MOST POPULAR
The Shearer
The shearer’s oilstone rides the blade’s silver edge.
There is a swish as one blade closes over the other.
It is a fine tool honed.
He wears...
orbit of a sacrifice
each freckle is a planet
in this contained universe, a body
that orbits the sun—
drenched experience I’m in. I say I worship
God, but my skin tells...
LATEST ARTICLES
Enough, the Centenarian's story ends,
The two, the past and present, have interchanged,
I myself as connecter, as chansonnier of a great future, am now speaking.
("The Centenarian's Story" from Drum-Taps, Walt Whitman)
When I was a boy
not very long ago
they interviewed ex-slaves
for...
the sign on the door says
Believe in Jesus
Christ Be Saved.
By God,
I knock and score
enough for me
and my friend Ben,
the suicidal Chihuahua,
to get tranquilized
alley-wise over by the Walgreens.
between dumpsters
lie wicked dreams:
deposit me in the passenger seat
of didion's bright stingray
screaming down
early...
Information is just another way of keeping people down.
If authority can't justify itself it must be dismantled.
Multiple causality becomes the ultimate finality.
start by asking what does jesus know
about the second coming of 9-11
including mossad's expertise
in controlled demolition
and global pandemics
(won't...
picture and picture of my bare pubescent bodies blur
a tanned and pink magic lantern show
sick stomachs flat or deep
and all my numbered ribs marked off
one when I was nineteen,
between my two hips
a third protrusion
gentle roundfort
green body deformed in that...
i was on the tv show PAN Connection...for 1 hour...which is probably 56 minutes more than necessary...but it is what it is. anyway, i got to talk about my new book SMALL TALK as well as my more than...
“I want a cat.”
“You want a cat that will sit on your lap,” mother intoned.
This is so metaphorical, I thought. It wasn’t even a question; to her, a pet was to be loved by.
“We’re moving through time,” said Donnie...
after the miscarriage I dreamed
I was leaning against a yellow doorway
peering through the half-open Dutch doors
alphabet squares and blankets were draped
in a pseudo-cubist's take on dali
I had an idea which one was mine—
something about the nap-matted hair
half-hiding her wild...
As I watched the sea of Hong Kong millennials
fight with helmed authorities armed to maim or kill,
blue face masks worn also to cover up identities,
bottled water handy to wash off the sting of tear gas,
placards of bold Chinese characters...
family stories of Allen generally
include the phrase
what was he thinking?
and a trip to the ER
roller skating on the front porch—
he stopped himself with
glass panes of the garage door
prying a jammed piece of gravel—
his fingers crushed in the gears
of the...
i tasted myself on him
the way a cat’s tongue
rakes through fur
or a pinched reflection
in the corner of my eye
resembles homesickness
time wraps around itself,
stuttering frames of old movies,
a promise of water
after a long ride
settling onto silk
breathing syncs into tandem
while morpheus...
You convinced me that migraine was
the throbbing ache of the mind, so
I believed you, telling myself
nausea was a dead butterfly
in my belly and vomiting
acid air was the resistance
of my innards because I did
not listen to you, nodding too,
without asking...
Artist Statement:
Years ago when I was 17, my parents hit rock bottom. I went out on my own and ended up living in a trailer park with a boyfriend. I lived there just a couple years before moving...
I follow, as she careens her cart
through Mauna Kea Mall, tossing in cracked cups,
mismatched sheets, biographies
of people no one remembers.
"Why must you rescue beltless bathrobes?"
I pant.
She fades suddenly,
and I’m awake and sweating,
wondering who that was.
Might have been Aunt Margaret,
an artist,...
like
a murder of crows
sitting upon
the branches
of a barren tree,
---squawking
so
my words
rest upon
the black lines of
a white page,
---squawking
there's clippings of bad poetry
all over the deck
where I thought up
and discarded many lines
I have to stack them up
and put them in the dumpster
before they end up
in a poem
primrose says I will be her lips
bean says I will be her thighs
broom says I will be be her clitoris
meadowsweet says I will be her fingers
burdock says I will be her arms.
nettle says I will be her tongue
oak says...
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
brings the priest and the doctor
in their long coats
running over the fields.
("Days," Philip Larkin)
I stopped near the house
of my dead parents,
down a thin lane
pinned by the wind
to vegetable fields,
where unwalked footpaths,
like...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCW3T3xZZwc
For Lawrence Ferlinghetti
When I ate a croissant in bed,
flakes of brown crust
fell upon my pillow,
fell atop the sheets,
and made the white down comforter
resemble a speckled trout
whacked upside the head,
eyes akimbo,
ready for the pan.
Once it was me awaiting the pan,
grunting...
he takes a sky tram
up the columbian mountains
noticing the neighborhoods
crumble deeper
every meter they rise
above the city center
until sheet metal
walls and roofs
become brick
balanced
on top of
mortar-less brick
finally her stop
he assumed she must be poor
but not this kind of
poor
there is nowhere to sit
he presents:
strawberry...
Persuaded by my wife to return to our
marital bed so she does not have to get
up every two hours to monitor
my struggle for every breath and let
her see the progress of my virus symptoms.
As I try to sleep on...
Dance for the day
The location is only known to the few who care to take a long walk mostly uphill. One hears much that is derogatory about Morris Dancing, and yet, adjacent to this spot, is where people dance...
Just for now,
let us narrow the picture,
postpone those conflicts,
see art in a bullet
dormant in its chamber,
allocate the quiet of cancelled epithets
for poetry and benediction,
consider other reasons
to raise a hand,
expand definitions to include
the absence of,
imagine we have finally met
some cosmic...
The moment Galileo Galilei innocently
gave the Books the proverbial finger,
it was clear, there and then, that we'd all
end up in therapy.
Even Atlas was screwed, as his contract
had to be renegotiated and weight
redefined, but he, too, was limited
and couldn't rise...
I get the sequined jeans.
In the window I catch a glance
tight stretch denim, flared legs,
my palms press down my bottom and damn
look at that I do have the hips of a woman!
Historically disguised by androgynous Levi's,
these low riders with...
A crude black crayon drawing
could be anyone.
But the only
other significant color
is blue,
in one eye.
Heterochromia, the Internet offers.
Etched in the back of your mind thereafter,
the word rises every morning
as you brush teeth,
just as the
Houston
Marriott where you met
appears in snatches of...
I'm retired
the clock belongs
to me now
Today is more than just one cup of black coffee after another.
Today, I have enough melancholy stacked on top of more melancholy
to climb up a sad stairway, out of my down-in-the-dumps, here - into
what could be the snow covered...
Regarding a corpse
at the bottom of a ravine,
I wonder if it’s mine.
I wonder if as it tumbled,
sinews tearing like tissue
soaked in another’s tears,
it felt my pain. I wonder
if there is relief in not-
feeling, not-being: absence.
I see no headstones, nothing
to...
feather-sized flakes spin
then faint on the grass
we look at the sky, wondering
eggshell facts melt on our faces
life isn’t quite irresistible
nor do you have to be suicidal
to stare in death’s eyes
the offending knives
the slatted square rooftops
we might have made rounder...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TT6R5OryGU
There was no sign of a woodcutter
in the tin shack raised from the red earth,
the black wood of an archived forest.
Dismembered trees haunted the air,
ghosts in the pungency of cut pine.
A tepid cup sat by a soiled plate
and a...
Laneville-muted sunlight, good sex, bipolar, playing Jay-Z in the morning pissing off the people below me. Laneville-crappy bars and not in a good way, buildings like prisons, walking the streets, so alive unlike now in my catacomb spirit. Laneville...
this game's going down in history
randomly craved poetry
is best
take the enamel right off your teeth
I saw a great grandmother reading it
in her minivan
she imagined Kerouac in his cold northern grave
and smiled as she stuck a poem in the ignition
and...
Before you lost what was left
of your mind, did you have any idea
that the scales of betrayal you kept
even with your thumb would tip so far
against you? We tried to recalibrate them
for the rest of your life. No, we...
I am fascinated by the notion of representing abstract terms with abstract art. —Michael Acker
Perhaps you miss folding the May blossoms,
sakura, creeping phlox, chrysanthemums;
maybe your fingers are itching to fold
cicadas, damselflies, moths you can hold;
endure the gloom so when we meet again,
no one is gone, a folded pine or crane.
I try to keep an appearance
of a well-manicured lawn
but my moles keep showing up
hungry, silently heaving sod.
And I gotta lot of them
so I never leave the yard
stomping the heaves
so they don’t kill the grass.
My wife thinks I’m crazy
and wrecking...
Wishing my penis
could detach itself
and crawl
off somewhere
far away from me
She insists
she understands
how I feel
especially
the moments one
is tempted to snip
it off with a
pair of scissors
or cut it off
with a knife
"You should
not do that"
she orders
"Let it be"
But I tell her
whispering words
of...
The cove
is in a fog;
out on the beach
a meth head
beats his dog.
No one sees
a thing.
some days, a squirrel
jumps up from the oak's branches
above the grandma's balcony
and tells us how to pour
our grief in a cup
of lily of the valley,
how to inspire
a penniless gypsy
to build
a shelter
out of wool,
how to crawl
into the air like
the relaxing...
nothing’s really wrong
I’m just laying in bed
in the middle of the day
because I’m tired
I'm thinking about all the stuff I could do
that I don’t want to do
some people may mistake this as a reaction
to my depression
there’s always a doctor...
you're just a stupid child
she coos
in broken English, mixed in
with some French
swirling around
in there
like strong
Vietnamese coffee
you will never understand
and
she’s right
I never will
I have the same
dull blue
gunmetal eyes
as my father
who flew F-4's over lush
countrysides
dropping fire:
American fathers
always
pour lighter fluid
over 4th of...
He doesn’t know where to start
so he looks into the styrofoam cup
to find a reflection he has become
proud of staring from cold coffee
it holds. A reflection just as nervous
as him. So, after a long, deep breath
he begins.
Even when it...
I need dense text
heavy panting
flowers thrown in the creek
I wanna go back to Cochranville for a week
when it’s summer and I can sleep down in a row of corn
I need sleep
I need the smell of you frying bacon for...
I went to Regents Park Zoo
Sat on the bench at our old spot
Watched the Galapagos tortoises
Dolly, Polly and Dirty Dirk
According to the resident herpetologist
Dirty Dirk is uncommonly randy
For a tortoise in captivity
Though I’ve never seen any evidence of it
Polly...
everything hinges on death
their own black heart locks
the armed chickens within
their copper jacketed cage of
bitter fruit wood ankle deep
in the litter of mass killers
I fear losing my strangeness, my hands and feet
dissolving, my distinctive features bleeding
into a bleary rabble. The patient man perched
on his balcony, who waits for the clan, the tribe,
or the chaotic crowd to decide his future,
he makes me hum...
My stockpile is such that
when I open a drawer I brace
for an avalanche of toilet paper.
In the kitchen are enough cans of beans
to last a months-long struggle, for my son
to pass the hours building beautiful steel pyramids.
I’ve strewn fat...
it is a thankless task
sweeping together
the parts of a person
dismantled by the wind
gauging by feel and heft
if everything is there
the limbs paired
the feet engaged
that they might carry the assemblage
through another day
it is the endless toil
of hands callousing
on rope and...
non profit phone bank job
in hollywood
that I found, on craigslist
in December
when I was
living in Van Nuys
down on my luck
i guess you could call it
a desperation gig
and i shaved my face
took a shower
got the job
for a couple of days
and i...
i heard a scuttle in the bushes
and listened
sensed an angel suffering from a fall
the sounds my body makes
when standing still
gravel crunched as the postman turned
leaving a bank statement
and a 2 for 1 offer on pizzas
under the bushes
i saw where...
There is a tumble
of ribbons and words
forming bows and twirls,
wrapping my thoughts into
pretty little packages.
I line them up one by one
on the shelf
to gather dust.
One day you will come—
eagerly pluck them down,
blow them off,
admire each little gift
before removing the...
He’s old now, very old
living in a recliner
reading his favorite book
about death
feeling like an eaglet
in a treetop nest
curious about
what jumping does.
She wondered how an old boyfriend
spent New Year’s Eve,
if he was there
with his wife
being nice, or maybe mean
saying her clothes looked slutty
or how she came on
to the grocer,
making gossip
in their small northern town.
But now she knew.
It wasn’t much different
than...
I explore gender fluidity in my art, assuming a fictional identity as a female, although I am mostly a straight Asian male, who occasionally fantasizes about becoming a woman. My life is a struggle between two wolves inside of...
OAF friends, if you ZOOM, I'll be one of three poets featured on Flying Out Loud, a Zoom series out of Kentucky, Jan. 11, 7 to 8, EST. If you want to attend, let me know, and I'll send...
New Year,
resolutions rising from reverie
running outdoors with a smile
singing and skipping
into very concrete streets
resolve to pay credit card bills, student loans, interest on interest,
visit sister and mother at last, drive a little slower
stop drinking, drink slower, wear a jacket,...
Today I stop to photograph
a backroad milestone which reclines
in fescue and rough dandelions.
The miles ahead, the miles behind.
Simple numbers all declaring
how far we’ve travelled from our source,
and how much further we may go
along our crooked, shrinking, course.
Perhaps some poet...
the Archangel
with the power to heal,
hovers over the roof
of my house.
He’s been up there
since you left.
I went to a Catholic school.
I tell myself
my guardian angel
was happy to be reassigned.
Raphael keeps my house
safe inside,
me & the dog tame,
neither of us...
Removes unsightly
people whose grease and dirt
spoil your landscape.
Cleans as it polishes, replaces
their awful smell with fresh fragrances.
Their profane beliefs with fresh air.
Their noisy children with heavenly quiet.
Our history with revised pages.
Preserves our pure culture.
They are an infection that will...
Henry was brilliant; at least he had me
believing he was. He read at the Coffee
and Cruellers, the place with the sawdust
and peanuts on the warped wooden floor.
He offered a cupful of courage and got me
to read a few there....
My father remembers ancient banyan trees.
He sees ghosts in the tall temple grass,
smells rain on abandoned sugar cane.
He watches the ocean and waits.
Lately, he sees a tall ship in Honolulu Harbor,
silent and crewless,
and my father thinks
it is there for...
He was positive at 96
approved for hospice care
on O2 and morphine
to make labored breathing comfortable.
His last thought was walking
from the maternity ward
67 years ago holding that tiny casket.
Remember me?
asked the cherub child.
Hold my hand.
When the next breath didn’t come
he...
mixed media on paper, 21,2 x 29,9 cm, 2020
Looking at a man selling tomatoes
my intellect begins to play a game—
are there enough in the fridge?
If there are too many & I buy,
Maria will get mad at me.
If there are none & I don't buy,
Maria will still get...
All animals are equal,
but some animals are
more equal than others.
— George Orwell
I guess I am the lowly spokesbird
that can reveal anything
there is to know about our jungle,
no spin, no hyperbole.
The...
They call it Pattern of Life
The high resolution images
Data, collected by satellite
Analysed to spot the unusual
To predict what happens next
Make a preemptive arrest
Find Jimmy Hoffa
See if McDonald’s is open
If the algorithm suggests
Where I might be in spring
Can I sign up...
I once tried to kick in the screen
of a 21” color tv wearing
my Tony Lama shit kickers.
The boot’s heel & slick sole
slid off the smooth glass
like I was dancing a one legged
boot scootin’ shuffle.
I was drunk on my ass
on...
For Christmas, I received:
A six-pack of Budweiser, with a note from Dad. Start young, preempt disappointment.
An arched eyebrow and muttered menace when I didn’t thank him.
Another story about Mom. A reminder I had her eyes.
Rent and termination notices to burn.
Dad...
Click any image to open viewer.
the waves brought it
right to her feet
that old improbable
message in a bottle.
She took it with her
kept it near
but did not want
to open it
to spoil the mystery
of her selection.
Resting in the garden
she dreams
starfish dreams
opens her hands
like fans of coral
feels her...
These days all we do is swipe.
right for double cheese burger,
left for pasta with white sauce.
Gone are the days when Pav-Bhaji
would be home delivered after hours!
Zomato is a smooth criminal—
it has killed the thrill of chase
but nothing can substitute...
my heart beats less in November
it has nothing to do with love
ice crystals in the morning sun
the dead leaves around my feet
tight shoes
gloved hands
last year’s down jacket
it beats so much faster in July
when I can’t
stop the sun’s honey from...
Publishing a book is important, whether self-published (without imprint) or cooperatively published (with imprint). Yeah, you won't get rich or earn a lot of money from the book sales, but you will open the door of publication opportunities for...
The directions
on the shampoo bottle:
“Wet hair thoroughly
before applying.”
Someone got paid for that?
Why not me?
Here’s my resume.
Published Poet.
Will work for food.
I try on a suit to look handsome for the stars,
ask the mirror what I have gained and what I have lost.
I mourn the death of those yet to die,
seek an urn to hold the ashes of what might...
We sit on the stoop for hours.
A few passersby, one wearing bright red kicks,
Hey man help me out. You wave a royal dismissal.
Red-kicks nods, fades into the sidewalk.
Craving closeness in any form,
I squeeze closer, my shoulder to your shoulder.
You...
You pointed out a spot along the fence in the pasture and
recounted how you once snuck up behind a coyote and
just to see if you could, roped him, deftly
snuck the expert loop of your lasso around his neck.
(After, you...
here's a new batch for you. I know
that i erred when i couldn't resist
and sent several times when you
specifically scowl on excessive
submissions. I guess i was overly
anxious, yearning a slot in your very
fine journal. I'm not really obsessive,
nor one...
He’s addressing the nation on CNN.
How do you know he’s lying? His lips
are moving. Four years ago,
the joke was funny. Now, we shrug,
at a loss for words. Dante damned
corrupt politicians to the Eighth Circle
of Hell, Stone Ditch Number Five.
Even a singing cowboy, back
in...
The petrifying things
that haunt me include
waking up one day to realize
I have become that person
who enjoys the OMG
Facebook games
that make cute acronyms
from the letters of my name
my wine glass empty
spit marks
down the barely reflecting mirror
a book mark in the...
When she says my name it feels like my skirt flipped up
To check for underwear
Under where my brother hid when I was born,
There are now mousetraps and cricket tape and
He was waiting
To tell my name to the slippery red...
Am I impressed? I suppose.
The bull’s head, the horns,
the way you puff up
three times your size. Still
you’re the same old, same old.
Considerate. A bit of a slob.
Some drool, green as mint,
on your side of the pillow.
We are cognizant
of the black hole
at the heart of all
expectations,
yet our love
feels like an orbit;
slow and elliptical
around a private sun.
I, male, seem flighty
as though driven
by the panic of
self-propagation.
While you, the woman,
sufficiently immune
to the shadows
of destruction,
are committed to
the growth of...
A violet aura fades to indigo along the skyline.
The drug of anger, and euphoria, are extinguished—
everything that gives me purpose
is extinguished.
Extinction appears, on the twilit road,
dressed in a hooded, knee-length raincoat;
implacable as a stop sign, they point across the...
Ocean City, NJ, 1967
Meggs arrives wearing dangling earrings and attitude
Afternoon walk: Nefertari and Ra
My mother
waited up late for me
early Sunday mornings
chain-smoking cigarettes
off the pilot light,
her gas flame-blue shadow
cast across the kitchen
as I came up the back stairs
from the porch;
All the other rooms
slept.
Cigarettes burned,
all the other rooms
tossed and turned.
Darkness
never felt
so good.
In...
"The creature
that does nothing
will get dafter!
And dafter!
And dafter!"
A man alone
keeps screaming
as he walks towards
Leicester Square
where at 8 am
barely a soul is stirring
where no creature
will hear him.
King (in his own world)
De deskundige
Selectieve verontwaardiging
Counting the days
The wrong side of history
belongs to people who eat candy corn
one color at a time.
Scientists say
the twelve ingredients include
sweeteners, artificial colors,
animal skin and bones
and little red insects from Asia.
Those on the wrong side of history
reject this ingredient list as
liberal...
Compose it now, as a guarantee of surviving
this turbulent age, take it out for reassurance
when you need it most,
like a fifth of vodka,
or memories
of an appaloosa mare,
calling to you from across the pasture.
Recollections of the moon rising over the...
1.
there is a strange hill
at the cliff’s edge
verdant and delicious
smoothly curved
from the distance
it is not a hill, really
not stone flesh
with hairs pricked up
green to the follicle
branches
push up under the surface
creating a hollow
hill of trees
we hide us in it
I am...
I don’t use a washcloth in the shower. It’s probably bad for me. Not exfoliating, I mean. I bet someone has died from it. Somewhere, I read that dust is 70% skin, which means when you walk into the...
"Chun" is a series that I am working on in which I depict myself as an Asian woman, although I am a straight male, in order to explore gender fluidity and to express my love and appreciation for female...
Silence chauffeurs loss,
I call it—God—
another conundrum unsolved.
A discreet chill lingers to speak,
a farewell from the arctic concludes:
if millions of anything dies
it isn’t equally tragic.
Primates are most vile;
what could Jane Goodall see
in chimpanzees?
Maybe as humans, we are of different genera,...
something in the moonlight
like one long goodbye
I never heard
there's just the upholstery staring at me
the long death of the day
click and drag on a cigarette
have you ever cut a flower
on a summer evening when it's not too hot
and smelled...
“Dick Hertz and Connie Lingus, phone call.”
That was always me. I’d call the restaurant
and tell the hostess: “Huge emergency!”
I always told the waitress, “Cock tail, huh?”
A wise guy. Smart-ass. And I’m still that way.
Melania’s embarrassed to go out with...
Mel took off to Cleveland last winter
cramming everything
she really needed
into a hatchback Honda Accord:
herself, her purse,
a fluffy Alaskan Malamute Koda.
Her blue 10-speed Peugeot
got left behind—
that bicycle rests against
the wall
of my garage
to this very day
tires gone flat now
dust covers frame.
I saddle-up...
California, 2020
North, South, and Central,
wildfires under a quarter moon
threaten the entire state.
The fire moon looks down on them
red as it rises into the night.
The Devil, I think,
grins there tonight
as I walk along the street,
avoiding late-summer heat and smoke--
the evil...
.
there are things made bright
bled
folded
autumn arrives
and the yellow eyes close
sunflowers jiggle
then lean
upturned dirt chokes-up
children's fingers
birds
dive
on
a
belch
of
wind
:
i want to go
.
An apple orchard;
slim pathways on the hill
in the near distance
have turned blue
in dawn light.
I tell blonde Alice
I’m going to head out
to take photos.
Where? She asks.
I say anywhere
they jump out at me,
and she laughs
as if I’m chasing rabbits.
The valley we’re...
Michael B. Carroll Jr.
I’m not mad. I’m angry
We are not a threat to your America.
I’m not mad. I’m angry…
so angry that I could explode, spontaneously, like an unstable gas.
Don’t you understand that we yearn and fight to
prove that we...
They pile us on a field. Try to identify us, contact loved ones.
I think of older sister Nancy.
She must be coming.
She could joke about my love of Polo shirts and say I love you. Call me a man-child, but with...
We have tons of hammers but not enough shoes.
Really, isn't it the same for you? We'd be just fine
if all that's required is beating out the gold leaf
of our down time until it covers this comedy of fright.
We might...
I am ashamed of my schism,
my contortionist brain and tongue.
Told status is a ticket to love.
Take hurried notes on how
to be righteous.
Worship Satan at my school.
Eat full-metal propaganda.
I should be enough–one day.
I am a contradiction.
Confess on knee through a...
just
don't
fucking talk to me
don't try to buy me
a drink
just
don't engage
...
-after "Einstein’s Dreams"
A man and woman walk hand in hand down the Grabenstrasse. The street is quiet on a Tuesday afternoon. An aproned man shakes a rug over the sidewalk; scraps of dust and paper settle on a pair...
My virginity is still lost somewhere in Athens, Greece.
After serving my hippie time
for marijuana possession
I admit I was happy that prisons exist.
I didn’t need rehabilitation then
like so many of those assholes.
I must have driven drunk a thousand times
after my...
The artist Ann Chernow was born in 1936 and grew up in New York City. She has worked extensively in the mediums of lithography, silkscreen, etching, and colored pencil as well as oil painting. Known as “The Queen of...
When my son died
I was devastated by
the colossal waste
that was his mind.
That rare nonjudgmental
visionary kind.
My flattened affect belied
a manic hemispheric need
to understand his death.
When my son died
I became less human.
Existed anesthetized
by pills and booze and doubt.
Garish makeup my disguise...
Aisyday is a collector of things.
Hats and canes. Handbags. Scars.
I can't be sure. I am certain.
She saw me as hard tissue. A door
left ajar. What I said. Honest.
Insecure and reaching.
A ringing nerve along her jawline.
Me. Jarring and disobedient. Always.
Her...
baby Christmas trees
in a field
little bump in the backseat
driving past them
but most of my life I’ve been intense
no wonder I’m crazy
no wonder my little pill bottles have eyes but I’m the one who’s always watching
I’d like to give you...
I refuse to die in a bunker, even if
it’s with you, my dear. I want the
slow death of struggling for light,
hand in hand, through the tremors
and the flames. Do you recall when
we thought things were okay? I am
thankful to...
In the port of Saint Petersburg
wavy-haired mathematicians
exhale vodka and sanctions-ringed cares
and caviar and smoke-circles
and vodka, questioning
the nature of consciousness, until they lose theirs.
In the port of Saint Petersburg
nests of Greek-column-roofed
cloud-tickling fortresses where crane-drivers bask
in the sub-arctic majesty
pull mothers with...
Comforted by the rough of the stucco wall, my back
leaning on the hint of dew as I watch the moon hide
out of shame, alone now, struggling to finish the day,
trying to unearth all blues in the black of the...
who sit with understanding.
Focused, iridescent eyes
attend to your wet ones.
Well-timed hops on your lap,
headbutts; well-placed paws,
chins by thighs on couches.
Furry steps tap out
you are not alone. We got this:
anxiety, infertility,
marriage, adoption,
parenting, childbirth,
divorce, depression and death.
When it is time,
they become...
hammer apple
peacock tank
poached
|
raisin leather
defunct traction
capstan
|
boulder frack
inflate piss
ratchet
|
your anus above me
like a faucet
up a tree
|
your ice lolly
a placard
for your love
of contrast
|
catapult invert
potato reputed
curving
|
palace slippery
inkwell rebate
stone
.1
For the umpteenth time this mangled year
she asked me why I was crying
mama what’s wrong mama
the coffeepot was sputtering
vainly promising my restoration
on yet one more in a long line of mornings
too familiar to my desperations
what was I supposed to...
Some Pinky pencils live longer
as they remain hidden in the dusty
pockets of blazers
that no longer fit.
Then there are unconcerned
ones that idle in a pen pot
and their only job is to make
managers look busy.
Some hibernate on dressing tables,
others remain in...
A small shiny insect crawled methodically across
the clean, white sheet of paper,
trying to crawl across before I stained it
with my useless words.
So arrogant and determined in his steps.
I am grateful it was not a spider.
So very grateful it was...
It was by no means
coincidence that a tortoise
the size of a manhole cover
walked out of the open desert
and into the path of our car.
I believe in the goddess
of close calls now and built her
a hand polished shrine by the...
for Trish Saunders
First off, it isn’t Mr. Trump.
It’s Mr. President. Alright?
You want my tax returns?
I’ve 5 accountants working on them full-time,
but you can’t get even one to squeal on me?
You don’t deserve it then.
I’ll give you one big clue....
Strangers
We never shared the same space;
circumstance kept us apart.
We passed so close I’m sure
we must’ve touched
on some level, but life went on
unaware, invisible threads.
Friends
I got you to laugh in the middle
of our tragedies, and you let me
cry until I...
so full of yourself
with no room available
before you implode
My grandmother
asked. I was six years old
and thought she had met
Abraham Lincoln.
An old beach photo caught
her in sandy ankle boots
and cinched waist, her long
hair blowing free of its pins.
She had lost her husband
in France to shell shock
and later to...
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...
Edwin was going bald
in high school.
Don’t ask me to describe him.
Just take my word for it.
He was not handsome.
The popular girls
didn’t want his cooties.
When he laughed
his buck teeth bucked.
His thick glasses
made his eyes look fat.
It’s no surprise
that Edwin
was a...
gust on a carousel, revolve in Summer sun
as she kals to her mam on her doorstep.
Blown me nose on more material.
says her mam. Cheese-wire me arse.
They're comfy, mam. 'sides
lads like 'em.
Off you mean. When they've
got it on 'em.
Both snort...
I won’t accept death delivered in prose.
Darkness fell twice tonight; can we still know
what’s real? Give me your hand and we'll compose
ourselves. Do you recall, not long ago,
when one could mourn but not despair? When pain
made sense? I’m tired....
was
this old
friend of mine
who gave me my first
and only award for poetry.
it was
near 3 in the morning
and we
were drunk
on cheap vodka,
complaining
how we couldn’t
get published anywhere
and never
won any awards for our work
and
we were
standing on this corner
ready
to call it a night
and
he...
I kissed her cheek
and whispered,
"Good to see you."
Snore opened to smile,
her eyes looked up.
"Hello!" she said like a girl.
Then I went into a room with her
back on the day I was born.
Click any image to view full-screen.
Beware the old witch who eats lost children.
Snuggle closely, my good little ones—
warm and tasty from your bath.
I will tell you fairy tales of abandoned children
shivering alone, selling matches,
big bad wolves leering at innocent girls,
and naughty little boys growing...
Owl at full moon, fairy, rose
Bumblebee and Dragonfly in Love
It's a conversation
between the doorknob and me
when I stare long
and its glint in fake gold
glances back
as if for a turn
my hand is too lazy to labor.
I've now mastered
the parts of the solo window
in my bedroom,
the sill begging for a...
Click an image to view full screen.
that manifest while drawing...
I want to believe in reincarnation. Maybe it’s because my father told me, just before he died, that he didn’t believe in an afterlife,
had no use for Heaven, didn't care if there was a Hell, either.
He believed people turn...
wings on silk
dancing small, on fragile fingers
dancing, tonight
on some kind of neon, pink sea
ancient, wooden boats will sail
forgotten sailors will be eaten
by moths:
you’ll fall in love
you’ll bounce in and out
of people, cities, ghosts
flitting
thinking of
stock market crashes
‘n
hallowed eyed surfer kids
with...
sad disbeliever without feeling
beside a window
distorted by rain from
the second named storm of August
I watch three pure-white terns
brighter than
elegant
the delicate
grey of slender wings
that beat in the hover
rise in the gusts
then dive to tickle
the brown-foamed
storm-churned lough
no fish —
too deep for...
HEL
the sunlight makes long shadows of the trees
hands that reach across the road
there is that sickening moment
the fall of a thousand guts
the soft crunch of breaking bones
and a high pitched yelp
that merges into the screech of the truck's brake...
Not just a man who understood
the confounding breath of the forest
but a man who knew both fire and peace
in the conversation of tree and leaf
Shrewd and silent as scenting wolves
he might’ve remarked
We humans often live foraging words
forgetting the names...
The bars close down. The virus.
So I have my own drinking night. I line up four glasses of Merlot in my bedroom. Prep my playlist.
Debussy and Tchaikovsky mingle with shadows. Moonlight arpeggios weep and brass instruments crash.
But there’s no...
Travel into the bitter north
Following the shooting star
To the fluorescent display that sears
The distance. Aurora Borealis. An oath
The night vows will last eons
Until the last man on the last horse
Says farewell to the smoking earth.
Imagine it, the final ghost
Of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmjU-nKfvr8
I come to
in the kitchen, leaning
against the stove,
gripping an empty bag
of Trader Joe’s white cheddar popcorn,
tasting salt but unable
to recall opening the bag
& eating its contents.
Funny how the time slips away,
sang my favorite cowpunk,
funny how I once needled
my foodie...
The wood of the old farmhouse still crumbles,
paint powdery and chipped.
I pick at a flake with my fingernail
float from room to room through the past
tumbling along the scent of dust and bone.
My sisters waken in the bedroom to the...
On St. Patrick's day
the New York Post
was printed green
and I got fired.
It was a Wednesday, payday,
and I got paid and fired
and I stumbled out of a gray windowless warehouse
into drizzling and puddle strewn Brooklyn.
I folded the paycheck into my...
It's quiet in the yard.
Gray-green leaves
barely rustle.
Sun is out: I need to get off
this couch.
I was in Tangiers
where a kindergarten friend I hadn't seen in eighteen years
tried to sell me dope.
I was in Moose Jaw, Canada;
in Skopia, Yugoslavia;
I was...
Click an image to view full-screen.
there is nothing in the night
even the moon is probably missing
I haven’t bothered to look
I remember when you said
can you see the breeze through my hair?
I want you to know that I did
but tonight I don’t see anything
the TV...
let yesterday go
for she’s an imposter-
eager to steal
today
a rose etched thief
who silently, beckons
…………………………..
and do not wait for tomorrow,
for he’s a tinker’s dream
a liar brushed in silver
dying to drain us
of our youth
Youth
I keep sitting on the deck
trying to feel how I used to
when I was younger
it was a vibrancy
a confidence
sometimes I almost feel like that
my fingers just a few inches away from it
the next door neighbor’s son
yells up,
"Why are you...
She must have thought
I was bringing up
some blingy new couture.
I had just told her
there had been another one
this time in Allentown.
Voracious newshounds that we are
we knew all about the other ones
in Edmonton and Miami
in Sarasota and Spokane
and of course...
Whose ribs will fill you now, black silk dress
looking reproachfully at me
from the half-price rack?
I don't like your "look at me!" plea with one shoulder
sliding floorward off the hanger.
I want someone to wear you dancing
in some dive on a moonless night
drinking...
are at it again in the street
they practice twice a week on a Tuesday and Thursday
more in the periods before the local fiestas
it is painful to listen to
the duff notes make me listen even harder–
is that really Despacito?
this band is...
When I withhold desire
to sate the empty vase
is when I saunter
through the garden
a virtual arrangement
of flora on feet
on display
with my peers.
It’s your ghost, no, it’s you—
coatless in June rain on the longest day,
walking with your arms crossed
over your chest to keep warm,
so I know you're not a ghost after all,
but you might be your son, and
I'm trailing you, knowing...
Something moved, down on the floor,
as I sat staring at the t.v.
Marisella came in from the kitchen, holding something,
a glass.
The t.v. went limp
trying to broadcast something
too late for working people
to be watching.
Marisella sat on the sofa.
Three days later and...
elevators are dangerous
they’re to be avoided
conference rooms, even more so
scurry frantic, away on all fours
from under hard-wood desks:
too much space underneath them
lethal, seductive
shun enclosed, private spaces
where wives cannot see you
there’s something, there;
an unholy
hallelujah
ecstasy rhythm
a sinner’s motion
up, and down, up
and...
all the poets I’ve met
at a safe distance
on the Internet
after years of
carefully cultivating
meaningful
introverted
long-distance
friendships with
kindred unquenchable
minds suffering
a similar affliction
to wrangle a world
into making some
semblance of sense
with written words
they are so close
I could touch them
Dear Lou,
How long have you been dead now? Almost 10 years. You were supposed to mentor me longer, ya know. I don't know what I'm doing in poetry. I have a manuscript I got the edits back on, that...
Is it just me or is it getting crazier out there?
Gather up your precious stones and get ready to hurl them yes
assume your holier than thou positions for I’m sure you are feeling
quite without and therefore righteous and maybe due to that
self-promoted sinless...
Click an image for full-screen viewing
Acrylic, pencil, chalk, ink on Kraft 280gm corrugated cardboard paper
mixed media on canvas, 90 x 90 x 3,5 cm
I remember being a little kid and staring at the fattest guy at the pool
what a brat
well anyway, justice is served, because now he's me
I'm sure the kids calling each other "retard"
have snuck a peek at this stupid gut...
Please click on any image to bring up the gallery.
The playground's fake dirt pellets were warmer than I remembered.
Millions of tiny rubber cylinders of identical size, shape, and color
released a disturbing chemical stench.
Yet the children continued to play there
with ubiquitous plastic water bottles.
Trash that slobbered out of the...
The dog wants to bite,
her muzzle twitching
as she tends to emails and texts.
The dog wakes up and drinks coffee.
When you were a child
you were a charlatan,
your mother told you.
You immediately fell
into the company of mirrors,
disturbed men and women
eating pop...
The excavators started one street over, blocking the street with “ROAD CLOSED” signs and orange cones that kids upended with their bikes.
“I suppose we’re in for this all summer,” Davy said. He pulled the curtain back and peered out....
lawd
we march
lawd
we chant
lawd
we pray
lawd
i sing the body to a hemorrhage
i sing
"the fires are not my doing
neither is the fear
nor the brown skin
i put my weapons into the ground
i sign my resignation in the dirt"
lawd
it's broken
all still broken
the house windows
the...
"Write drunk; edit sober." –Ernest Hemingway
Punctuation is a personal struggle. It begins that way for anyone who wants to be a memorable writer. Who doesn't love the writing part, putting words on a page, the sloppy rough drafts with their...
the thin film of my mouth
on your cunt
in a half-mile high toilet
just to keep us going
through an invisible
security corridor from west to east
notes of golden brown
play easily
as we fuck each other
over
and land in Berlin Templehof
1986
the airport border guards check
that...
i am he shouted
as an emergency tourniquet
to his severed identity
you are i agreed
am i on the floor yet
he called falling backwards
spinning out of control
there is no floor i said
only space
he floated then
his umbilicus a distortion of air
tethered to primordial...
coronilla blooms now
by the bridge
where I poured out his ashes
across the creek
I see the ghost of a groundhog
popping up between tobacco shoots,
whistling—
I remember blowing him away
and cutting off his spindly tail to keep
even if I am alone now
I don’t cry when...
First a bird, then the sea;
then huge armies traipse
to their catastrophe.
Now the storm;
next the dawn—
freedom dangles
from a single sound.
Closer, ever closer, march
children from the womb.
After this: a tomb.
I crawl back into the warm bed for a brief goodbye
and I hold her from behind as she stretches and squints
in a sleepy sweetness beyond anything I've ever touched
or seen and she likes me anyway, despite who I am
and...
There was porn
on the TV when
I fell asleep, the irony
not wasted in dreams
I had bulging muscles,
blinding white teeth
and the Instagram hair
of hot selfie-junkies
I held fuzzy puppies
against my well-combed
chest, cute babies
to raise my ‘gram-score
followers flocked
like zombies, desperately
not seeking brains,
my obligatory...
It's not the fall
of shank buttons
or the tearing noise
of quick unzipping
or the impulse
of pull and push
or the rough
of cold concrete
or the thin blades
of wild ryegrass
or the voyeur moon
of waning summer
but the wide smirk
of noir ugliness
I don't omit or relish.
For Edna with love.
"Whiskey.
Any kind you like.
Club soda.
You never go back.
When you do,
you're an old party girl
still sucking
all the fishermen off;
everyone else
is long dead.
Know what I mean?
A little lemon
and some Grenadine."
on a bench
in Barcelona,
open-neck plaid shirt
betrays him as a visitor,
children chase their
football,
unaware that he is there.I watch from behind an olive tree,
observe a passive contentment
undesired in life,
never quite as still
or calm,
as in death
..
Stella Read
June 14, 2020
Pages are falling,
and I’m always replacing.
They never look just right.
I’m haunted by red bougainvillea
blooming
along the King Kamehameha Highway
so thick the road crews
hack it down with chainsaws,
and still the seeds
hurl themselves
into a sliver of dirt
and catch fire in the sunset.
I'll...
Everyone in this meeting is full of shit
& not the kind of shit to varying degrees
depends on how long ago was their last shit
or how much they have eaten since.
I shit shortly after breakfast
before coming to work & now
I’ve...
I wanted to write about the wind
but instead I find words like wait
or fury which are somewhat appropriate,
but not really. The day lifts and the lake
rolls with a longer skim of dragonflies than
yesterday. I skip flat stones and contemplate
the places where they end. This...
Even Jehovah’s Witnesses avoid me now
since I started wearing my fur coat
year round.
Pervs in the park leave me be
until some pop tune
reminds them I’m alone.
I’m alone in a world
where a woman can’t be alone,
unless she has lost a child...
Let her be healthy and let her be safe.
Let her climb on the turtles and run
through the spray of the Three Rivers
Fountain and when she is old enough,
let her sit on the stone rim of her city
drinking sweet coffee...
EXPLORE
Unit 6
A couple of
Bath Salts addicts
moved in upstairs.
Each night,
the entire building
can hear 'em
eating each other's
faces.
