LATEST ARTICLES

The Ashes

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...
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summer girl

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Green

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...
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Eh!

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...
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Grief

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...
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“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...
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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...
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Hover your cursor over any image to see its title. Click on any image to see it full size and launch a slideshow of...
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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...
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Hover your cursor over any image to see its title. Click on any image to see it full size and launch a slideshow of...
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tomatoes

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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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).
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counterpoint

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...
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TBone

  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...
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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...
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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,...
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Click on any image to see it full size and launch a slideshow. _______________________________________________________________________ Editor’s Note: These paintings are from the Open Arts Forum archives, posted...
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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...
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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...
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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”...
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"In a series of seven images, the longest day glows orange as it slips gloriously into night. These images were taken on June 21,...
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Outlaw

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" 
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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...
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Death Is

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...
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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" _________________________________________________________________ 2. Bird Pigma Micron Ink Pens on mixed media paper, 9"x12"   _________________________________________________________________ 3. Abstract 2 Pigma Micron Ink Pens...
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Avon, NC

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...
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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...
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            Hover over any thumbnail photo to see its title. Click on any photo to see it full size...
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Woodswoman

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...
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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...
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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...
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Hover your cursor over each piece to see its title. Click on any piece to see it full size and launch a slideshow.  ________________________________________________________________________ Editor’s Note: These...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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  Hover over any thumbnail below to see the piece's title. Click on any piece to see it full size and launch a slideshow.   ________________________________________________________________________ All pieces...
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________________________________________________________________________ Abstract Digital Painting
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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...
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"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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Tariffs

The morning started the way it always did: half a joint and a bowl of Frosted Flakes. The cereal was stale and the joint...
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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...
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Hover your cursor over each image to see its title. Click on an image to see it full size and launch a slideshow.   ________________________________________________________________________ Artist's Notes: I create...
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                                                 ...
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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...
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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...
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Townies

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...
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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...
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Energies

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...
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New Dishes

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...
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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...
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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,...
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They came in loud, laughing, chewing gum like it was some new Olympic sport. Kids in expensive sneakers and hoodies that probably cost more...
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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...
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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...
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Hope

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.
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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...
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Hover your cursor over each image to see its title. Click on each image to see it full-size and launch a slideshow.
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Earthquake

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...
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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...
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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".  
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Simple

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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...
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—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...
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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...
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- 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...
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I have the inclination to shut down my tablet just as I realize the tablet must be on to turn off the air conditioner.
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Wedding Tree

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,...
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Artemis

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...
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un-christmassed

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...
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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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Pomegranate Diamond

________________________________________________________________________ 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...
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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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Tiger Express

________________________________________________________________________ Acrylic on canvas. 67 inches by 50 inches. From the Open Arts Forum Archives, originally posted on 15 September 2021. This piece has not...
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to the barricades, mes amis
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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...
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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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Lung and Heart

________________________________________________________________________ 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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Moonshine

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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selective focus photography of man's reflection on a broken mirror

Visions

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Summer

________________________________________________________________________ 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...
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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...
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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...
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      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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Wounds

________________________________________________________________________ Abstract Expressionism, 21 cm × 29 cm, On Paper  Material: Acrylic, Gouache
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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log in - forget your password? . . . no one gets to rest on the structure no one ever forgets their first agreement with pain or...
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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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The Visit

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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...
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driving through Iowa will make you cry all rolling plains, windmills, tractors, rooms of old radios, ex-girlfriends      
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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...
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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...
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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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Mountain Hymn

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...
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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...
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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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Untitled

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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...
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Maybe You Remember

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...
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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...
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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...
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A Winter Morning

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...
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#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...
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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...
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School’s Out

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...
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anniversary card

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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...
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Abstract Expressionism. 21 x 29 cm. Acrylic, Gouache on paper.  ________________________________________________________________________ 1. ________________________________________________________________________ 2. ________________________________________________________________________ 3. *******
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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...
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Improvements

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...
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oh, how my heart flies        in this harvest sky​ oh, how my heart settles        in the soft tan grass​ i love this...
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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...
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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...
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Mourned town

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...
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Return

What if that gold tipping over tops of twilight trees is love on its way home to rest and I am not yet ready?
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Lab Notes

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...
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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...
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poor as an old penny laying against the dumpster the stray cats and me under the rusty moonlight
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Scarcity

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...
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autumn

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...
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snow-covered tree lot during daytime

Cabin Fever

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...
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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...
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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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List Poem

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Impressions of flowers

  ________________________________________________________________________ Acrylic on canvas. 16"x20".
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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...
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This is

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...
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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...
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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....
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Goth Ink series ..2024

The Importance of Being EarnestPencil, graphic ink pen, Kuretake Bimoji Fude brush pen, black permanent ink, ink brush on Yasutomo Japanese ivory-tone Rice...
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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...
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Nobility

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Foster

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...
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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...
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person in black jacket and blue pants walking on snow covered ground during daytime

last of days

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...
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a white bird flying over a body of water

‘wings

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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...
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This is our second Artist Postcard, featuring Jillian Sarette Li!​
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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...
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skeleton statue near tree

death

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  
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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...
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open turntable

Forty-Fives

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...
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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...
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First Song

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...
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Fiber fantasia!

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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...
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Watercolor and Micron pen .5, 6" X 9"
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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.
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red and white fabrics

..this..

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...
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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...
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picture window

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...
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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...
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"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...
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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...
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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...
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red cinema chair

Candy Box Kazoos

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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Now

no leaves left on the trees I get to look deep into the woods now
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Ars Poetica

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...
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For the Road

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...
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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...
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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,...
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9:28 AM

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...
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CHESTNUT

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...
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  the roads here are winding, the leaves are changing. best not to bang the teapot down on serving, best to tell the truth.
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  ________________________________________________________________________ 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...
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________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Glen Banvie Trail on the Blair Castle Estate, Scotland. October, 2024.
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A detailed image showcasing a cracked egg with yolk spilling out on a blue surface.

The Price of Eggs

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...
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Goshawk

  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...
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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...
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In Short

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...
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