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Pigma Microns on mixed media paper, 14" x 17"
I used to get high on life,
but I’ve built up a tolerance.
It continues to pass by and through,
whether I drive or eat or sleep
and/or...
solid. My son never complains
he can't walk through walls or people.
He dies only with wishes not to become
the shadow of a building or street...
There is a gentle language spoken
by things that do not speak:
a Parka draped over a chair back,
a half drunk wine glass on the coffee...
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1. Colibris
Pigma Micron Ink Pens on mixed media paper, 9"x12"
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2. Bird
Pigma Micron Ink Pens on mixed media paper, 9"x12"
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3. Abstract 2
Pigma Micron Ink Pens...
1.
Come to me, dearest day -
bring everything, and nothing
I say, and the Atlantic
offers its high tide,
and the firmament
draws closer by night.
2.
A small hammerhead shark
writhes...
The sky is backlit by these afterthoughts.
The golden hour and dusk shake hands then go
their separate ways, but not before burning
an iridescent edge behind...
Hover over any thumbnail photo to see its title. Click on any photo to see it full size...
You never knew
what shade of blue
to call her. If you
should follow her
out of the forest
and down the lane
to the cottage wired
for wifi and adjacent
to...
Il Faut Imaginer Sisyphe Heureux
"One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy" - Albert Camus
The morning hacks up a sun—nicotine-yellow, thick with last night’s smoke—
splattering the sidewalk...
for R
what I'd much rather to do is walk
into your Georgia home for the first
time, offer cactus honey from the desert,
dump my bag on...
Hover your cursor over each piece to see its title.
Click on any piece to see it full size and launch a slideshow.
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Editor’s Note: These...
1.
A dragonfly landed on a pond
without making a ripple,
then saw its own reflection.
2.
What to keep,
what to change,
what to lose.
What to do
with the remains.
3.
Poetry and...
They vote to hurt the other man. That’s what it looks like. They don’t vote for roads or bread or doctors or better schools...
Our ship at midnight slides
under timeless constellations.
Low Anguilla drifts by,
beaded shore lights snaking.
The kraken in the hold coughs,
shivering through the decks,
as we lift and...
i love Trump.
there, i said it.
go ahead, judge me.
he’s loud,
he stinks,
he humps everything with a pulse,
and he once ate an entire bucket of fried...
You're still here
and yet you've gone
At night
when the house heaves with our breathing
yours is absent
I know
you're alive
but somewhere else
not with me
I sometimes see you
at...
Hover over any thumbnail below to see the piece's title. Click on any piece to see it full size and launch a slideshow.
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All pieces...
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Abstract Digital Painting
To hide my naked head, I wear a rug
which mimics a dead cat.
Ah, how forgiving old age is!
No one wants to embarrass
an ambassador of...
"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
At the last midnight ever to fall,
the clock’s brazen lungs swelled full
and...
Here is to a year of living dangerously
because those who dole out portions miss the whole
point that dawns do not rise with guarantees.
I think...
She'd waited around for him all day.
Had prepared his favourite meal.
Even wore the earrings he liked,
the swingy ones with the sparkly balls.
As usual he...
I'm going to Pennsylvania.
I'm taking all the owl statues with me in a plastic bag
to live in real mountains, no scrapyard neighbors
every road narrow
poems...
We took him from the locked place
where 'memory care' meant being tied
to a chair and parked for hours by the main
desk. He said they...
I passed her building again yesterday on the train. It’s wrapped like a Christo – do you know Christo? – it's been in this state I...
quietly on the B train
perfecting a test
to determine the date
of my death
pondering
what I would leave behind
a list of curses tucked between my legs
an estrogen...
A bird broke on the windowpane—thud, feather-flutter, hush.
The glass hummed, the air held still,
thick with the sound of nothing.
His mother, hands white from wringing,
spoke...
The morning started the way it always did: half a joint and a bowl of Frosted Flakes. The cereal was stale and the joint...
I’ve long wanted
an excuse
to shuffle my feet
to take small steps
to own a few canes
My favorite
is a walking stick
my shepherd’s staff
I pretend I am Jesus
40...
Hover your cursor over each image to see its title.
Click on an image to see it full size and launch a slideshow.
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Artist's Notes:
I create...
...
old pennies
gone as smiling like you got a wad
styrofoam cup crack in the dirt
yellow teeth
dirty fingernail scratch
a skipping album
and dull lighting
dull as the TV
infomercial...
To not be that guy who kicks the dead mouse
of his humility under the sideboard.
To not be that guy who leaves their compassion
hogtied on...
we are
a population
of dead kings and drug lords
descended from outlaws
generations
of sunsets and murmurations
carvers of gargoyles
breeders of pigeons
we are sparrowhawks
racehorses
ice cream wars
we are a theme...
He leaned the old wooden ladder against the house,
climbed twice to extend its heavy sections,
retreated to pick up scraper, brush, paint
and mount the lowest...
This is a collection of 19 paintings using watercolor, pencil, and black sharpie. In the artist's words, "they are based on sensations from energies".
Click...
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Watercolour, acrylic and ink on cardboard (collage)
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Acrylic on canvas, 74.5 x 73 inches, 2021. From the OAF Archives: Originally posted on 20 August 2021. This piece was never published on...
Mom started getting
emerald green dishes
every time she went
to the grocery store.
She said Joe’s Food Mart
was giving away
free dinnerware
every time you spent
a certain amount
on groceries.
“We...
the neighbors
are getting their car fixed
right outside my deck
I can’t think from the noise
and the people
I get sucked into the repair
does he want the...
Whisper, whisper—soft-hand hush,
paper-gold lips coil promises,
ribbons spun from the marrow of knowing men.
Tongues flicker in the ear of the street,
warm, wet, lulling—
all is well,...
They came in loud, laughing, chewing gum like it was some new Olympic sport. Kids in expensive sneakers and hoodies that probably cost more...
Just before sunrise, the sky above the lavender farm roared into purple, and the dawn came tinted.
Picture me a purple-eyed child insomniac, skinny in...
Some poems require
an emotional investment,
a commitment to providing
a lived truth, spoken with
a poetic voice meant to
enthrall and excite.
Others are simply bullshit
requiring no depth, no...
A Cooper’s hawk
appears at least
once every other
week. He works
the avocado tree,
hops through its
branches, stares
expectantly— waits
for what will emerge.
his voice haunts me tonight
grief is the price
you pay for loving someone
I know that well
I’ve paid mine
on the installment plan
my crazy grandfather
in 1977
Barbara
my beloved in...
Hover your cursor over each image to see its title.
Click on each image to see it full-size and launch a slideshow.
Wet and moonless, the Japanese maple drips color
on a desolate, metal halide-lit stretch of road, until
pink-red rivulets parade ostentatiously toward
the storm drain. All is...
when I was sitting
at the gas station
picnic table
down to my last cigarette
and one single drop
of rain
put it out
I called
back in the days
of landlines
and her...
On the floor before the library service desk
a little lizard
feels like soft dry rubber
when I put a finger to it.
Think it maybe is a...
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Acrylic on canvas. 24" x 36".
oil pond mirrors the darkness the november
day sun draws white against the grey
this leaf lays on earth
there is no god
not hungry nor otherwise
you look at me straight...
—for Douglas
Baby it's been so long!
What do you want to talk about?
You struggle to make words, blurt
"Spaghetti Sauce"
and disappear into the living room
for a...
Ate well, drank less, exercised,
used valerian root and holy basil,
filtered rainwater and the northern breeze
and the rhetoric coming from outside,
paid attention to mental hygiene,
held...
-
a small black wing
without its bird
skitters across the road
scissor-tail flycatchers
rise and fall and rise and fall
between the wires
like a wonky oscilloscope
that has forgotten its...
I have the inclination
to shut down my tablet
just as I realize
the tablet must be on
to turn off the air
conditioner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7F7n55hpnE
“I watched it through the kitchen window,
up to my elbows in dishes and meat
burning on the stove, but I couldn't take
my eyes off it,...
The Urquhart & Music street sign is a rebus, Kerry claims:
toy firetruck attached at top above a naked plastic Barbie
with a lime-green plastic ball...
i've always managed to hang onto it
that joy inherent in the season
not solely for its christian notes
(which i'll enjoy for what they are)
but for...
Now he’s gone, I left the gate open on my way back from splitting wood. My arms were full. But I felt that worry...
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Watercolor. Artist's Note: This is my favorite art work I’ve done thus far. I am planning on doing more people, so stay tuned, as...
Last week I
painted the cat blue.
Now we sit up until dawn
discussing Kierkegaard.
Strange, because my cat
formerly hated philosophy.
I have noted the level
of my Glenlivet bottle...
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Acrylic on canvas. 67 inches by 50 inches. From the Open Arts Forum Archives, originally posted on 15 September 2021. This piece has not...
to the barricades, mes amis
We think too much of the ends of things, American
Democracy now, or my fountain pen giving up the ghost,
red-state votes cascading down like red...
They say an opening sentence should draw the reader in with its precision and clarity, a bouquet of words with the promise of fulfilment...
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Acrylic. 20" X 22 1/4".
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8" X 8" styrofoam tile. From the OAF Archives. Originally posted on 15 May 2019. This piece was never published on the OAF Front...
Through the cracked visor, the world warps—
a funhouse mirror of ruin.
Behemoth coils across the horizon,
talons raking earth’s bones.
Houses exhale splintered beams;
chimneys thrust skyward: cenotaphs...
I wish I could rub a genie’s lamp
the way I tenderly
rubbed your feet
after a long day of work—
then I would wish
for 3 things:
for another
lifetime...
Lately I’ve had trouble staying in my mind,
like when I’m driving with my daughter
and she’s calling out the colors of cars
passing the other way...
and right now
a little Tibetan boy tends to his yak.
what is
more alive than this boy,
the fire from his cheeks,
the snow bed mountain behind him.
this...
Not to dart along. Stilled. Here.
A life painted on. Dry docked.
No shoal, no fleet. Alone.
Not line caught. Scales of grain crack.
Unworked, unworking. Stopped. Stopped.
The...
Great news! If you’d like to publish my work,
my submission window is now open
and will stay open until the cows come home.
There is no...
The air is a velvet rope, coiled tight ’round my chest.
Breath unspools silver wire, threading ribs,
tugging my spine toward a fluorescent stage.
Copper lingers on...
Tiny, claustrophobic room,
stained Hopi carpet,
folded-up prayer rugs,
assorted scriptures,
brass band in the distance.
Sign:
NO Alcohol
NO Incense Sticks
NO Cell Phones.
Grey steel
lectern,
3 whole-tree-trunk
benches.
In the classroom-style door,
a small, square,
twisted...
Her look was warm as summer dawn,
there was a lightness as she stepped
as if the ground was almost a cloud,
her beauty a casual dream...
I do not have the memory that some do, more often flashes, images, clip shots, waves, feelings. They come on the outbreath.
When I walk...
shadows migrate towards the fence-line
with its shredded plastic fluttering
like the rage of those denied escape
they are the formless ones faceless familiars
hidden in vaguely remembered conversations
who...
when the ghost in the basement
won’t stop wailing i want ouuuut!
& you holler right back
don’t we aaaall, my friend!
the dog at...
A gypsy moth mistakes
the incandescence
from a bulb
in the porch ceiling
as a sextant moon.
I watch from the rocker
slugg’n liquor from a jar
in the inescapable heat
appreciating...
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Artist's Note: A watercolor about how we're embedded in our world. 11"x14". Paints and pencils on gessoed matboard, a surface that makes it easy...
There,
on the back lawn -
once pure powder,
now crusty and gray,
a lone holdout
from a forgotten season.
I know, I know,
I say
as molecules disperse
one by one
into the...
I have a pesky feeling
there is a poem hiding
from me like a child
waiting to jump out
from behind the curtains
to surprise me, to give me
a...
What is this graveyard but where we came
with our papers and stubs of charcoal,
to catch the image of their names
and dates,...
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Abstract Expressionism, 21 cm × 29 cm, On Paper
Material: Acrylic, Gouache
Where did you go, Ronni, Calli? I remember you,
on a dark street years from here,
your dad’s chevy slowly rolling
by the bungalow of a dark-eyed boy
we...
how do you know
when you’re dead
I would expect
someone pokes you
maybe with a stick say
excuse me sir
but your rotting carcass
is starting to smell
why not just...
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When my time comes
just flush my ashes
down the toilet
I told them
and they were shocked
poor dears!
taking me so literally!
not all at once
I explained
just one scoop...
Shepherded by bad luck,
you fall through a mirror
once you have it,
or rather it has you.
Even if you survive
{or at least they kindly
keep your body...
it’s a threesome.I look around at the ceiling
the plants
my iced tea sitting on the coffee table.I micro-dosed
(there’s no other away).an echo of lovely moans
is...
log in - forget your password?
. . . no one gets to rest on the structure
no one ever forgets their first agreement with pain
or...
I broke up with the world.
We both saw it coming long and slow
as the drifting of continents,
and then came the sorting -
I gathered my...
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I am the son of a coffin maker; death will have no surprises for me.
This was my life: Rise before birds open their eyes,
smooth...
driving through Iowa will make you cry
all rolling plains, windmills, tractors,
rooms of old radios,
ex-girlfriends
That make us feel as if we’ve been
punched in the stomach, bludgeoned
over the head, had our arms ripped off,
our toes plucked out, skulls smashed
with...
I picture accidents all the time.
All the time.
On the way to Stop & Shop
at that new intersection.
Slipping on the smallest
puddle on a dry sidewalk.
The...
I don’t understand the desert
the considered staging of stones
the rise and fall of trails
the suspicious critters ogling us
from all those holes
in the dirt
But most...
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All gone, wandering beyond
valley brambles, slate
splintering like overworn bone.
Today is for pine smoke pulled taut
around half-horned fog
melting beneath canopy light
where short, shallow graves
shelter my...
We shot this in early 2024 and Finished it this past Fall. I wrote and directed it with Max Cox.
Isaac’s show is called The...
Rattling across a rocky trail just after sunrise
having hiked up and down Pilot Knob
950 feet elevation
one mile
straight up
my temple
to you
gone three years
and the dog...
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Great cities hold their rivers and their jazz in high regard,
trust secrets to the cattail-covered caves along the bank;
it’s miles beneath the drummer’s glistening...
You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
The Eagles, 1975
Maybe you remember
the drawings at breakfast:
a hippo yawning,
a...
Stretches out his
loveliness of fur
legs linger long
leaning earthward
pees
languorously
Eyes soften
as pee
empties him
He is emptiness,
floating within consciousness
towards what comes next
Pain, joy, suffering,
which I have aspired to
without...
I. That Ain’t FedEx
It a was dull morning in H-Town,
where the sun rose slow as molasses
and the coffee from Greasy Joe’s tasted like regret.
Benny sat...
An empty house across the street,
snow-capped, mid-renovation;
daffodils waiting underground
with honey and fire;
strands of festive lights
held over like a beloved play.
Somewhere,
a buck standing by a...
#1. Stephen's island wren 1895. Watercolor. 9" x 9".
Also known as the Lyall’s wren, the Stephen’s island wren (Xenicus lyalli) was a bird endemic...
the editor demands,
and asks if it serves
understanding to
undermine gravity
and fling the beast into
a star shot sky.
If this is a dream ploy,
it's been done and...
When all the sadnesses want to leave
on the same day that’s a lot of traffic
and uniforms and all that have never
been my bag so there’s...
I give a tight hug to myself
and kiss myself on the forehead.
I cry unstoppably
and then wipe my tears.
I don't miss you.
I record words, "Everything...
Abstract Expressionism. 21 x 29 cm. Acrylic, Gouache on paper.
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1.
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2.
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3.
*******
Dilly Darnickle stunk like forbidden streets
walked a little funny
had a herniated testicle
wouldn’t say which
lucky he still had two he said
one's always bigger and better...
Of course I don't
remember the poem,
but in the fourth grade
I knew it was a lie
I was being forced
to read aloud and
when I finished
and looked...
oh, how my heart flies
in this harvest sky
oh, how my heart settles
in the soft tan grass
i love this...
the sound of gravel under my sneakers
the cat sneezes
cigarette butts
who cares
I’m outta sync
I’m a dapper monster
the quiet blank of days passing
I’m sick of you...
maybe he’s taken up tray planting
snipping tiny bits to shape his bonsai
placing the pre-grown moss around its base
perhaps he will focus more on his...
In a field off
Hungerford Road back
in the 1950’s Mum
almost lost an arm
after being thrown by her horse
and trampled.
Every path I take in
this town runs...
What if that gold tipping over
tops of twilight trees
is love on its way
home to rest and I am
not yet ready?
out here on the lough all movement is vertical
wind and tide and endless sculling
keeping the shore beads constant
no passion is productive in the water
not...
I knew if I died first
I would not
have to bury
or cremate you.
So it came to pass.
No tears.
I cry at funerals
but not at my own.
Things...
poor as an old penny
laying against the dumpster
the stray cats and me
under the rusty moonlight
We, the ones with high numbers,
outrank nearly everything and everyone these days,
even though it’s not in our best interest
given the pending shortages of
affordable resources...
leaves fall
dance and pirouette
through pale late fall skies
land on the brown lawn
quiver and die.
I drink coffee
laced with good bourbon
on the front porch
I take a...
Snowed in
& out
the window
I watched a robin
flit branch to branch
pecking on frozen bark
& listening
a rustle
in my skull
a memory
of something
forgotten
& too late
I hit my head
with...
His fingers—spindly, delicate as a spider’s legs—
dart among the gears,
tools clink in whispers, sharp and sure.
He bends close, breath fogging the polished brass,
eyes fixed...
Daisy was above trickery
no shake-a-paw nonsense for us
no tit for tat
her fetch was gloriously one way
neither of us the alpha type
we just frolicked
careless with...
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Acrylic on canvas. 16"x20".
Ferbo Dunkling
on his walk with Koda
thought of a hopeful
future where Cyborgs
are environmentally conscious
Zombies are conversant
and he wins the lottery
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So, I’m not dead yet.
While my shelf life still remains a mystery
I bought a funeral of sorts --
a cremation party:
old Rock and Roll in...
there is a duty to repair beautiful things
like people silence traumatised dogs and planets
to fill the jagged tree-lines of their fractures
with gold from the sun and...
what will happen
if I don’t
write poems
never again
no wars will be waged
no peace will be broken
no justice will linger
no ocean will drain
only a poem
will be...
World of clinking coins and silent wails,
where sidewalks hum with the soft crush of heels,
everyone steps to their own dirge, unaware.
Oh, the tragic absurdity:
Mr....
The Importance of Being EarnestPencil, graphic ink pen, Kuretake Bimoji Fude brush pen, black permanent ink, ink brush on Yasutomo Japanese ivory-tone Rice...
after Goya’s Capricho No. 43
In the Siberian tundra of mind
the sentinel permafrost of reason
is thawing in these torrid times
of online lies and rising oxycodone...
I dug a hole three times as deep
as last time. You get better at these things.
Dead things. You say,
'it’s the last time,' but it...
When I turn the screw on the device
nipple clamps
your lips pull clear of teeth
it takes years to decipher the puzzle tree
its spindles — not...
this feels like the divorce
i was spared
my parents too exhausted
.......by life
............to split
i should pack up my words now
to save something
of who i’ve been
but...
on the dock
looking out over the water
dreaming
meandering thoughts
my easy steps across the wood
that when it creaked
told me secrets
little ripples and reveries
coming in
that I’ve forgotten
what...
This is our second Artist Postcard, featuring Jillian Sarette Li!
Dear Vacuum.This channel is glad you exist.
Together we wait.The new sailor just got back.Fuck I loathe a society that accepts advertisement.And there’s something wrong...
you are
a lovely whirlwind
spinning
just some energy
locked
in this lost, forgotten
sediment
recording. all the dances
car crashes
bus drivers, dishwashers.dust plankton cosmic
drunken
standup
philosophers
https://soundcloud.com/sherry-170780609/trinity-park
S E V E N B E L L S
They are studying homelessness at the high school, that’s what the kid said, as if...
Forty-Fives
A Story in Interconnected Flash
-1-
Ada’s skin was caramel and her hair so black it looked blue. She was tiny with shoulder blades like wire...
how it gleams under show lights—
chrome shimmered once like this,
but not after '67, when my brother drove it
through siege, shot-out glass,
powder-burned rims
riddle-marked at Texas...
after Charlie Haden’s, “First Song”
No one remembers the first song
sung to them in mother’s whisper.
The words, merely notes to soothe
the savage beast at her...
When I die
The ferns ‘ll go on
And the fish in the sea
Slivers of dawn
And once I was a Fisherman’s wife
Couldn’t talk
Couldn’t speak
And I liked...
Watercolor and Micron pen .5, 6" X 9"
A cloudless sulfur butterfly (probably Phoebis sennae) caught in mid-flight on a warm November day using my Nikon D3200 camera in continuous shooting mode.
a touch of red
suggested at dinner, to make
a photograph splendid, i noticed
the same in paintings at exhibition.
looking out, the grave yard, noticed
a touch of...
I finally accomplished my dream
of becoming an online mythical character
who flew her flags
among her kind of heroes and heroines,
the other ones who understood
the meaning...
the white tail-end of thanksgiving
is feathered over the farm
three feet deep
& the gray hand of god
pushes downward.
ghosts of children
slip through the cracks
of the barn...
Look
I’d like to help you
and it’s time
I’ve put money
in the account
you say you never had one
Look
the credit card
I made you tear up
I still get...
"Sorry. Sorry. Last bloke I stood on I
broke his toe. Sorry. Got his own back
with a bit of this." Shakes his bunched five
the bus lurches...
at first I was pissed
when the cat
knocked over the Christmas tree
then I was delighted
our cat basically said
fuck the stress of pageantry
and living up to...
Christmas morning,
sunlight creeping in like a landlord
knocking for rent.
stocking caps hung limp,
empty as a politician’s promise.
the tree stood bare,
no gifts, no mess,
just me and...
It wasn't always this way
it used to be
when bad guys always lost
and paid for their sins
there were cowboy heroes
and stars and stripes
when boys and...
From 1984–1987, I published the little magazine Clock Radio. Like many small ("little") literary magazines of the day, this one was produced on a shoestring,...
along the stream that fell from clouds
he came upon
a pile
of bones
recognized
the glaze
and angles
as his own
kicked them
in the creaming
beck
no use
for them
without
a head
going upstream
beside
the gambling goose
where...
No chance for love poems now.
Maybe we'll find another way to say it.
I'll be so glad when it's over,
when he finally allows it all...
Henry: This is a world where everybody’s gotta do something. Y’know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be...
My daughter says
she’s been called
to sing some high song,
some choral song,
at some high mass,
at some cathedral,
somewhere in Detroit.
“I can’t eat now,” she says.
“Not tonight.
Not...
no leaves left
on the trees
I get to look deep
into the woods now
The first time I was called a poet, I took offense,
for poetry is good for nothing: it neither
makes love nor wages war, nor pays...
Do not tell me you are dying.
I am an empathetic soul
& a part of me
will begin dying, too.
Tell me, instead, your soul
is leaving to...
I work (slave) at a dollar store
they put the Christmas shit out
in fucking August
instead of a star there should be a dollar sign
on top...
The slow and sullen wind that lingers
in the corners of my room, compact,
brooding, breathes in, breathes out,
sighs and shifts, rises, falls,
gives up, gives in,...
cold in here when I woke
opened the doors to the woodstove
cold ashes, not even one glowing ember -
I piled in kindling
and wood on top...
The soldiers woke us at 5 a.m.,
a bullhorn announcing we had
an hour to pack our belongings
& leave. 200 years we’ve lived
in this glade, subsisting on...
the roads here are winding, the leaves are changing.
best not to bang the teapot down on serving, best
to tell the truth.
________________________________________________________________________
while silken streams
of white carnations
down my legs fell
into a delicate web
a blood spot formed
on a blackened moon
you slid off me
on a three legged stool
you...
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Glen Banvie Trail on the Blair Castle Estate, Scotland. October, 2024.
I dreamt I was a kelp forest swaying in pitch-
-black waters. Above me moonlight fluttered
like confetti and seagulls roosted on cliff-sides
and buoys. An oil...
Hawk skirls overhead,
red berries bloom like blood against
the shadowed wood.
________________________________________________________________________
Crow quill pen and ink on Strathmore illustration board. Illustration from the book, "Did Adam...
In twenty twenty-eight,
light narrows, ink falls silent in the streets.
Words shaved of edges, poetry a lost shape,
a forgotten voice in fog.
But Hosokawa Yusai knew...
I like tools.
I like spatulas.
I like good shoes
and Kikkoman soy sauce.
I like the thing
that fixes that
other thing and
the other thing
that fixes that.
I like tape dispensers
and...
For many fine men,
words like bitch,
or pussy—
sit heavy on the tongue,
emitted like a toxin
if ever uttered.
They would rather
default to tired,
or angry for
the perceived irrationality;
and...
________________________________________________________________________
Charcoal pencil drawing by Pat Perrin from the novel, The Jamais Vu Papers, by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin. Harmony Books/Crown (1991). After publication,...
I was seven when an aneurism grew like a rotten berry inside Mother’s brain and burst. Everyone said, at least her suffering is over, the...
inside them still
the blue sky, still the dream
of brave, and strong, and free.
All you didn’t say
in these birds with endless softness
with nothing
to uphold, nothing
to...
they peeled him back,
those priests,
hands slick with oils,
dropped his heart
in a jar like an olive.
wrapped him tight,
packed him for eternity—
knives, chariot,
songs he’d need
to reach...
________________________________________________________________________
Graphic ink pen, permanent coloured ink, ink brush, watercolours, and some printed elements on Yasutomo Rice Paper .. 77cm x 44cm. Text added via...
from the Sermon at the Crossroads
Blessed are those who know there to be no blessings
for they shall hear the music of...
As a child I believed no machine
could hurt you, that even the big
crushing ones would stop, would
have to stop, heads bowed, hats
removed, as the...
In your absence,
fall came anyway.
Leaves turned ruddy and gold,
began their wuthering dance,
fluttered down like leaflets
as they've always done.
I wore your new jacket
as I gathered...
leaves are rusting
cars are rusting
I wake up in the mornings
cursing the frost
and missing the warmth of Dixie
I hate the cold
I say
my wife and I...
~
i won't write a poem about it
it's cool you do but i can't
in my childhood town
after each new tragedy
kids navigated for position
for how we...
I told this to a waiter taking my drink order.
“I don’t drink when I’m sober.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
“So, when do...
Bare feet dock-dangling down,
memories morning-cleansed
in gentle lakewater.
Loons warble back and forth,
one zooms under me
at supernatural speed.
A boy casts out, reels in
a small sunny.
As it...
Folks said my father was a drunk and a no-good bastard, but we marched behind him with maracas and rhythm sticks shaking our little...
The seawall whispers the voices of the drowned,
their words curling into the fog, sticky with salt and secrets.
From the mist, she emerges—
a girl in...
bay breeze froth
and the barmaid’s pretty nails
I’ll never feel their caress
it’s another Saturday night
at the sports bar
jukebox playing
the soundtrack to
hell
I shuffle my thoughts
like playing...
the leaves are not vain
about falling
sunlight on the edge of each one
Original music video. Written, performed, and produced by the author.
To view, click on the arrow in the center
Lyrics shown below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ucg8Y9Q1Y&t=1s
________________________________________________________________________
Lyrics to the video
Hello two...
This will surely be TMI for you, but yesterday I had a very bad day.
I won’t bore you with the details of which, since...
there's a teenage, fentanyl
addicted
cowboy, sprawled out
on the floor
of the #4 to downtown LA
tasseled, rawhide
leather jacket
hatchet
Howard Hawks face
fist clenching the reins
of a crushed, empty Miller...
________________________________________________________________________
Pen and Ink. 10" X 12".
the way he still chases you in dreams,
his dead brother,
then stares into blankness
when he wakes.
i want to dive into his dog dreams
run with him...
I have a Portuguese granddaughter, Clara,
who insists that only grandad
can read books to her over the phone.
Our favourite and our best books
are Charlie and...
put down
way up north
for the locals
he walks it daily
too old to drive
recalls rolling
his Schwinn across
a black olive top
and now, how aging
has worn the surface
down...
When they bought expensive tickets
for a cruise on the Flying Dutchman
they didn’t know they wouldn’t be going home again.
But they were a rugged and resourceful...
We walk beneath a fettled roof of leaves,
Where beasts maraud and insects form a line.
The trail of many bones & lost beliefs
Becomes the route...
When you have run out of outrage;
when every day is a loaded gun
and your hand is not on the trigger;
when you have given all...
(Scroll to bottom to hear the poet read this poem)
________________________________________________________________________
She hovers behind the bar,
not standing but floating, her feet barely grazing
the sticky floor,
a ghost...
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He Is That Sun (For Tut ’22)
rolled by a beetle over your sky,
everyday.
Cover your eyes in kohl
against this young gods glare.
Inhale cinnamon oil smoothed
into warm skin. He tells you
there is...
