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Why America’s Democracy Is Going Bankrupt
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LATEST ARTICLES
Filled in a beautiful wooden box,
with a neatly printed ticket in the corner,
placed in a paper bag
with your brown Aztec collar.
I didn’t have the...
I have put lettuce out
for the fawn eyed rabbits
quivering against their shadows
where the tender
shoots wrestle
with the dregs
of snow.
I am trying
to love the fragile
hopefulness
of spring,
without...
You Americans may have your “land of the free
and the home of the brave” and “all those buffalo roaming”.
Well, we Canadians have our “where...
I'm more than merely if - I'm when,
a dirge you sing in metered rhyme,
the sullen muse that moves your pen,
the loss by which you measure time,
a ghost...
“you ever think,” i said,
“that if we only had one choice,
we’d be happier?”
karsten squinted at the sun,
rolled the joint a little tighter.
“you mean like…no...
I’d order a blue stone
delivered from Wales
& have it stood up
in the rose garden
where I’ll drink tea
grown in Kashmir
on my once great uncle’s,
Lord so...
Hover your cursor over any image to see its title. Click on any image to see it full size and launch a slideshow of...
on the street corner
a guy
forty something
good looking in a celtic kind of way
he has a walking stick
and in the spring sunlight
there is a halo...
Hover your cursor over any image to see its title. Click on any image to see it full size and launch a slideshow of...
every year around the same time
when the flies get lazy
and the air starts smelling like a wet sponge left in a coffee cup
i walk...
never forget AI quantum
sleeper assassins back in ‘73
on windowpane LSD
ejaculated kingdom
come in a frenzied
sexual slaughter bare
back in gaza black smoke
and rubble cover bloody bones
with...
blind man’s buff.
wherein the word buff is use
d in its older sense of a small
push.
the game later also became known
as “blind man’s bluff”; it...
Lit a match in the wind. It fought—
not for warmth, nor for light,
but to be.
The girl at the café said I was distant.
I said...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james/friend
I don’t know what to say,
I’m stumbling lost in a foreign land
you’re talking in a strange language
but your tone I understand
(chorus)
you show me how...
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Soft and Oil pastels on maroon-coloured paper.
________
Editor's note: The title refers to a poem by William Blake of the same name (1863).
i defecate around 9:00 a.m.
most days.
same toilet.
same cracked tile.
same weird patch of mold on the ceiling
that kind of looks like a map of Texas.
i...
If you could see me,
kneeling to kiss
the rocks
on the promontory
where you paused
on our nightly walk,
head cocked
listening,
your entire being
leaning,
tuned
to darkness,
breathing softly,
lifting your head
to sniff the...
Once I sprung myself from
the heartland factory trap I
could not be stopped I was a
bullet aimed at the heart of the
matter I FLEW to...
Click on the Red Arrow to hear the soundtrack. Lyrics and music written and performed by the author.
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james/robertjohnson-in-southrosedale
A beat-up guitar hanging over his shoulder,
tall,...
Click on any image to see it full size and launch a slideshow.
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Editor’s Note: These paintings are from the Open Arts Forum archives, posted...
Dreams of gasoline
screams, screams, screams
Seems like
(seems like)
seems like God is ready
to be done
One nation
under...
See:
The Seven Wonders of Hell
sell your soul for Ozempic
thick to thin...
tangled limb morning
kisses the fringe of perfection
still—
i start fishing for a reflection
a light sprouts
then dangles
from my forehead
bioluminescence designed
not to see
but to be seen
not to...
The world ended on a Tuesday. Not with a bang—though there were plenty of those—but with the usual assortment of morons talking about “security”...
"In a series of seven images, the longest day glows orange as it slips gloriously into night. These images were taken on June 21,...
I long wondered how Burroughs escaped a murder rap
after his drunken reenactment of William Tell
in an American friend’s apartment in Mexico City,
in 1951, when...
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Pigma Microns on mixed media paper, 14" x 17"
I used to get high on life,
but I’ve built up a tolerance.
It continues to pass by and through,
whether I drive or eat or sleep
and/or...
solid. My son never complains
he can't walk through walls or people.
He dies only with wishes not to become
the shadow of a building or street...
There is a gentle language spoken
by things that do not speak:
a Parka draped over a chair back,
a half drunk wine glass on the coffee...
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1. Colibris
Pigma Micron Ink Pens on mixed media paper, 9"x12"
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2. Bird
Pigma Micron Ink Pens on mixed media paper, 9"x12"
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3. Abstract 2
Pigma Micron Ink Pens...
1.
Come to me, dearest day -
bring everything, and nothing
I say, and the Atlantic
offers its high tide,
and the firmament
draws closer by night.
2.
A small hammerhead shark
writhes...
The sky is backlit by these afterthoughts.
The golden hour and dusk shake hands then go
their separate ways, but not before burning
an iridescent edge behind...
Hover over any thumbnail photo to see its title. Click on any photo to see it full size...
You never knew
what shade of blue
to call her. If you
should follow her
out of the forest
and down the lane
to the cottage wired
for wifi and adjacent
to...
Il Faut Imaginer Sisyphe Heureux
"One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy" - Albert Camus
The morning hacks up a sun—nicotine-yellow, thick with last night’s smoke—
splattering the sidewalk...
for R
what I'd much rather to do is walk
into your Georgia home for the first
time, offer cactus honey from the desert,
dump my bag on...
Hover your cursor over each piece to see its title.
Click on any piece to see it full size and launch a slideshow.
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Editor’s Note: These...
1.
A dragonfly landed on a pond
without making a ripple,
then saw its own reflection.
2.
What to keep,
what to change,
what to lose.
What to do
with the remains.
3.
Poetry and...
They vote to hurt the other man. That’s what it looks like. They don’t vote for roads or bread or doctors or better schools...
Our ship at midnight slides
under timeless constellations.
Low Anguilla drifts by,
beaded shore lights snaking.
The kraken in the hold coughs,
shivering through the decks,
as we lift and...
i love Trump.
there, i said it.
go ahead, judge me.
he’s loud,
he stinks,
he humps everything with a pulse,
and he once ate an entire bucket of fried...
You're still here
and yet you've gone
At night
when the house heaves with our breathing
yours is absent
I know
you're alive
but somewhere else
not with me
I sometimes see you
at...
Hover over any thumbnail below to see the piece's title. Click on any piece to see it full size and launch a slideshow.
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All pieces...
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Abstract Digital Painting
To hide my naked head, I wear a rug
which mimics a dead cat.
Ah, how forgiving old age is!
No one wants to embarrass
an ambassador of...
"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
At the last midnight ever to fall,
the clock’s brazen lungs swelled full
and...
Here is to a year of living dangerously
because those who dole out portions miss the whole
point that dawns do not rise with guarantees.
I think...
She'd waited around for him all day.
Had prepared his favourite meal.
Even wore the earrings he liked,
the swingy ones with the sparkly balls.
As usual he...
I'm going to Pennsylvania.
I'm taking all the owl statues with me in a plastic bag
to live in real mountains, no scrapyard neighbors
every road narrow
poems...
We took him from the locked place
where 'memory care' meant being tied
to a chair and parked for hours by the main
desk. He said they...
I passed her building again yesterday on the train. It’s wrapped like a Christo – do you know Christo? – it's been in this state I...
quietly on the B train
perfecting a test
to determine the date
of my death
pondering
what I would leave behind
a list of curses tucked between my legs
an estrogen...
A bird broke on the windowpane—thud, feather-flutter, hush.
The glass hummed, the air held still,
thick with the sound of nothing.
His mother, hands white from wringing,
spoke...
The morning started the way it always did: half a joint and a bowl of Frosted Flakes. The cereal was stale and the joint...
I’ve long wanted
an excuse
to shuffle my feet
to take small steps
to own a few canes
My favorite
is a walking stick
my shepherd’s staff
I pretend I am Jesus
40...
Hover your cursor over each image to see its title.
Click on an image to see it full size and launch a slideshow.
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Artist's Notes:
I create...
...
old pennies
gone as smiling like you got a wad
styrofoam cup crack in the dirt
yellow teeth
dirty fingernail scratch
a skipping album
and dull lighting
dull as the TV
infomercial...
To not be that guy who kicks the dead mouse
of his humility under the sideboard.
To not be that guy who leaves their compassion
hogtied on...
we are
a population
of dead kings and drug lords
descended from outlaws
generations
of sunsets and murmurations
carvers of gargoyles
breeders of pigeons
we are sparrowhawks
racehorses
ice cream wars
we are a theme...
He leaned the old wooden ladder against the house,
climbed twice to extend its heavy sections,
retreated to pick up scraper, brush, paint
and mount the lowest...
This is a collection of 19 paintings using watercolor, pencil, and black sharpie. In the artist's words, "they are based on sensations from energies".
Click...
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Watercolour, acrylic and ink on cardboard (collage)
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Acrylic on canvas, 74.5 x 73 inches, 2021. From the OAF Archives: Originally posted on 20 August 2021. This piece was never published on...
Mom started getting
emerald green dishes
every time she went
to the grocery store.
She said Joe’s Food Mart
was giving away
free dinnerware
every time you spent
a certain amount
on groceries.
“We...
the neighbors
are getting their car fixed
right outside my deck
I can’t think from the noise
and the people
I get sucked into the repair
does he want the...
Whisper, whisper—soft-hand hush,
paper-gold lips coil promises,
ribbons spun from the marrow of knowing men.
Tongues flicker in the ear of the street,
warm, wet, lulling—
all is well,...
They came in loud, laughing, chewing gum like it was some new Olympic sport. Kids in expensive sneakers and hoodies that probably cost more...
Just before sunrise, the sky above the lavender farm roared into purple, and the dawn came tinted.
Picture me a purple-eyed child insomniac, skinny in...
Some poems require
an emotional investment,
a commitment to providing
a lived truth, spoken with
a poetic voice meant to
enthrall and excite.
Others are simply bullshit
requiring no depth, no...
A Cooper’s hawk
appears at least
once every other
week. He works
the avocado tree,
hops through its
branches, stares
expectantly— waits
for what will emerge.
his voice haunts me tonight
grief is the price
you pay for loving someone
I know that well
I’ve paid mine
on the installment plan
my crazy grandfather
in 1977
Barbara
my beloved in...
Hover your cursor over each image to see its title.
Click on each image to see it full-size and launch a slideshow.
Wet and moonless, the Japanese maple drips color
on a desolate, metal halide-lit stretch of road, until
pink-red rivulets parade ostentatiously toward
the storm drain. All is...
when I was sitting
at the gas station
picnic table
down to my last cigarette
and one single drop
of rain
put it out
I called
back in the days
of landlines
and her...
On the floor before the library service desk
a little lizard
feels like soft dry rubber
when I put a finger to it.
Think it maybe is a...
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Acrylic on canvas. 24" x 36".
oil pond mirrors the darkness the november
day sun draws white against the grey
this leaf lays on earth
there is no god
not hungry nor otherwise
you look at me straight...
—for Douglas
Baby it's been so long!
What do you want to talk about?
You struggle to make words, blurt
"Spaghetti Sauce"
and disappear into the living room
for a...
Ate well, drank less, exercised,
used valerian root and holy basil,
filtered rainwater and the northern breeze
and the rhetoric coming from outside,
paid attention to mental hygiene,
held...
-
a small black wing
without its bird
skitters across the road
scissor-tail flycatchers
rise and fall and rise and fall
between the wires
like a wonky oscilloscope
that has forgotten its...
I have the inclination
to shut down my tablet
just as I realize
the tablet must be on
to turn off the air
conditioner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7F7n55hpnE
“I watched it through the kitchen window,
up to my elbows in dishes and meat
burning on the stove, but I couldn't take
my eyes off it,...
The Urquhart & Music street sign is a rebus, Kerry claims:
toy firetruck attached at top above a naked plastic Barbie
with a lime-green plastic ball...
i've always managed to hang onto it
that joy inherent in the season
not solely for its christian notes
(which i'll enjoy for what they are)
but for...
Now he’s gone, I left the gate open on my way back from splitting wood. My arms were full. But I felt that worry...
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Watercolor. Artist's Note: This is my favorite art work I’ve done thus far. I am planning on doing more people, so stay tuned, as...
Last week I
painted the cat blue.
Now we sit up until dawn
discussing Kierkegaard.
Strange, because my cat
formerly hated philosophy.
I have noted the level
of my Glenlivet bottle...
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Acrylic on canvas. 67 inches by 50 inches. From the Open Arts Forum Archives, originally posted on 15 September 2021. This piece has not...
to the barricades, mes amis
We think too much of the ends of things, American
Democracy now, or my fountain pen giving up the ghost,
red-state votes cascading down like red...
They say an opening sentence should draw the reader in with its precision and clarity, a bouquet of words with the promise of fulfilment...
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Acrylic. 20" X 22 1/4".
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8" X 8" styrofoam tile. From the OAF Archives. Originally posted on 15 May 2019. This piece was never published on the OAF Front...
Through the cracked visor, the world warps—
a funhouse mirror of ruin.
Behemoth coils across the horizon,
talons raking earth’s bones.
Houses exhale splintered beams;
chimneys thrust skyward: cenotaphs...
I wish I could rub a genie’s lamp
the way I tenderly
rubbed your feet
after a long day of work—
then I would wish
for 3 things:
for another
lifetime...
Lately I’ve had trouble staying in my mind,
like when I’m driving with my daughter
and she’s calling out the colors of cars
passing the other way...
and right now
a little Tibetan boy tends to his yak.
what is
more alive than this boy,
the fire from his cheeks,
the snow bed mountain behind him.
this...
Not to dart along. Stilled. Here.
A life painted on. Dry docked.
No shoal, no fleet. Alone.
Not line caught. Scales of grain crack.
Unworked, unworking. Stopped. Stopped.
The...
Great news! If you’d like to publish my work,
my submission window is now open
and will stay open until the cows come home.
There is no...
The air is a velvet rope, coiled tight ’round my chest.
Breath unspools silver wire, threading ribs,
tugging my spine toward a fluorescent stage.
Copper lingers on...
Tiny, claustrophobic room,
stained Hopi carpet,
folded-up prayer rugs,
assorted scriptures,
brass band in the distance.
Sign:
NO Alcohol
NO Incense Sticks
NO Cell Phones.
Grey steel
lectern,
3 whole-tree-trunk
benches.
In the classroom-style door,
a small, square,
twisted...
Her look was warm as summer dawn,
there was a lightness as she stepped
as if the ground was almost a cloud,
her beauty a casual dream...
I do not have the memory that some do, more often flashes, images, clip shots, waves, feelings. They come on the outbreath.
When I walk...
shadows migrate towards the fence-line
with its shredded plastic fluttering
like the rage of those denied escape
they are the formless ones faceless familiars
hidden in vaguely remembered conversations
who...
when the ghost in the basement
won’t stop wailing i want ouuuut!
& you holler right back
don’t we aaaall, my friend!
the dog at...
A gypsy moth mistakes
the incandescence
from a bulb
in the porch ceiling
as a sextant moon.
I watch from the rocker
slugg’n liquor from a jar
in the inescapable heat
appreciating...
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Artist's Note: A watercolor about how we're embedded in our world. 11"x14". Paints and pencils on gessoed matboard, a surface that makes it easy...
There,
on the back lawn -
once pure powder,
now crusty and gray,
a lone holdout
from a forgotten season.
I know, I know,
I say
as molecules disperse
one by one
into the...
I have a pesky feeling
there is a poem hiding
from me like a child
waiting to jump out
from behind the curtains
to surprise me, to give me
a...
What is this graveyard but where we came
with our papers and stubs of charcoal,
to catch the image of their names
and dates,...
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Abstract Expressionism, 21 cm × 29 cm, On Paper
Material: Acrylic, Gouache
Where did you go, Ronni, Calli? I remember you,
on a dark street years from here,
your dad’s chevy slowly rolling
by the bungalow of a dark-eyed boy
we...
how do you know
when you’re dead
I would expect
someone pokes you
maybe with a stick say
excuse me sir
but your rotting carcass
is starting to smell
why not just...
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When my time comes
just flush my ashes
down the toilet
I told them
and they were shocked
poor dears!
taking me so literally!
not all at once
I explained
just one scoop...
Shepherded by bad luck,
you fall through a mirror
once you have it,
or rather it has you.
Even if you survive
{or at least they kindly
keep your body...
it’s a threesome.I look around at the ceiling
the plants
my iced tea sitting on the coffee table.I micro-dosed
(there’s no other away).an echo of lovely moans
is...
log in - forget your password?
. . . no one gets to rest on the structure
no one ever forgets their first agreement with pain
or...
I broke up with the world.
We both saw it coming long and slow
as the drifting of continents,
and then came the sorting -
I gathered my...
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I am the son of a coffin maker; death will have no surprises for me.
This was my life: Rise before birds open their eyes,
smooth...
driving through Iowa will make you cry
all rolling plains, windmills, tractors,
rooms of old radios,
ex-girlfriends
That make us feel as if we’ve been
punched in the stomach, bludgeoned
over the head, had our arms ripped off,
our toes plucked out, skulls smashed
with...
I picture accidents all the time.
All the time.
On the way to Stop & Shop
at that new intersection.
Slipping on the smallest
puddle on a dry sidewalk.
The...
I don’t understand the desert
the considered staging of stones
the rise and fall of trails
the suspicious critters ogling us
from all those holes
in the dirt
But most...
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All gone, wandering beyond
valley brambles, slate
splintering like overworn bone.
Today is for pine smoke pulled taut
around half-horned fog
melting beneath canopy light
where short, shallow graves
shelter my...
We shot this in early 2024 and Finished it this past Fall. I wrote and directed it with Max Cox.
Isaac’s show is called The...
Rattling across a rocky trail just after sunrise
having hiked up and down Pilot Knob
950 feet elevation
one mile
straight up
my temple
to you
gone three years
and the dog...
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Great cities hold their rivers and their jazz in high regard,
trust secrets to the cattail-covered caves along the bank;
it’s miles beneath the drummer’s glistening...
You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
The Eagles, 1975
Maybe you remember
the drawings at breakfast:
a hippo yawning,
a...
Stretches out his
loveliness of fur
legs linger long
leaning earthward
pees
languorously
Eyes soften
as pee
empties him
He is emptiness,
floating within consciousness
towards what comes next
Pain, joy, suffering,
which I have aspired to
without...
I. That Ain’t FedEx
It a was dull morning in H-Town,
where the sun rose slow as molasses
and the coffee from Greasy Joe’s tasted like regret.
Benny sat...
An empty house across the street,
snow-capped, mid-renovation;
daffodils waiting underground
with honey and fire;
strands of festive lights
held over like a beloved play.
Somewhere,
a buck standing by a...
#1. Stephen's island wren 1895. Watercolor. 9" x 9".
Also known as the Lyall’s wren, the Stephen’s island wren (Xenicus lyalli) was a bird endemic...
the editor demands,
and asks if it serves
understanding to
undermine gravity
and fling the beast into
a star shot sky.
If this is a dream ploy,
it's been done and...
When all the sadnesses want to leave
on the same day that’s a lot of traffic
and uniforms and all that have never
been my bag so there’s...
I give a tight hug to myself
and kiss myself on the forehead.
I cry unstoppably
and then wipe my tears.
I don't miss you.
I record words, "Everything...
Abstract Expressionism. 21 x 29 cm. Acrylic, Gouache on paper.
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1.
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2.
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3.
*******
Dilly Darnickle stunk like forbidden streets
walked a little funny
had a herniated testicle
wouldn’t say which
lucky he still had two he said
one's always bigger and better...
Of course I don't
remember the poem,
but in the fourth grade
I knew it was a lie
I was being forced
to read aloud and
when I finished
and looked...
oh, how my heart flies
in this harvest sky
oh, how my heart settles
in the soft tan grass
i love this...
the sound of gravel under my sneakers
the cat sneezes
cigarette butts
who cares
I’m outta sync
I’m a dapper monster
the quiet blank of days passing
I’m sick of you...
maybe he’s taken up tray planting
snipping tiny bits to shape his bonsai
placing the pre-grown moss around its base
perhaps he will focus more on his...
In a field off
Hungerford Road back
in the 1950’s Mum
almost lost an arm
after being thrown by her horse
and trampled.
Every path I take in
this town runs...
What if that gold tipping over
tops of twilight trees
is love on its way
home to rest and I am
not yet ready?
out here on the lough all movement is vertical
wind and tide and endless sculling
keeping the shore beads constant
no passion is productive in the water
not...
I knew if I died first
I would not
have to bury
or cremate you.
So it came to pass.
No tears.
I cry at funerals
but not at my own.
Things...
poor as an old penny
laying against the dumpster
the stray cats and me
under the rusty moonlight
We, the ones with high numbers,
outrank nearly everything and everyone these days,
even though it’s not in our best interest
given the pending shortages of
affordable resources...
leaves fall
dance and pirouette
through pale late fall skies
land on the brown lawn
quiver and die.
I drink coffee
laced with good bourbon
on the front porch
I take a...
Snowed in
& out
the window
I watched a robin
flit branch to branch
pecking on frozen bark
& listening
a rustle
in my skull
a memory
of something
forgotten
& too late
I hit my head
with...
His fingers—spindly, delicate as a spider’s legs—
dart among the gears,
tools clink in whispers, sharp and sure.
He bends close, breath fogging the polished brass,
eyes fixed...
Daisy was above trickery
no shake-a-paw nonsense for us
no tit for tat
her fetch was gloriously one way
neither of us the alpha type
we just frolicked
careless with...
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Acrylic on canvas. 16"x20".
Ferbo Dunkling
on his walk with Koda
thought of a hopeful
future where Cyborgs
are environmentally conscious
Zombies are conversant
and he wins the lottery
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So, I’m not dead yet.
While my shelf life still remains a mystery
I bought a funeral of sorts --
a cremation party:
old Rock and Roll in...
there is a duty to repair beautiful things
like people silence traumatised dogs and planets
to fill the jagged tree-lines of their fractures
with gold from the sun and...
what will happen
if I don’t
write poems
never again
no wars will be waged
no peace will be broken
no justice will linger
no ocean will drain
only a poem
will be...
World of clinking coins and silent wails,
where sidewalks hum with the soft crush of heels,
everyone steps to their own dirge, unaware.
Oh, the tragic absurdity:
Mr....
The Importance of Being EarnestPencil, graphic ink pen, Kuretake Bimoji Fude brush pen, black permanent ink, ink brush on Yasutomo Japanese ivory-tone Rice...
after Goya’s Capricho No. 43
In the Siberian tundra of mind
the sentinel permafrost of reason
is thawing in these torrid times
of online lies and rising oxycodone...
I dug a hole three times as deep
as last time. You get better at these things.
Dead things. You say,
'it’s the last time,' but it...
When I turn the screw on the device
nipple clamps
your lips pull clear of teeth
it takes years to decipher the puzzle tree
its spindles — not...
this feels like the divorce
i was spared
my parents too exhausted
.......by life
............to split
i should pack up my words now
to save something
of who i’ve been
but...
on the dock
looking out over the water
dreaming
meandering thoughts
my easy steps across the wood
that when it creaked
told me secrets
little ripples and reveries
coming in
that I’ve forgotten
what...
This is our second Artist Postcard, featuring Jillian Sarette Li!
Dear Vacuum.This channel is glad you exist.
Together we wait.The new sailor just got back.Fuck I loathe a society that accepts advertisement.And there’s something wrong...
you are
a lovely whirlwind
spinning
just some energy
locked
in this lost, forgotten
sediment
recording. all the dances
car crashes
bus drivers, dishwashers.dust plankton cosmic
drunken
standup
philosophers
https://soundcloud.com/sherry-170780609/trinity-park
S E V E N B E L L S
They are studying homelessness at the high school, that’s what the kid said, as if...
Forty-Fives
A Story in Interconnected Flash
-1-
Ada’s skin was caramel and her hair so black it looked blue. She was tiny with shoulder blades like wire...
how it gleams under show lights—
chrome shimmered once like this,
but not after '67, when my brother drove it
through siege, shot-out glass,
powder-burned rims
riddle-marked at Texas...
after Charlie Haden’s, “First Song”
No one remembers the first song
sung to them in mother’s whisper.
The words, merely notes to soothe
the savage beast at her...
When I die
The ferns ‘ll go on
And the fish in the sea
Slivers of dawn
And once I was a Fisherman’s wife
Couldn’t talk
Couldn’t speak
And I liked...
Watercolor and Micron pen .5, 6" X 9"
A cloudless sulfur butterfly (probably Phoebis sennae) caught in mid-flight on a warm November day using my Nikon D3200 camera in continuous shooting mode.
a touch of red
suggested at dinner, to make
a photograph splendid, i noticed
the same in paintings at exhibition.
looking out, the grave yard, noticed
a touch of...
I finally accomplished my dream
of becoming an online mythical character
who flew her flags
among her kind of heroes and heroines,
the other ones who understood
the meaning...
the white tail-end of thanksgiving
is feathered over the farm
three feet deep
& the gray hand of god
pushes downward.
ghosts of children
slip through the cracks
of the barn...
Look
I’d like to help you
and it’s time
I’ve put money
in the account
you say you never had one
Look
the credit card
I made you tear up
I still get...
"Sorry. Sorry. Last bloke I stood on I
broke his toe. Sorry. Got his own back
with a bit of this." Shakes his bunched five
the bus lurches...
at first I was pissed
when the cat
knocked over the Christmas tree
then I was delighted
our cat basically said
fuck the stress of pageantry
and living up to...
Christmas morning,
sunlight creeping in like a landlord
knocking for rent.
stocking caps hung limp,
empty as a politician’s promise.
the tree stood bare,
no gifts, no mess,
just me and...
It wasn't always this way
it used to be
when bad guys always lost
and paid for their sins
there were cowboy heroes
and stars and stripes
when boys and...
From 1984–1987, I published the little magazine Clock Radio. Like many small ("little") literary magazines of the day, this one was produced on a shoestring,...
along the stream that fell from clouds
he came upon
a pile
of bones
recognized
the glaze
and angles
as his own
kicked them
in the creaming
beck
no use
for them
without
a head
going upstream
beside
the gambling goose
where...
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...
Henry: This is a world where everybody’s gotta do something. Y’know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be...
My daughter says
she’s been called
to sing some high song,
some choral song,
at some high mass,
at some cathedral,
somewhere in Detroit.
“I can’t eat now,” she says.
“Not tonight.
Not...
no leaves left
on the trees
I get to look deep
into the woods now
The first time I was called a poet, I took offense,
for poetry is good for nothing: it neither
makes love nor wages war, nor pays...
Do not tell me you are dying.
I am an empathetic soul
& a part of me
will begin dying, too.
Tell me, instead, your soul
is leaving to...
I work (slave) at a dollar store
they put the Christmas shit out
in fucking August
instead of a star there should be a dollar sign
on top...
The slow and sullen wind that lingers
in the corners of my room, compact,
brooding, breathes in, breathes out,
sighs and shifts, rises, falls,
gives up, gives in,...
cold in here when I woke
opened the doors to the woodstove
cold ashes, not even one glowing ember -
I piled in kindling
and wood on top...
The soldiers woke us at 5 a.m.,
a bullhorn announcing we had
an hour to pack our belongings
& leave. 200 years we’ve lived
in this glade, subsisting on...
the roads here are winding, the leaves are changing.
best not to bang the teapot down on serving, best
to tell the truth.
________________________________________________________________________
while silken streams
of white carnations
down my legs fell
into a delicate web
a blood spot formed
on a blackened moon
you slid off me
on a three legged stool
you...
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Glen Banvie Trail on the Blair Castle Estate, Scotland. October, 2024.
I dreamt I was a kelp forest swaying in pitch-
-black waters. Above me moonlight fluttered
like confetti and seagulls roosted on cliff-sides
and buoys. An oil...
Hawk skirls overhead,
red berries bloom like blood against
the shadowed wood.
________________________________________________________________________
Crow quill pen and ink on Strathmore illustration board. Illustration from the book, "Did Adam...
In twenty twenty-eight,
light narrows, ink falls silent in the streets.
Words shaved of edges, poetry a lost shape,
a forgotten voice in fog.
But Hosokawa Yusai knew...
I like tools.
I like spatulas.
I like good shoes
and Kikkoman soy sauce.
I like the thing
that fixes that
other thing and
the other thing
that fixes that.
I like tape dispensers
and...
EXPLORE
critical thinkers
always an admirer
of critical thinking
man is still
a slave
to his senses:
he is slave
to the cook flipping burgers
in the fast food joint down the street
he is...
