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When I die don’t post it on Facebook
I don’t want it to rack up the likes
even the nicer obituaries with pictures of charity work
and all the good things are cringe
I don’t...
LATEST ARTICLES
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...
I sent my new poem to an old friend who replied:
“I know nothing of poetry.”
Another said about the same. “I don’t read the stuff.
Sorry.” It got me to thinking.
Had I sent in a stock tip, they would have rewarded...
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...
There is nothing sadder than an old elephant
at the zoo. All alone, the color of tarmac, a gigantic
mouse behind bars. She stands at the ready, turning
around and around. By the end of the day, she is fit
for a shower...
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
The bald soprano was hiding in the bushes.
You better say something or I will.
God is watching is not good enough. Tell
them the neighbors can see everything.
What’s going on? How has this happened?
It’s just…I feel like, I feel, I feel...
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
Men with their shirts off holding flowers.
That’s the thing.
Some call themselves They, but not all.
Some He’s call themselves She. Some want
to be We. There is even someone who insists
on being known as No One. That’s me.
Call me No One...
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...
Eddi, our elderly yellow lab,
both house alarm and protector,
now lies at your feet as you sit
on your kitchen stool cutting
fruit into a clear bowl.
This morning ritual is as old
as he can recall; his head
is flat on the floor as...
when i was 2 and a half feet tall
smiling at everything
learning how to use my
ams, legs, fingers, toes
drooling kindly, generously
over everything
mastering walking, learning language
confused
cooing gently
at my hippy teenage sister
arguing
with my Reagan-ite dad
grinning innocent
at conversations
of oil embargos, and nuclear build...
"There is an old saying: 'No piece of writing is ever finished, it's just abandoned.' But my own rule is: No piece of work is done until you want to kill everyone involved in the publishing process, especially yourself."...
Click any image to view full-screen.
Click any image for full-screen display.
aesthetic, showing the words for anaesthetic, little creatures placed
to sleep a while. on waking find that spelling is not so awkward now.
checked without books. cover the title with rages and kisses.
i see they use different gases all with difficult...
Pencil, ink, watercolour, graphic ink pen, coloured acrylic ink, oil pastels, chalk pastels on Canson Technical Drawing paper 90gsm - 23cm x 40cm
Glory to the newborn king, mixed media on cardboard, 30,2 x 40,6 cm, 2020
The news tonight is that there are rioters rioting in the streets of Minneapolis.
I go out to see for myself.
I see folks on the pavement and they look like they are having a riot but
they say to me they...
to wait behind, or folk to watch acutely
for invasion of your space. No queues outside
in all weathers ready for the nod to enter
and buy all those things you miss
Like hugs and handshakes and the gentle
stroke of understanding.
No plastic screens...
a reflection of self
of loss
it happens sometimes
and things come too big
1. 94. the kimono.
2.95. big coat.
3.96. covid hair with bows.
4.97. another day.
5.98. corona
Since when did the doves descend in the stanzas? I saw one I think. She was like a mother to me, holding me in her ruffles. I wanted to stay. The dirt under my fingernails has been used for...
When I don’t
think about
breathing,
it still happens.
When I don’t
think about
living in the moment,
it still happens too.
Once the harsh acids
of common sense
and hard science
have dissolved away
the hearsay of the Gospels,
the science-fiction of a Virgin birth
& a resurrection,
along with the myth
of the Three-In-One God,
what is left is merely
the faint voice of
a progressive, poor, Jewish
carpenter echoing ancient,
Buddhist...
but her hands
will always seem
like strangers,
pale animals
with a life
of their own,
loading, clicking.
She brushes her
colorless hair
200 times, as if
where her father
moved thru her
was still a stain
she could ease
out, slamming
each strand as
if to exorcise
his smell, his
breaking and
entering his
body a gun
Originally appeared...
I would create mountains that can spit fire
& cover them with tall green trees with myriad roots
holding dearly the skin of soil covering the rocks
I’d blanket with slowly melting snows
to waterfall & river, before I’d invent worms
& frogs &...
one of the nurses
wanted to
meet
me.
she said she
had all my
books,
which had to be
a lie, but it
was okay,
because she was pretty
and didn’t laugh
when the
doctor
had me take off my shirt,
drop my pants
and cough.
He lived with a pigeon,
his entire apartment was
covered in bird shit,
he dealt good hash,
but it was a horror,
no surface was
untouched,
it didn’t seem to bother
him and the fucking
bird would walk and
fly around pecking and
shitting everywhere,
no doubt he loved that
pigeon, it...
I’m done.
The time of me is over.
It’s the time of appropriation.
I’m taking over you and all you
stand for. Seen from here, you are we.
From now on, I’m them.
It’s a time of the collective.
Life is a collaboration. Time
of the unit,...
Slow Into Lifeless
No Mo
The Question Implied
Passage
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
—Othello
My mother respected and loved the queen. She loved the ceremony
and the pomp. Pomp and circumstance.
—Trump
We...
The Brazilian president was branded a “killer” by his opponents
as he popped out for a Saturday night hot dog on the day 965 more
of his citizens were reported to have died from Covid-19.
His elegant wife busied herself with a pair...
i borrowed your apron many years ago. i still have it and just remember you, your darkness. it was good news from the bad, i could have lost you all so quickly. i am drawing trees today
we gets distracted...
http://openartsforum.com/audio/milnerplace01.mp3
It was about ten to eleven when I went out into the street.
The world was considerably empty except for some
exceeding light
of the kind that doesn’t encourage shadows but seeps
into walls,
strokes bushes, lawns and black dustbins
with soft hands.
Yet I was...
"Pick up your lip." Daddy said
that night during a phone call.
It was the day I got pulled
out early
from school after mom's
appointment.
I held the receiver to my ear
and reached to pull
an invisible dangling cord
beneath my chin;
I imagined shutters
on a cartoon...
Sometimes,
if you are walking through a cemetery
you might hear them calling after you.
Their voices sound like rusty whistles and dry, crackling leaves.
You might hear them say that your nose is too long
or that your clothes look like an unmade...
The smell of rain from my window
tried to prepare me for your death.
It tried to tell me that rain clouds
have become too heavy to carry your name.
Had I turned down the TV,
perhaps read a book instead,
I would have sensed...
I stood in a parking lot and I breathed
evenly through my nose as the sky passed
slowly overhead and the nauseating machines
pumped juice out of the ground and I had my
arms spread like Christ against a fence.
"I really can't stand...
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 slave
to his boss-calling-cellphone
after-hours
deaf-tone ringing between his ears
during shower
dinner
sleep
he is slave
to his lover
who reels him to...
I sat on the floor
and two women
were sat on my
sofa: we were
drinking wine
and smoking
joints: I knew
one of the
women and was
keen to get to
know the other:
the phone rang,
it was a fucked-
up friend, crying
and bitching
about his
rotten life; I
looked up at the
females...
I watch them come in. The women in Mickey Mouse sweatshirts, their mouths open. They shuffle. Everybody shuffles. The men in winter coats with lots of pockets, long hair, and sunglasses. The women go straight to the bible section...
Imagine there’s a painting
adorning the wall of some president’s
master bedroom. It hangs
beneath a mirrored ceiling where his wife
(lucky her) gets to watch his pumping arse
wobble like a pale hairy jelly.
Let’s say it sits above
a dozen nicotine silver wigs
on a...
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 sat
on a bench
a pod
of drunken friends
a mason
chipped
his name
on a slab
while just beyond
an undertaker’s lad
polished the...
I need to fall asleep to the thought of a pretty girl
the world is gross and doesn't care
the TV mutilates
my vomit comes out before I can get to the toilet
it's always time for my pills
people get out of their...
Her hand
in my grasp
passed
from warm
to cool
to cold.
I got home
finished a drink
noticed how
the ice cubes
passed
to liquid
and then to air.
I'm watching eight minutes pass on my clock,
the time it took you to die
with your face pressed into burning asphalt.
Was it something you said? some instinctive struggle
to free yourself? It would have made
no difference,
when you headed north,
as black families...
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...
The First Time I French Kissed You
was the same as the first time I kissed a girl
the same as the first time I kissed anyone.
My tongue in your mouth like a promise. During high school
sleepovers we only invited each...
“Power is not what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.” —Saul Alinsky
Elections have consequences.
So say the victors to justify
their ends and means.
Perhaps the American Dream
is to live without consequence:
no mistakes, only cheapness
we are free to later...
A black leaping buck
painted on a yellow diamond
both warns & welcomes me.
There is no need for words.
My green house has red awnings
& brown rabbit kits hiding
under juniper branches
in the front yard.
I’m a newcomer
in this old neighborhood;
the fruit & nut...
"With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony,
I collected the instruments of life around me,
that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet."
I...
sitting in a home, full of white privilege
i try to comprehend what it means
to be “of color,” never feeling much
like a “person” in the first place
i have my own marginalized class
to live within, lgbtqia—
sadly, i hardly know
what it means...
I look in my rear view mirror
& see myself as a boy
in the back seat
who wants to know
if we are there yet.
Look over here, I say,
see the cows? Moo, Moo
means I give milk to you.
We’ll stop & get some...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2KHFgIJlzI
Wear this mask over your face.
Be sure to hide your feelings displaced.
I'm jaded, snide, and too emotional
because I cry.
Getting good at sealing your fate.
The man in the machine says
hurry up, now wait.
And all of the things I create,
my next...
the owner of a dog
loves his dog.
he gives him a name.
he feeds him
and waters him
plays with him
protects him
defends him.
but still
a dog
is nothing more
than
a dog.
Click a painting to view full-screen.
A short story I drew/wrote for my 3 year old nieces. —Tom Strong
mixed media on paper
I never know what to say about my work except I needed to make it. —Jenn Zed
Click any image to view full-screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf9nU1paL_w
Rose red lipstick, ruby
red orange writing on the bed.
Blood on my skin, staining
the threads crimson.
It was too late. Time
was turning nervous in my hands.
I went walking to the hallway
to find excuses instead.
Red, red, red, red.
Run, run, run, run,
to what?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgcKJXW_D-0
I've been writing all day, trying
to find a phrase
that doesn't need any formal wear and
my hands are twine, tying my eyes
wide. My cheeks are turning pink
like rabid dogs in heat.
I've been erasing all day, trying
to find out her name
that...
Updated regularly. Add your voice.
Sarah Clancy
May 2020
This crazy spring froze me right inside
its own unnatural thaw. When I look to
the generation behind myself I see nothing
but a glossy spread of good fellowship
that never happened. All our relations
gathered at an...
It’s not your taste for cheap beer
or the fact that your couch smells like boys.
It’s not the way your little cat gets stoned by accident
or that at your same party last summer
someone barfed on my new green shoes.
It’s not...
https://soundcloud.com/flowermouth/aljosja
“If you are born poor it’s not your mistake, but if you die poor it’s your mistake.” —Bill Gates
We admire the philanthropist for "giving back"
and ignore what they first had to take away.
It is a sin to need help...
I’ve been living with someone
who is good but a lover, an ex-con
hunk’s back in town. It doesn’t
matter he’s been dead for decades.
Or the man I’m with now never
knew him, except in poems he
hates me to read or...
The prostate goes.
The plumbing breaks.
The penis drips.
It isn’t pretty.
Sagging boobs are the least of it.
Being young sucks but for other reasons.
The balding head started balding years ago.
I was prepared for it.
But not for this.
No one told me the knees...
Medusa
It’s late August in the city: sweet summer’s
coming to a close. But where are you?
The democratic debates have started,
but I’m not watching. Most of the people
I know are out of town, on vacation somewhere.
I ride the subway lines with...
now
that the hands
can tell carnations
from wood
& the feet
also understand
the soothing
of clay
please
let me confess
that i love
the meek welcome
of the morning
waking me up
to the numbed noises
of fledglings
now that
the mind is
an ocean of calm
waves
& the chest as light
as a lint soaring
into the...
It was in Spain that men learned one can be right and still be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own reward.
—Albert Camus
Impeachment Eve, Walpole, MA:
30 people are protesting
and it’s...
I tried to go to the store,
but drove straight toward
the huge moon.
My car didn't sprout wings.
I could not fly,
so I turned round
on wobbly tires
back to my life,
stopping though to park,
facing it. Christmas music
blared out the sounds
of impeachment hearings
still echoing...
all summer long
I looked at flowers
without even noticing
they were there
The Odd One In
Emergency Landing On Taurus IX
Whoddaboy
Excavation Site
The Passage
Face Time
Pointer
Collateral Collage
A Bright Future
There's some lady you're always talking to on your phone. I hear you and this lady from our room all the time. I'm so bored of listening to you and this lady. I've asked you to put your headset...
How do they cram
all those sardines
into each green can?
Science is
an afterthought.
The hearth cracked, ashes spilling from the fire grate;
and that same day a bird flew inside the house, a starling.
Reaching out to catch it I strained my arm. I was sorry
for us both, and let the bird go in...
1 allegretto
A zebra with a party
horn and hat has crashed
your thirtieth. This
creature was your friend
when you were three
and lived beneath the
checkered tablecloth
and would come up
from time to time
to munch with you on
globes of milk-drenched
Too-Sweets, but this
was not to be...
Swiftly sliding steel
I stop at the sudden sting—
see pink shaving foam.
I was sick
reading the bible given to me by a friend
I kept thinking
I was going into the blessing he put on it
and back into his childhood bible lessons as I read the verses
but when I got to Noah's ark
I...
Muddy Water
Mississippi is America without the lying.
My granddaddy used to say that.
It’s not just another state across the state line, he’d say.
That’s the State of Mississippi. They want you to believe
it is the state of refinement.
Not that there’s anything...
Yet I expect the same,
kneel without a prayer,
unzip with no looking,
take out what bulges,
like salt to my tongue.
The arrant uselessness
of my teeth, I just can't
nibble, bite, all my rage,
chew as though a gum,
my mouth for spasms.
Lips know diphthongs,
but mine...
His burnt-orange t-shirt,
black letters above the image
of an AR-15, the slogan:
“quickest way to a man’s heart.”
I’d describe him, but why bother?
My shrink left town,
so I’ll ask myself, how
did that make you feel,
that T-shirt? How? Like
the other night when a...
Pencil and graphic ink pen, with some new reinking recently, on cartridge drawing paper—51cm x 29cm
Here's a list of links to other interesting outlets for writers, artists, and photographers. Feel free to suggest additions to the list by responding to this post, and if you find a dead link, let us know, too.
Directories
Creative Writers...
I’m that dead tree
standing sullen
in a secluded summer grove
waiting for winter
to make me indistinguishable
from my peers.
you took away the fruits of the womb,
along with the dear heart I once
promised 'forever' to, with your lies.
all i ever wanted was happiness.
you've always been a means
& you'll always be that to me, dear presidents.
i'm thankful for your...
With the smirk of a soulless sociopath, the metronome spreads vicious libels against the sanity of protoplasmic cadences.
*
The metronome is a jealous god. Its binary language of tick and tock aspires to eloquent command. Other oscillators make no such pretense to authority....
A fast train from Pradipghat would take around 45-50 minutes to reach Bharatgadh. Marvan would travel daily between the two stations, in a second class compartment, because of his work.
He would sit at the window seat, look at the...
https://soundcloud.com/user-394055377/i-hated-tamaqua-live
I hated Tamaqua
and the early morning light in sleepy eyes
the leftover drunks wandering around the gazebo
the food stamp fat ass roast beef feasts at 8 am
I hated that girl with the half pink hair and glasses
who collected bootleg DVDs
and...
Inception: Life Emerges
Here on this fleck among the uncountable stars something takes form, eventually to wonder why we are and what to each other. This double-layered fiber piece is a direct expression of concepts that show up in most...
an ocean
of inquiries, curious inspections, questions
swelling
since that primordial day of light
when our minds first opened their eyes
will,
one day,
not long after we have perished,
begin
to evaporate and along its bottom
will lie
among other things: the particle accelerators, the telescopes, and the books;
books...
Walnut with turned legs
That unfold in a triptych
For dining or card play.
Carried in an ox-cart from Minnesota
To a Dakota homestead.
Grasshoppers destroyed the crop
So they came back. Your mother,
The youngest child who cared for the old ones
Inherited it with much...
mixed media on gallery canvas
36x48"
Lorette C. Luzajic
www.mixedupmedia.ca
some have daggers
for tongues
they draw defensive
unkindness perceived
provokes strikes
the cuts sting,
at times, maim
what is there to do
for those with blooms
for tongues,
assailed,
but say
my heart is soft and
means you no harm;
put away your blades
you don’t need them now
My doctor said to play with my cat as a coping mechanism to prevent my suicide
but neither one of us feels like playing today
I throw the ball of my mortality
nod my head in time with its bouncing
and watch it...
I guess you saw it coming
I guess you'd marked the edge well
as we walked the path
failure is its own reward
I guess you'd call me hopeless
I guess you'd call this love song
no need to be pedantic
about who loves who
or why
I’m asked to ignore too much…look the other way.
In fact, I should call my poems empty poems.
“Never-mind poetry,” that’d be a good name.
I’ll write poems about nothing. Poems that say
absolutely nothing but say it well. I’ll write poems
like Rothko’s...
reading Leonard Cohen
by candlelight,
visualising
bonfire night,
your birthday
were you still alive
under that streetlamp,
we could walk together
to your bench
and talk awhile
it’s what we always did best—
just talk, just care
I’ll print this poem
in a lonely font
and burn it
in a bowl,
set the ashes facing...
it could be fashioned
of iridescent plumage,
gilt and crimson,
a phoenix in transition,
transformed,
unbeaten
is this thing that we say
in this Mar Vista
restaurant that i open
and close
open
and close
open
every night
it means, to us
let’s go home
lucio
is the dishwasher
in this place
he’s jewish, speaks spanish
wears a star necklass:
he’s from Nicaragua, or he might be
Salvie
maybe
and
we will ride, rickety,...
If I remember right,
Jesus arrived at the trailer where we lived in Glenville
during the summer when Papaw Henry
poured gasoline all around the elm tree stump
and incinerated the Japanese beetles.
He could do anything, that man.
But Papaw wasn’t around
when Jesus showed...
Heel-to-toe, he taps to the harmonics of
reverberating bounces and swish-swooshing tempos,
and to the serenades of sirens outside his window.
He dances the Dig Toe Step to beer can-crushing-
concertos and the clattering of formidable fists.
Boom-boom-klatt, he’s dancin’ and toe-tappin’.
He dances to the bellowing...
Mother plays piano. It’s a dark night. She plays all the saddest pieces. Tchaikovsky seems to break her piano apart with fervency. Debussy’s sad, tinkling moonlight images rise. She plays each night, hands striking the keys with desperation and...
It’s true, what you said,
if I don’t love myself
I can’t really love you.
I kissed my reflection
on the lips last night
in the motel mirror
mostly as a dare
from me to me –
& no way around it;
you cannot kiss yourself
on the cheek...
I.
My father
would’ve laughed his ass off
at how overly concerned I am
about treating his ashes
like a delicate antique;
he’d say he didn’t care
‘cause he was dead.
My sister
hands me the box
without a thought.
We’re packing the SUV
to go to Granny’s farm
to scatter his...
‘member
seeing your little brother
just outside Angkor Wat
wearing your father’s face
‘fracted through
a dented, busted
rear view
scooter mirror
peeling plastic husks
from Milky Way
Candy bars
Kalashnikov slung ‘round
his shoulder:
like friending Pol Pot
at a TGIF
waving his fist
a cheap hammer, like
he was
just an image, or a radio...
I sometimes think of Lazarus
when I feed the seven fishes
in my little pond, my sister
coming back to life, asking
how goldfish could live so long
I answer her, How the fuck should I know?
and she laughs at me
“A breathless Death is not so cold as a Death that breathes.” —Emily Dickinson
I’m no Dante, lost though I may be,
Nor you my Beatrice, just as lost to me.
Yet the passions ring, silent to your ear—
O brooding lyric, lead...
The man swallowed
480 ball bearings.
One sphere a minute during
his last eight-hour shift.
No unemployment lines
for the human anchor
sitting upright
on the floor of the sea.
The scuba diver’s hernia
& subsequent lawsuit.
The expense to the taxpayer
for the salvage costs.
The morticians’ horror
at the chemical...
Come to Italy and live in the sun, you write.
Serenity is a giant orange
waiting to be plucked from the gnarled tree near
the old tracks.
Look, how the years slip away from us: five, ten, fifteen...
the years disappear in pitiless rain,
while...
write for the lost
the
fucked
the insane
most of us
are never comfortable
anywhere
born into a boxer’s stance
weak like fading
orchids, weeping
a NYC fire
escape
hellish summertime
shifting, endlessly
downing pints of
IPA’s
b4 winter salsa classes
snow drifts
tax seminars
across the parking lot
walking away
the one you always
wanted
disappearing
around the corner
write for the lost
the
fucked
the...
When moving was certain
Anna pried off the old wrought iron
bell and replaced it with a ghost.
An evening echo to ring down
a thousand twilight suppers with tea
ready and tarot cards arranged
to look bleak but that only foretold
change. The pillar is...
Shelter in place: this is the advice one needs.
After a life of turmoil and defeat,
it’s best to stay indoors. Hide. Place your head
between your knees. They’ve been telling
us this for years, but I never listened.
I was too busy trying...
As I grow older, I see how places and events all interconnect, that what I do with my life affects not only my family but also my neighbors and even those living oceans away. It’s a bit like "six...
I stand, pale fine hands clasped over my long skirt and white starched apron -
docent to strangers, in the kitchen of an ancient Vermont home.
My posture is perfect, my waist thin, the room smells of lavender and sage.
We want...
...though Darling took a charge for one once, and, thrusting her arm into a gum's hollow, she left us well behind to break it for her.
We cashed in, by the by, on a Melbourne Pony. And they were always...
QUEPOS *
A chunk of a rare type of meteorite crashed into a Costa Rican village this spring. Experts say it likely contains clues to the origins of life on Earth—pristinely preserved amounts of stardust made up of materials that predate...
My state allows us to compost human remains
I imagine a flower
growing from your mouth
violet or weed? who cares really—
be a place for bones to meet
& mingle with roots of a big-leaf maple
better than being tossed
into the sea—
although that also...
Don’t you know the difference between a potato and a lion?
That’s odd.
They put lions on pajamas but not potatoes.
You’ll never see potatoes on your brother’s pajamas.
Lions roar. Lions are not called spuds. Lions are fine and dandy,
like petunias or...
I counted four old people scanning groceries at six open checkouts
I see them everywhere in retail jobs we held in our twenties
jobs you kicked life off with
A wearied comfort has settled their posture
buckled in Jell-O hips, pudding piled breasts
a...
Jane from Hastings
got me a 25g score of smack
from some ex of hers
we spread foil and crumble
a small amount of the powder
onto the foil
lighting it up from underneath
you got to put it on the player
Sweet Jane
while smoking this shit
through...
Panasonic camcorder as a self portrait
At most, it was a routine guess before I had industry down a tunnel. I caught the business of a machine, inside the business of another machine, and tearing myself to a singular shred,...
I’m at the vet with my roommate while her cat is dying behind a few sets of closed doors, & I notice the purple paint on my flip-flops, which has not faded, which I’m looking down at because this...
nothing's worth anything anymore
I'm surprised my memories were worth anything at all
hours of old video games
sold to some woman who was so mean it made me want her
check the expiration date on my soul
I must be off the road
stuck...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCKt7im62ik
36x48," mixed media on gallery canvas
Acrylic on burlap canvas
18" x 24"
Decay is the theme here. My two inspirations were pond scum and tree diseases.
I mixed baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the gesso to make a gritty surface. The first layer involved alternating...
I pour my thoughts into a lamp’s light,
and I sense I am heard. I speak as a father,
reciting all the usual warnings and legends,
but this isn’t what brings me to life:
the world cracks my bones and burns my mouth;
then...
It was the season of fruit flies
that brought us to the orchard—
no reptile could ever convince me
that you were the gravest of sins.
I caught what suddenly plunged
with the hustle of a magician—
we did not chatter about gravity,
but our eyes...
I hurt you, you hurt me twice as much.
Here is how thick boughs grow.
I’m waiting for your carcass to be stripped
of all its withered foliage by the gales.
Your leaves were screwed and twisted back in June,
brown long before the autumn colour change.
Leaf-miner larvae worked your seams and veins
and scorched your broad hands...
Keep her in the dark. In water. She's no good dead. Gotta cut her while she's fresh. Slip your chipped knuckles into her accordion gills. All that tender wet meat still breathin'. Her heart a taiko drum beatin' against...
Instead of travelling to a place
I’ve never been
to see something I’ve never seen,
I prefer the seclusion of my backyard.
Marveling over the elusive
residing in familiar places.
This morning I lost sight
of a black-capped chickadee
in the honey locust
poking for pupae
but knew it...
was the same as the first time I kissed a girl
the same as the first time I kissed anyone.
My tongue in your mouth like a promise. During high school
sleepovers we only invited each other. We brushed our teeth
for whole...
EXPLORE
Sweet Jane
Jane from Hastings
got me a 25g score of smack
from some ex of hers
we spread foil and crumble
a small amount of the powder
onto the foil
lighting...
