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Give me a pen and I will break it into three pieces
the way P possesses enough of pity, pain, patience
and E earns enough of endorsement, equality, encouragement
and N receives no, nor, none, nothing
It’s hard to tell the poor ending N that being nothing
isn't equal to being something...
I am humbled by the reviews—
Just when you think Jacobson is going to make a point or reach a conclusion, he finds yet another tragically obvious way to get totally lost.
— Sir Franklin Johns, Professor Emeritus of English, Queen Maud...
I let the screen door close behind me
And the rest of the day was quite easy.
At the dining room table
Covered with plates covered with crumbs,
I picked up the tea cups,
Smothering butterflies and flowers in my palms,
And noticed an egg-shaped...
The sun hums
a sphere song
rising south
along the horizon.
The winds cool,
greens lessen
& brittle,
leave the leaves
festooning
falling kites
attached
to unseen strings.
Persephone
eating pomegranates
on a hay ride
begins the harvest.
Holes are dug
to store food
to bury the dead,
both to seed
& sprout again.
Prayers
& pranks
like prattling parrots
flap in the...
Rest easy unborn
while the warm air cools
without a sun
a dark blanket
growing damp
until gravid
with aqueous eggs
delivered to
each curving cradle
of an expecting grass
ready to fondle
its adopted child
until morning comes
with a warming sun
to hatch the diamond sparkles
to whence they came.
Do not keep the herringbone wool, the upright
Hoover or the red galoshes. Never mind
that the wooden wagon of colored blocks still
sparks joy. Go ahead and throw them out.
Pile the coats on the bed as if Thanksgiving dinner
was winding down...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/starrs-blues-lyrics-starr
For Miss Auntie Lola with love from your Starrchild. xo
Lemme tell y'all sumpthin—
It don't get no betta than this.
It jess don't get no betta;
ain't been no heat fo' days,
so ah gots t'put on a heavy sweata.
'N lemme tell y'all...
pigeon-breasted Margarite thanks god
that the pitch-glued cabbage leaf barrier
and pessary of honey-soaked acacia
are relics of the past—
for freedom and modern convenience
she bares ankles for coiled silkworm guts
to be wound tight around her cervix
while the desperate whore dances
the lacedaemonian leap
jumping...
buttery sun sinks
another hairpin turn
a million more mountains
After she died
I thought I’d miss her
being here.
But I got over that.
Now I know
what I miss
is never knowing love
like that
again.
Once I sprained both
ankles playing basketball.
Sedentary, house-bound
for weeks, I smoked pot,
snorted coke, chased speed
with shots of whiskey. Take that,
brain! Take that, heart & take
that, liver! Punishment more
than recreation. We both survived,
my body & I. Here we are.
I can’t hike. I can’t walk
100 yards without limping,
my...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/done-gone-wrong-ii
Everything done gone wrong
done gone wrong
over the top
down to the edge
can't fix it baby
I got nothing
I got diddly bop
every damn thing
done gone wrong
you touched me
touched me forever
there was no going back
it was a helluva jolt
you were nothing if not...
Did you know my doctor has no teeth
and smokes
in the patient lounge? You can never trust
a guy like that
(the things I could tell you)
and who is the little girl in the photo you sent? Did
you make that blanket for...
On Sunday I wrote you a letter about how the sky was such a deep blue
Then, on Sunday, again, I wrote you another one, a long one, about the sky
And how I walked into it, over and over, like...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlS63_RVL_s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6jzz8a_zYM
"Why do you teach kids to be proper" is the title of my new performative album.
Some time ago, I was at Kysak train station waiting for my train to Krompachy. There is a waiting room in the building, in...
Tiny twin fluttering fans dart up to hover just there,
beak fronting and losing its length to bud inside.
Wonder of airs elite sharp drawing sap succulent
stand we aghast at the seminal speed entranced
by powers so small whoops a daisy, oh...
I’m still suckin air
big Bob says
when I ask him how he’s
doing
to be funny I say that sucks
he doesn’t get the pun
and thinks I may wish him ill will
get it
sucks?
as in the sucking of the air?
but he still doesn’t get...
As midnight tolled its long count
our host Stefano tumbled down
into the oleander plants
around the border of the lawn
Valley dogs were barking
as we pulled him from the fiori,
laughing and unspectacled.
We offered our grazie mille
then left by separate ways
diverging from the lantern light
into...
it doesn’t matter if it followed
a single night of passion
weeks of an affair
or a lifelong commitment
the consequence must be embraced
this stirring has its own life
a tiny soul to share and shelter
its own fate to pursue
deformed or stillborn
perfect in all...
Click any image to view full-screen.
sick in bed
I hear talking outside
the fan is blowing too fast
that motorcycle is too loud
somebody’s music is playing obnoxiously
every sound is intrusive
how did they get so ugly in my head?
like a chipped tooth smile
perhaps the sounds aren't disgusting but...
I've got
no excuses
for my mistakes
or the awkwardness
that falters inside me
or the yolk yellow prevaricatorial
nature of my emerging posture as a goat
inhabiting the corner of a building
and working toward a distant conclusion
where the human infection that is
consuming me will either...
father's ashtray
the night she died
silent volcano
This is a two track single named Magnitude 8.0 I finished some time ago.
The two tracks are
A side - Sun Runner
B side - Kill for Candy, Fuck for Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAFHGZR9u0g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKS6PFr_NYQ
my boy
will not get
a game ball
it is a foregone conclusion
you can see the truth
of my assumption
in the glittering eyes
of the kid-with-the-big unit-windup
and the griffey jr. stance’s
mom as she
asks me, quite disinterested
offhand
fully focused on my lack
of success in nurturing a...
in the other chair
he had
a pensive look
as if unsure
i was ill-fit enough
to grace
the darkness
of his halls
i guess
i may stick around
a while
Dear Tenant,
It has come to our attention that you’ve really been appreciating shelter. You lie on the couch and are so grateful to have a place to rest your aching mind. You look at the cat and imagine yourself...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/she-left-me-for-a-william-burroughs-novel-1
Looking out a summer window
wondering where it's all gone
coming up with distances
falling through a prism like a song
Sunlight plays over the Spanish wall
a dragon shaped cloud moves
toward the Guatemalan moon
like it's got something to prove
There's an impossibility here
you know...
Click any image to view full-screen.
he asked me who will be afraid of our ghosts
ghosts of humans
when we are gone
i replied the animals
then after i thought
it will be everything left
behind us
plants and earth
land and seascape
littered with the stuff
of us
the terrible ghosts
there's a dreamer at the edge of the prairie,
an ancient angel of brutal sex, arranging his affairs
he's bravely able, the bull in the maze, the wolf on the hill, slave of chaos
a perfect cranium crater not interested in rape
but...
Click any piece to view full-screen.
I am going through old brands
one by one until I find that diner counter
white cup with two creams and a dark
green stripe around an ordinary
afternoon. The waitress's smile is an absent
nod to 1964 and warms up my dubious want
from...
Now available in our Resources section is a copy of the original, out-of-print magazine Clock Radio #2. This is a special "Bukowski" issue, featuring mostly work by Charles Bukowski.
Complete author list:
Charles Bukowski
Robert Peters
Tom Clark
Janet Gray
Lyn Lifshin
You will need to...
Q: Would you categorize poetry as fiction or nonfiction? My own opinion would be nonfiction because it speaks or alludes to universal truths no matter the form or content.
A: Please understand and accept that text is not a human...
https://soundcloud.com/concussionbox/easy-lies
Takes a few miles
to get there.
Gotta get warmed up
calibrate to conditions
get through the lights
outta traffic.
Find a rhythm
a gear ratio
a cadence
a speed
in sync
with threshold
breathing.
The road unfolds into
coming coming coming
gone gone gone
…coming coming coming…
…gone gone gone…
Between coming and gone
is me
stilling.
around the house by the glow of fairy lights
from above the window and a lemon moon
centered underneath. There is a path worn
into the saltillo floor made of feral dog prints
and worry which I follow believing after midnight
they lead away...
"Arf!" I barked,
hoping she'd acknowledge my existence.
No luck. A woman with a dog
is more content
than any woman
with a man. Dogs
love unconditionally;
not men. Dogs
want food and attention:
men want a threesome,
it's their dream.
The fate of all men
is to lose domestic bliss
to...
all the libtards wearing masks
that’s how you know who they are
fuckers suffocating our kids
pandemic’s never existed anyway
global elite just want to
inject us with magnets
heavy metals and poisons
tracking sensors and microchips
space lasers shooting us dead in the streets
libtard death actors...
I guess they’ve read enough
Dan Flore poems
here’s one to shove at them
I put out a cigarette on it
because there’s only ashes left of me
text me, sext me your red hair
burn up my screen with it
I’ll put the smell of...
I think Teddy Roosevelt stayed here once
after the asylum and before the second fire
back in the time of postcards and parasols
ostrich feathers and wicker rockers
stains on the remaining walls of the bath house
show where the sulphur water once leveled
gardens...
At the institute for divine research
we smeared live brain cells
on microscope slides
to see what consciousness looks like.
Under intense meditative stress
we stared into space
wondering if god
needs a therapist
because
he's an introvert
and traumatized
from being ad infinitum
everlasting. No wonder
god's favorite time of year...
It's not the impending absence,
but the calculated haste
and slow sudden death;
it's the free fall dream
where you wake just before impact;
it's the time lapse of stars
and reason,
lessons learned too late
and forgotten too soon;
it's the casual leaving behind
of sacred things
and the...
it’s Sunday night
and I was at my mom’s house
for the weekend
and we are going
through the McDonald’s drive thru
as a treat
because we have to
say goodbye
the fries seem
a little colder and mushier
I don’t want to leave my mom already
the ketchup squirts...
I would define this project as an attitude, expression, or gesture (which is the way I do things in other art disciplines), but now I used some other mediums. I have a habit of depriving utilitarian objects of their...
Click any image to view full-screen.
I've spent the past week thawing bags of frozen peas,
saving our microwave the burden.
Now I stand at a clinic counter holding an empty semen specimen cup.
The young female attendant points to a door.
A tiny room.
Bright halogen lights and a...
the dirt patch under
the power plant
has seen some grim fairy tales
overlooking dreamstreet
the mangiest of mushrooms
grow there, spottily,
near dessicated evergreens
and faux palmettos
it was the last stop
on the groove line
& she, the last customer
stepping off,
she tossed the
Korbel bottle at
one of the...
By the Brazos River a butterfly crossed my path;
twice it waved its wings when I cried already missing you,
wished we had taken you one last time before
to wade in the water; you couldn’t walk, but you wanted to.
We carried...
These portraits are from the series "I took that personally." —Nicholas Wintzler
Click any image to view full-screen.
There’s a hum
under all the noise
the quiet voice
of silence
a sound of void
filling muted noise
like the dark of night
fills receding light.
An old bar called
The Rose Tattoo
flew in from the past.
The flat blue outline of floret
appeared on an imaginary arm, filled
with that dank red
only pink flesh
could hold.
I hadn’t heard
Tangled Up in Blue
in ten years.
Early one morning
some redhead
flicked on the radio
in...
Nothing approaching
the soul-on-fire,
“I saw the best minds
of my generation destroyed
by madness…”
more like tossed potato salad.
Still, I don’t put down my pen.
My desktop Thesaurus
tries to help,
recommends I use
“ne’er do well”
to describe this slacker
source of inspiration
with a bad attitude.
I resort to...
Day after day with no entries in my Google calendar.
Tell a friend who lives in Philadelphia to move to Idaho.
Disable my Facebook messenger service, I mean, WTF!?
He's 53 and has a 1 year old. It's hot. I have a new shirt.
Re-check...
the dirty swill marks of yesterday's wine
using bottled water
this is crazy
it is 36c and 8pm
the sweat ring around my titties is visible
what more can go wrong
the wine is chilled
I have one ice cube left
in this moment
when the ice makes...
i guess you are out on the bike speeding about the tracks
whizzing along
and i may have found a photo and wonder if it is true
exercise came unusual friday
a walk with the cat in tow
not too far for fear
of losing...
My whole day today is going to be writing in a notepad that I used to care about
I'm going to write about how much of a sick old bird I've gotten to be
how I'm an old lady in Acme...
A lunatic in a Tucson Walmart
placed a Ben & Jerry’s pint
of “Oat of this Swirled”
into his shopping cart
& unsolicited, he began telling me
how innocently it started,
his becoming a lunatic
one night in Bisbee, AZ
by complimenting
the milking color
of the full moon’s...
He was a celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century.
I am a middle-aged-white dude-high school English teacher in full Hail Mary mode, going long on the MFA, seconds left in the game.
He was one of the greatest singers...
Click any image to view full-screen.
Sunday, you rotten bitch
everything is closed
and there's nowhere to go
even if shit was open
Roger's wasted
so is Zack
some guy
is blowing
his lawn clippings
into the street
my wife is sick
but she doesn't want to
admit it
the cops are trying to
make their traffic ticket quotas
and...
For those of you on Facebook, we've started a group so that
publishers can post calls for submissions and
writers and artists can post publication announcements.
Here it is:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/submityourwork
Why are we doing this? It's an experiment, like everything else, and...
My dog
is a sonofabitch.
In his mind
I am dog
separated
from my mother
as a puppy
when we tug
a white sock.
It’s a dog
eat dog world
but not in my house.
I don’t want
to put whines
in his mouth
but in his eyes
I see myself
reflected –
a muttonheaded-
birdbrained-dingbat-
turkey-jackass
for keeping him
out...
Click any image to view full-screen.
During the period of creating the Agnosia photographic series, I was inspired by visual agnosia. Visual agnosis is a disorder of knowing familiar things and their meaning, people, or spatial relationships. A person suffering from visual agnosia cannot recognize...
Fledglings leave the nest,
the nest is an egg, its
shell cracked open.
We tell our children stories
about the heat of the sun
& of melting wax.
They smile & watch us
slowly dissolve
inside our longings
to enter into the light
after we have taught them
to apply
the...
I left my window open. Moonlight knocked over
the dresser, flung socks and secrets like a thief
scared away mid-theft. A fly rummaged my body. I survived
bombs meant for I know not who, mistook my beating heart
for unexploded ordnance. Whose war...
I break my hard shell shield from sharp cold,
find soft shoots and grass to eat in the warm.
As I grow out my young selves into old
I eat tougher stems, and my wings take form.
My stomach hears sounds. droplets from...
All I think about is killing you.
With my .38 caliber pistol barrel
stuffed into one of your nostrils,
that you dig and pick.
The bullet trajectory angled at your brainstem.
A one shot explosion,
an extermination,
splattering toxic brain bits.
Then I will remove your fingers...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/booda-wot-doddy
nobody knows where it is I been
but you can bet I’m goin’ back again
booda wat doddy
booda wat doddy
wadda bop den
when your number comes round
oo wop a dee bop baby
the riddim woman rides that sound
she got a hoodoo eyeball drive...
another night of nothing
the TV is giving me a headache
the fans are blowing
in fact the fans aren't just blowing
they're blowing up
minutia is flying everywhere
I hate every second of this
I begin to understand
nothing is an illusion
there is always something
something
is
happening
to me
tonight
though...
Most days
Shuffling behind him, collecting his socks,
She regards his three heads and
Two left feet, bedhead breath, beer belly,
Broken bones and battered plans
And sighs.
Wraps a great blanket of judgment
Around him, burrito style,
And calls it love
Or something.
Until today.
Alone out on the...
the day i first
declared myself
The Artist
you laughed so hard
we both wet ourselves
it was autumn
of some year
and we left behind
a smoking crater
that was once Paris
i knew i was
The Artist
when the drawing
i had just finished of you
naked on a red bedsheet
compelled...
Of all the forgotten faces
let me be one.
Like the wind
felt
but unseen.
Like the dot
that never grew
beyond
any dimension.
An epiphany
of
voice, thoughts
and feelings.
A regurgitation
of moments
that never stilled.
a tiny chinese woman in sumatra
moves from shanghai so she
can be poor there instead
makes me a stir fry with onions &
bok choi, ginger & ants—
tiny ants that taste just like pepper
somewhere between our broken
indonesian and my very broken
comprehension, we...
If I had more time—
neither family nor job, neither
errands nor sense of duty—
I would visit every week,
light, free of all this weight
which presses me to the soil,
the way a low-flying plane
flattens a field of fragile wheat:
praise the interval between...
we all face is the falling—
that gradual descent
between young energy
warm spunk
and the weary bones
eaten by each and every day
the heap is not a bad place
from here I can see lights
those supers
and below the murmurs
of discontent
the stirring ashes
churned by their...
You like those poems
Americans write
where some lines
are just
one
word
Emphasis
And nowadays
it’s all the rage
to write poems
with slashes/which
really have no/
purpose/that
a line break
wouldn’t achieve.
And as for rhyme…
No one’s allowed
to use that
except
Performance
Poets
who force in rhymes
where they’re not/needed
making their poems
cheesy as fuck
like a duck who’s
outta...
oh we talked gravel yesterday
how they sent a substitute
that I had not ordered the wrong colour
explained I quite like things come random
that all was well with the path
yet not the politics
it is suggested i don’t go down that road
nor...
I used to tell people
hey, I got published
and they would always ask
did you get paid?
invariably the answer was no
so now I just keep it to myself
I go out on the deck
with a cigarette and an energy drink
smoke and sip
my...
I stretch before an open window, shaking off
a sticky ache, a symptom of two days and nights
of flitting from one party to another.
Ecstasy evaporates,
leaves an empty halo around my head.
An inner hush heralds the arrival
of my narrator, who knows...
I tagged Barbara
because she is obsessed with
protecting wild herds.
Not sure why I included the descriptor
prom date on my post
but Donny replied,
You are the best Jenn.
You always have been.
Storm of interpretations commence:
maybe he regrets
maybe he wished
maybe he still...
What did he...
you're gonna
meet death
out there
somewhere
you could die
in a place where
someone else has pissed
or where no one
has ever died
tra-la-la & boom
man going by
on his bicycle
piano in his apartment
he plays at night
all the way to dawn sometimes
tra-la-la & boom
tra-la-la & fade
a man...
I hang my tired shoes
on a power line
above the height
of tireless hopes
not to fall down again
not to be worn
by a naughty kid
whose life-long running
has never quenched
her thirst for playing
Sometimes I go
by the name
of Avideco
She tells me
that it sounds
like the old
ice cream brand
Avidesa
I tell her
that it means
Greedy
in Esperanto
She thinks
that I’m ridiculous
I agree with her
100 per cent
the pigeons
do their dancing bits
right here on the
street and call it life. If
you stay still on Sundays
you can hear the flute music
at the underpass
where they meet,
pigeon angels
singing to the winds
wearing purple feather vests
their golden eyes raised
their beaks
waiting for crumbs
Just out and soon available on Amazon (w/ 2 of my poems), the "While You Wait" anthology.
This was commissioned by our local poet laureate who got a large number of local medical folks to put this in their waiting...
They got me because our canteen over-quenched civilian curiosity
They got me because two hands on your saddle horn I lost the reins
My name is not his name, his eyes
are not your eyes. They got me
and they will do it...
Richmond shakes his head disgustedly.
He taps the filter end of his cigarette
on the corner of his gnarled wooden table.
He sticks the thing in his mouth.
"Bukowski didn't start writing prose
until he was in his forties."
Richmond's eyes are wide; he inhales...
It is possible I reached
my full potential
when I wasn’t looking
or thinking straight
I may have left
my ideal self behind
in a jail cell
under a bare light bulb
when I rushed outdoors
thinking I was free
https://soodabehpoems.wordpress.com...mOS23IMdQKutp0ONzSycm4PuLhto9bFN7XkBuN8DNpZGo
The book is available on amazon:
The passwords of my Bank accounts
shall get buried with me & no skeletons
will remain. My self-centred children
might guess the names of my dream girl
(Deepika Padukone) & childhood crush
(Martina Hingis) but will never be able
to know about my special character.
They shall keep...
please tally
all the languages
in the world
sojourning linguists
at last count 7,117
are spoken
a ton
of different tongues
the # of poems
incalculable
my hypothesis
to formulate
our thoughts
we grind & encase
our notions
like sausage inside
the skins of words
& inside
the skin of a poem
meaty &/or
plant based
words return
to thoughts unground
A first today.
I cried at work.
Been plenty angry
while working jobs.
Never bawled.
One positive—
I work at home.
My daughter is five,
traumatized—melts down
in daily transitions—
screams, throws chairs.
Classrooms evacuated
while in blind red rage.
This is her normal,
accustomed to the colours
of her brother’s lingering,
pre-adoptive trauma.
Her teachers...
For Kelly, whose tomatoes never made it to Rachael
Forgive me
I have taken the tomatoes
I was supposed to pass on to your friend
I have dropped the cherry bombs
Into an innocent cast iron pit
Thick with garlic, green pepper and buttery yellow...
So, I finally did it ... published a "book" of my poetry. Please stop by and have a look, and maybe even read a poem or two. Thanks to everyone who's been part of this epic journey.
Totally Disconnected Website
This selection of photos comes from Paul’s ongoing photography series, Limited Light. The series was born from a desire to photograph artists in a way that captured the essence and emotion of their art, rather than focusing solely on...
a sharp pain shot through the ground
in a room without windows
car doors slam
buddha arrives
from indiana
with feathers
in her hair
every month
staggers in
with lettuce
turning brown
sky is clear
wind is blurred
it's a perfect day
I kissed buddha
several times
as the sun squatted
behind the forest
it's time for...
the best poems rattle
like a tin can down an empty street
they hang from lamp-posts in the dark
heads shaven
tar holding feathers
from some exotic bird
the best poems hitch a ride home
at 2 a.m.
belly full of beer
heel missing from one shoe
and not...
I saw myself
up ahead
on top
of this sand dune
waving to me.
Now I’m here
nowhere in sight.
I might have known.
These footprints
that don’t exist
here where
I am standing
would have been
the same size
as mine
if they did.
It’s strange.
I was actually glad
to see myself.
I seemed so happy
to...
Longhaired strongman
divorced
weary of seeing
the horrors in the world
has hung up
his jaw-bone-of-an-ass
seeks a Delilah
for fun & bondage
will gladly turn your grind stone
& attend to your place of worship.
in the present extreme
I want it all
to go away
all variations of viability
mainstream or otherwise
artistic principalities
as a means
including
extreme
shall be considered
pray for me mom
in the present
fetter of time
searching for jesus
on a belgian slope
4 soldiers lie
frozen
the way watercolor
captures light
curl and sleep on the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8m6HUU-70A
Did you know that in the will he made
before he lost his mind, he left it to me?
I cried when I read the old bequest, as if
there had been a subtle restoration
of regard before the bullied revision.
These gaudy heirlooms...
i want to strip
off my cheap clothes
wander out
to the back lot
of my rented, North Hollywood apartment
dig my feet
into contaminated soil
slowly sink, ankles first
lastly my mouth
spilling coins
my own, weird little fucked up
wishing well
the ghost in my house is me
it’s my dog or cat or
nothing, someone
I cant remember who
said—it’s nothing, you heard nothing
nothing brushing past me
nothing in blind spots
nothing misplaced
it doesn’t feel like home; I think
that’s good so I might leave
I think I...
the wind was blowing
the tiny flowers
over
and whipping
against Wendy
they were all too fragile
to be there
lacking a young imperfect secretary
but with a handful of straw
I walk into the bone night
great Italian girls wave to me
from their upstairs windows
so beautiful that when they place
a cigarette between their lips
20 men show up from nowhere
with opened lighters
flicking...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHGneCMNLsg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzt2UOALrGc
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...
EXPLORE
The Blue Ghost
He gave her a book that was navy blue and hardcover and had a strip of numbers taped on the spine.
“You’ll like it,” he...
