned the words over in silence
The wet grass did not know
your brother was asleep across the room
You smelled the mowed lawn,
listened to your brother’s breathing
You wanted to memorise the words
scorched into wood
love… perennial...
his poems
from his phone,
standing there,
hunched over the microphone,
needy,
expectant...
the crowd,
such as it was,
not even listening,
bent over
their own papers and phones,
hoping
against hope
for their own 3 minutes
of whatever it was that felt like
fame.
Pencil, Japanese drawing ink, watercolour paint, coloured acrylic ink, acrylic paint, Hydrus Watercolour Ink, graphic ink pen, on Strathmore 500 Series Illustration Board for Wet Media Heavyweight 100% Cotton - 88cm x 58cm
Hoi An Ancient Town is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. The town was badly hit by the pandemic. It has been almost inactive for two years,...
Our son gifted us Roku
& his Netflix password.
Now Connie & I binge
every night from 7 until 2 a.m.,
watching murder mysteries
that disturb our dreams.
Two scenes keep appearing
in these films: the shower sex scene
& the bird’s-eye view
of a vast forest, sometimes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMrTAVl5aXI
How much of my colon
did you cut out, doc?
The distance
between his two index fingers
the last trout I caught
in a northern Arizona lake.
This morning I walked past
your tree and told you after
36 years they are paving the road
in front of your house. In the place
you now dwell you must be indifferent
to our buckling passage. You did not
reply.
Oil on canvas
24 x 18 inches
fuck these
text messages
i wanna hear
i wanna hear
the daffodil
in your voice
i wanna hear it
when you cry
you can’t cry
with your
thumbs
ding
these
texts
come in
ding dong dang
the silent
conversation
I can’t hear
a word you said
ding
doesn’t
sound
like you
your voice
in my
memory
rots
I'm selfish
i want sex
in my ear
when i
hear you breathe
said he would need an hour and a half
so I counted time by the 3 minute
easy-listening songs
they play in an attempt
to ease me
between the drill
and suction
5 songs
times three: 15 minutes
comes the smell
burning enamel and silver amalgam
is it toxic?
I ask...
I buy my own groceries,
fix my own meals, wash
my dirty dishes: what more
could a woman want?
She might want a stiff erection,
that's what: something I last had
back at the turn of the century.
She might want a man to give her...
44
and I don’t
want anymore
I will
breathe in
the saltwater air
and know I
don’t have to go anywhere
I’ll have another piece of cake
lay down
and let my birth to this planet
amaze me
I emerged when it was 78 degrees out
not a bad way to start...
Everybody writes about you,
even me. I told you about
my hedges: they're
perfect.
How does a privileged white boy
who doesn't even drink
relate to you
as a person?
I don't. Acne was no problem.
I played Romeo onstage
and scored with chicks.
What I liked was your writing;
it...
Because the season is over
and surmise settles into
his autumn confinement,
I ask him what he imagines
could improve these last days.
He asks me for
a Phillies ball cap,
bright red on grey
like the African parrot
he loves. Folded into the nest
of his wheelchair, he...
I have a wound in me from you
and I can't tell you about it,
I can't talk about it, I can't
mention it. Only write a poem
about it. Only a poem about it.
My life. I can't see it. I can't
pray, change,...
The first years of their exile,
tell the children about unheated train stations,
the bravery of mothers breathing warmth
on tiny fingers.
Later will be time to describe the sound of sunflowers
landing on coffin lids,
hundreds of golden petals
falling on a mother
and her two...
Who could forget the butchers
of Leningrad
as the mighty Wehrmacht
blockaded the city
laying siege for 872 days and nights
No way to know
whether the German OKW imagined
Stalin’s decree, Order 227
"Not One Step Back"
would level the field at 2 million dead
Now the oligarchs are...
I'm standing in a barren garden with Tolstoy, with Chekhov,
and they are frozen in place, like stricken roses of January,
like whipped horses, scarred into silence,
as songbirds with smothered throats.
Until at some signal, a ruckus begins.
Exhausted people walk out of...
There are so many ways to say it:
on the verge
on the cusp
on the precipice
on the brink
of catastrophe, apocalypse, war.
Then war breaks out
and we see it never stopped—not for those
within range of artillery and propaganda—that
long before the stamps commemorating peace,
before...
Here is my new (July 2021) album posted on Bandcamp .. the album is free to listen to, download, and keep, as you like...I have set the price to £0.00.
I hope you enjoy. —Jenn Zed
She left me for another man
This one she thought she’d keep
Two beers down to drown her out
One shot of whiskey deep
She smashed the lights of my pickup truck
I thought it was kinda sweet
Three beers down to drown the pain
And...
I woke up this morning in Texas, and all I can think of is driving further, on to the coast of California, to golden Santa Monica, crazy Venice, north to the beauty of Big Sur, then San Luis Obispo, and...
Growing up in Phoenix
I thought exhaust fans
in other people’s bathrooms
were put there to remove
the smells
& I asked my dad why
we didn’t have exhaust
fans & he said
there was no humidity
in the desert & the window
near the ceiling, above
the bath tub,
was...
The solitude of widowhood, they think,
is pyre that never bows then dies, a night
of vigils, stretched-out sighs, a lisp to air,
a sudden twitch of eyes, a knob, a latch,
a whiff of shoulder sweat, routine cologne,
devoted ears to rustling leaves,...
Sojuz Šrek Párty is my new album.
Sojuz Šrek Párty refers to Ašrotmáš. Ašrotmáš refers to anything, so it also refers to this album. Find a mirror, light a candle, turn around three times and say "Sojuz Šrek Párty."
Nicholas Wintzler:...
My father told me if I wanted to catch fish I had to think like a fish except he said it with an r like frish and an extra s and h like frisshh and maybe a third h if you...
It seems inconceivable,
reading on a couch on a Sunday afternoon,
that one day I’ll die
and my decades of warmth will release
back into the sky’s body
and my footprints will wear away
like a pillow forgetting the shape
of a face.
Suppose I grant you...
the fish dances around the cat’s sternum
shakes ribs with its five-pronged fins
not an animated gill out of place
I turn off the TV
it’s raining outside but I walk out anyway
I look across
to a bird sheltered by a bush
preening itself
the asphalt...
I sit here, nowhere
a place i was born in but
it has changed
and i am a stranger now, somewhere
i try
to recognize but i can't.
reading the news
getting upset at politics
planning a getaway
fighting the mother that invaded
my depression,
i want to be alone...
my testosterone has been chopped
medically castrated by injection last week
in prep for radiation treatments
I couldn't hold my water today and had to scrap today's scheduled treatment
you have to have a full bladder for that and I suddenly couldn't hold...
Last night I went down to the lake but the sky was what I really went for, so last night I went down to the sky, the white beach all ice ledges, traps everywhere, and you could still feel...
Always, there are voices that come,
unchecked
as the sound of water, lapping
in the stone basin of the night fountain
Some magnanimous, as the sound
of father digging potatoes,
or mother shouting you in for supper
Some unnamed, as the recently dead,
who come, when you...
Buying this ample ranch house in the country,
I dreamed I could rescue you, my husband,
from the nursing home where I couldn’t visit you
because of Covid, where you were starved,
quarantined in your room with a man
who could only blink....
I am a cupbearer, offering my better half her morning
mug of coffee. She asks, Why is your face sad today?
I cannot take all of her in.
Last week, my brothers came, sharing news and stories,
shouting sometimes in a good-natured way. I...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCCXspvxP_E
Wherever you are,
in whatever room
of whatever house
of whatever's left
of whatever life
you may possess,
imagine that room,
that house, that life
in the middle of a ship
in the middle of an ocean
in the middle of a night
headed, finally, there.
dig a hole
crawl in
pretend that
the world is fine
repeat
as needed
Stuart died.
It happened at our book club.
Vinyl Café had been off the air for a few years
but seemed like a fresh memory.
Then someone mentioned how I
could do a spot-on impression.
So, I tried it and botched it
and everyone was embarrassed
...
I prefer to wander,
not stay confined
when science says
it’s OK to venture.
But then I stumble
finding a man, half-dead,
ensconced in a rusted truck,
his fingers curled, necrotic,
his face contorted from coughs.
I stand, peering,
deaf to the honks and curses
of those who fight
for his...
A five year old stuck in no-child's land between
The hospital and the duck.
The hospital had my mother,
The duck had me.
Once bitten
It was so hard for me to take even
One small step
Outside the old Virginia farmhouse.
Inside, the house was dark,
Shades...
I want a larger territory
than a screen and two fingers allow.
Give me maps
impossible to fold back correctly.
It would not frustrate me
that they never sit flat
bulge awkwardly
testifying to my inadequacy.
Let them unfold
propped up on the steering wheel
over your entire body...
.
more than ever
i need an enema
or an island of my own
the general public
can no longer determine
squirm from quake
and
i won't go back
to hanging tears
on the wall
most people
await "The Jesus"
to provide a salve
to put his finger
in the wound
all the way to...
EXPLORE
How Your Creative Work Can Outlive You
Decades ago I learned my 1982 poetry chapbook, "The Wisdom of Southern California," had been added to Special Collections at Shields Library on the...
