Stroke began process;
prostate cancer
finished the job.
Now I recline
home hospital bed,
scattering truffled wisdom—
buried but pungent
for those with the nose.
Dig; uncover bon mot;
share with others.
Learn by mistakes…
making them mine
alone.
asked me who will be afraid of our ghosts
ghosts of humans
when we are gone
Strange Things at Very Low Temperatures by Zed-Point
I've said goodbye a thousand times before
we are right in the middle of your sadness
I've said goodbye a thousand times before
we are right in the middle of your sadness
the blank sky is hiding how we come together
who's the complicated...
She had scoliosis which left her with one hip at 2:15
and one hip at 2:35,
one a summit, one a foothill.
No one talked about her disfigurement:
It was like someone having a wart on her chin or bowed legs.
It was just...
Five years after
she walked out,
leaving me behind
with a drunk dad
and no way to reach her,
Mom called,
not to see
how I was doing,
but to see
if I’d give her
“52nd Street,”
the Billy Joel album
with “My Life.”
“Can you do that?” she asked.
“For me? Your...
I have a bird in
my heart too.
I realized it in 2004
when your poem
came across my desk
in the form of an assignment.
I’ve often wondered
how you would feel
knowing your work was used
in pretty university classrooms
where fresh faced liberal arts-ers
furrowed their brows...
her voice low on the phone,
she tells me
about trying to die.
I squeeze the phone
try to block out
what I hear
she’s sobbing
I let her cry
tell her a secret
from boyhood
my voice soft.
at ten I tried
to stab myself
stabbed a dish liquid bottle
instead
the thick...
The children flew
and snow-hush fell
upon stone
and of a morning
the soft tattoo
of feet on felt
froze
pitter-patter meaning.
He bends and raises
replicas,
remembrance
of past faces
shovels, brushes,
signatures
December’s
masterpieces.
The dead leaves on wet grass
have no memory of the wind
that blew them there
or anything else they endured
As the broken cow skull
looking down with hollow eyes
has no memory of seeing them
lying in their eternal autumn
Only the living are burdened...
Black tea cools,
bitter cup;
sun sets
soon;
little lemon wedge
drowned at the bottom,
sunken yellow crescent,
solemn, sour moon.
With eyes closed I see snapshots.
Flipped in chronological order
I see myself changing. It’s all
black and white but I wish
it was color, imagine
blue sky and a red
paisley shirt.
Looking out my window the world
runs away. I mean no one appears
to be...
you know those people who come around,
give you free drinks,
well one lady's dreadlocks latched onto me,
spiraled around my leg like a snake,
pulled me outta my seat
and drug me around the casino
till i tipped her a dollar.
i was then out...
Their smiles
are bleached
from the photo
baked brown.
They escaped
from the homelands
that wanted
them gone,
erased, dead,
forgotten.
A soundless escape,
taking only
the disruption
that clung
to their skin.
Their absence
displaced the air,
replaced it with
ocean wind.
back in the early
days of the plague
I drank Coronas
in protest of the virus
my wife and I
were told we
would have a
quarantine baby
I wore a George
Washington style
covid cut
like a patriot
at war
my mask like a bayonet
I wore unending sweatpants
I barely
showered
and I tried...
he ate pork skins
with hot sauce
on the sagging brown sofa,
drinking beer from a can,
watching NASCAR
in faded blue shorts
and a wife-beater T,
yelling
to cheer on
the young driver
with the shaved head
who was in second place.
he grew weed
in the woods
by a small creek
which...
My father once threw
a bottle of ketchup
at my mom’s head,
then a fork
that stuck
in tainted wallpaper
until the hot dog
he hurtled next
knocked it off.
I thought all dads did this
so I helped my mom
clean the wall,
both of us kneeling
to wipe the red...
i believe in little gods
who gather at doors and windows
looking in
waiting for a gap in
each entrance, a portal
festooned with trinkets and
amulets offering safe
passage or luck on the journey
while filtering out all the
empty shades and ghoulish
echoes living between
fibres of wood...
white collared loons
question existence
claim enough faith
to tip toe on water.
fog clings to the shore
smothers reeds
remnants of fire
smoldering tinder.
a wooden boat
drifts in a circle
I mumble a prayer
wait for the sun.
Shattered bottle
on sidewalk;
city birds
ingest diamonds.
this one ended up sounding softer. i think it was the keyboard player i was working with. his chords were kind of rich sounding, and i based the whole thing on that.
—Scott Douglas
https://soundcloud.com/skaadee/worry
in the interest of full disclosure
striving for transparent honest
searching for beauty and its
friend with privileges truth
disclosing the process a
dangling sentence fitted with
dangling phrases glued together
by invisible commas and semi
colons requiring a reader to
decode first and in the process
achieve awakening...
I was thinking about Bukowski the other day
while taking a shit. I used a week old Merlot
as mouthwash while waiting.
I stood up with my pants around my ankles
and watched the turds orbit the bowl
and disappear.
I can't remember why I...
This is the process of my painting. I start my work like this. This is how I gradually move forward.
—RamyaSadasivam
https://ramyasadasivam.com/realistic-face-drawing/
“Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne...” —James Russel Lowell
We are all mourners now, our clothes
funeral shrouds we tear off our backs
when the time comes (and it will come);
in one pocket we carry brushes for tidying
the...
do we describe what we see or maybe
tell the tale inside
round the corner on the wall
are the bullet holes
Trees listen to the quaking of all other trees
I know this because my tree told me its secret
it knew I was listening too
It hears Colorado aspens shaking in the mountain wind
the cry of those burning in New Mexico
and the...
Sara’s real father,
while drunk on wine
& ebony thighs,
jumped ship
in the Mediterranean
during the winter of ’54
& started a second family
with an olive toned
Greek girl in Athens
who comforted him
with mythology
& compared him to Ulysses.
Sara memorized
the only letter
her father wrote to her.
Dearest...
Released on 09 April 2022. 12 track album. Credits: Co-producer - @Roger Fizzerton. All guitar, bass, keyboards, lyrics and vocals .. myself. I hope you enjoy —Jenn Zed
I have plans for more EPs, I have at least 3 EPs bubbling under the surface right now...
https://soundcloud.com/skaadee/doctor-rife-16
In class I sat
with a Loreley with goldenes hair.
At five she told K.:
"Our sandbox is full of witches' teeth."
K. talks about that till this day.
I stop digging for Australia
and circle the edge after her.
She shrugs,
all the other kids will...
one had stringy long hair
he drove with bare feet
and once came over to see
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
he laid on the bed as we watched it
with my mom
like a parasite
one looked like a twizzler
and produced too much saliva
he was...
tip toe tread
bone crunch chime
eggshell dread
all the time
Listen I don't care if you're unreliable and obsessed
the bad has to go somewhere I've dodgy perspective and since I
virtue rescued again this week we both know I'm not the one
who's going to live it.
I will lick your feet...
I don’t want to be numb.
Crying, screaming, pleading-
for-their-barely-begun-lives
little kids bleeding out,
shot to death
in supposed safe places
where they go to learn
how to behave
in a fictitious civil society.
But I think I am—
from reading dismissive thoughts,
bullshit prayers. If not numb
to slaughtered innocents,...
Last time you arrived
at the airport
I came drunk to pick you up
fringed jacket
ripped jeans biker boots
some beat
this time please take a cab
I don't drive at night
https://soundcloud.com/tater/just-let-me-bleed
Had to bite my tongue, swallow my pride
Tryin’ to keep you, satisfied
There ain’t no need, to sugar coat
That bitter little pill, you shovin’ down my throat
You ain’t never cared, ‘bout nobody else
Go ahead on make it lite on yourself
Don’t...
* Be an asshole (they're interesting).
* Spill a drink on the page.
* Eat shit for breakfast. Write about it by dinner.
* Waste some words just to show off.
* Get down all the dirt you can and cry till it's...
he said
no fisting friday
gotta keep that pussy
in top shape—
long weekend ahead
baby
girl
middle of the night
again at dawn
his toes seek my shin
under the covers
making sure i am still there
.
He helps me to pronounce Anne Hedge and calls me kid—that old
Casablanca dream.
He has a lot of women who love him: his sisters, his mom, his cousin, a second one and I
put myself in the hollow of his arm.
Pheromones...
All night while the rain fell
you turned the words over in silence
The wet grass did not know
your brother was asleep across the room
You smelled the mowed lawn,
listened to your brother’s breathing
You wanted to memorise the words
scorched into wood
love… perennial...
his poems
from his phone,
standing there,
hunched over the microphone,
needy,
expectant...
the crowd,
such as it was,
not even listening,
bent over
their own papers and phones,
hoping
against hope
for their own 3 minutes
of whatever it was that felt like
fame.
Pencil, Japanese drawing ink, watercolour paint, coloured acrylic ink, acrylic paint, Hydrus Watercolour Ink, graphic ink pen, on Strathmore 500 Series Illustration Board for Wet Media Heavyweight 100% Cotton - 88cm x 58cm
Hoi An Ancient Town is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. The town was badly hit by the pandemic. It has been almost inactive for two years,...
Our son gifted us Roku
& his Netflix password.
Now Connie & I binge
every night from 7 until 2 a.m.,
watching murder mysteries
that disturb our dreams.
Two scenes keep appearing
in these films: the shower sex scene
& the bird’s-eye view
of a vast forest, sometimes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMrTAVl5aXI
How much of my colon
did you cut out, doc?
The distance
between his two index fingers
the last trout I caught
in a northern Arizona lake.
This morning I walked past
your tree and told you after
36 years they are paving the road
in front of your house. In the place
you now dwell you must be indifferent
to our buckling passage. You did not
reply.
Oil on canvas
24 x 18 inches
fuck these
text messages
i wanna hear
i wanna hear
the daffodil
in your voice
i wanna hear it
when you cry
you can’t cry
with your
thumbs
ding
these
texts
come in
ding dong dang
the silent
conversation
I can’t hear
a word you said
ding
doesn’t
sound
like you
your voice
in my
memory
rots
I'm selfish
i want sex
in my ear
when i
hear you breathe
said he would need an hour and a half
so I counted time by the 3 minute
easy-listening songs
they play in an attempt
to ease me
between the drill
and suction
5 songs
times three: 15 minutes
comes the smell
burning enamel and silver amalgam
is it toxic?
I ask...
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...
44
and I don’t
want anymore
I will
breathe in
the saltwater air
and know I
don’t have to go anywhere
I’ll have another piece of cake
lay down
and let my birth to this planet
amaze me
I emerged when it was 78 degrees out
not a bad way to start...
Everybody writes about you,
even me. I told you about
my hedges: they're
perfect.
How does a privileged white boy
who doesn't even drink
relate to you
as a person?
I don't. Acne was no problem.
I played Romeo onstage
and scored with chicks.
What I liked was your writing;
it...
Because the season is over
and surmise settles into
his autumn confinement,
I ask him what he imagines
could improve these last days.
He asks me for
a Phillies ball cap,
bright red on grey
like the African parrot
he loves. Folded into the nest
of his wheelchair, he...
I have a wound in me from you
and I can't tell you about it,
I can't talk about it, I can't
mention it. Only write a poem
about it. Only a poem about it.
My life. I can't see it. I can't
pray, change,...
The first years of their exile,
tell the children about unheated train stations,
the bravery of mothers breathing warmth
on tiny fingers.
Later will be time to describe the sound of sunflowers
landing on coffin lids,
hundreds of golden petals
falling on a mother
and her two...
Who could forget the butchers
of Leningrad
as the mighty Wehrmacht
blockaded the city
laying siege for 872 days and nights
No way to know
whether the German OKW imagined
Stalin’s decree, Order 227
"Not One Step Back"
would level the field at 2 million dead
Now the oligarchs are...
I'm standing in a barren garden with Tolstoy, with Chekhov,
and they are frozen in place, like stricken roses of January,
like whipped horses, scarred into silence,
as songbirds with smothered throats.
Until at some signal, a ruckus begins.
Exhausted people walk out of...
There are so many ways to say it:
on the verge
on the cusp
on the precipice
on the brink
of catastrophe, apocalypse, war.
Then war breaks out
and we see it never stopped—not for those
within range of artillery and propaganda—that
long before the stamps commemorating peace,
before...
Here is my new (July 2021) album posted on Bandcamp .. the album is free to listen to, download, and keep, as you like...I have set the price to £0.00.
I hope you enjoy. —Jenn Zed
She left me for another man
This one she thought she’d keep
Two beers down to drown her out
One shot of whiskey deep
She smashed the lights of my pickup truck
I thought it was kinda sweet
Three beers down to drown the pain
And...
I woke up this morning in Texas, and all I can think of is driving further, on to the coast of California, to golden Santa Monica, crazy Venice, north to the beauty of Big Sur, then San Luis Obispo, and...
Growing up in Phoenix
I thought exhaust fans
in other people’s bathrooms
were put there to remove
the smells
& I asked my dad why
we didn’t have exhaust
fans & he said
there was no humidity
in the desert & the window
near the ceiling, above
the bath tub,
was...
The solitude of widowhood, they think,
is pyre that never bows then dies, a night
of vigils, stretched-out sighs, a lisp to air,
a sudden twitch of eyes, a knob, a latch,
a whiff of shoulder sweat, routine cologne,
devoted ears to rustling leaves,...
Sojuz Šrek Párty is my new album.
Sojuz Šrek Párty refers to Ašrotmáš. Ašrotmáš refers to anything, so it also refers to this album. Find a mirror, light a candle, turn around three times and say "Sojuz Šrek Párty."
Nicholas Wintzler:...
My father told me if I wanted to catch fish I had to think like a fish except he said it with an r like frish and an extra s and h like frisshh and maybe a third h if you...
It seems inconceivable,
reading on a couch on a Sunday afternoon,
that one day I’ll die
and my decades of warmth will release
back into the sky’s body
and my footprints will wear away
like a pillow forgetting the shape
of a face.
Suppose I grant you...
the fish dances around the cat’s sternum
shakes ribs with its five-pronged fins
not an animated gill out of place
I turn off the TV
it’s raining outside but I walk out anyway
I look across
to a bird sheltered by a bush
preening itself
the asphalt...
I sit here, nowhere
a place i was born in but
it has changed
and i am a stranger now, somewhere
i try
to recognize but i can't.
reading the news
getting upset at politics
planning a getaway
fighting the mother that invaded
my depression,
i want to be alone...
my testosterone has been chopped
medically castrated by injection last week
in prep for radiation treatments
I couldn't hold my water today and had to scrap today's scheduled treatment
you have to have a full bladder for that and I suddenly couldn't hold...
Last night I went down to the lake but the sky was what I really went for, so last night I went down to the sky, the white beach all ice ledges, traps everywhere, and you could still feel...
Always, there are voices that come,
unchecked
as the sound of water, lapping
in the stone basin of the night fountain
Some magnanimous, as the sound
of father digging potatoes,
or mother shouting you in for supper
Some unnamed, as the recently dead,
who come, when you...
Buying this ample ranch house in the country,
I dreamed I could rescue you, my husband,
from the nursing home where I couldn’t visit you
because of Covid, where you were starved,
quarantined in your room with a man
who could only blink....
I am a cupbearer, offering my better half her morning
mug of coffee. She asks, Why is your face sad today?
I cannot take all of her in.
Last week, my brothers came, sharing news and stories,
shouting sometimes in a good-natured way. I...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCCXspvxP_E
Wherever you are,
in whatever room
of whatever house
of whatever's left
of whatever life
you may possess,
imagine that room,
that house, that life
in the middle of a ship
in the middle of an ocean
in the middle of a night
headed, finally, there.
dig a hole
crawl in
pretend that
the world is fine
repeat
as needed
Stuart died.
It happened at our book club.
Vinyl Café had been off the air for a few years
but seemed like a fresh memory.
Then someone mentioned how I
could do a spot-on impression.
So, I tried it and botched it
and everyone was embarrassed
...
I prefer to wander,
not stay confined
when science says
it’s OK to venture.
But then I stumble
finding a man, half-dead,
ensconced in a rusted truck,
his fingers curled, necrotic,
his face contorted from coughs.
I stand, peering,
deaf to the honks and curses
of those who fight
for his...
A five year old stuck in no-child's land between
The hospital and the duck.
The hospital had my mother,
The duck had me.
Once bitten
It was so hard for me to take even
One small step
Outside the old Virginia farmhouse.
Inside, the house was dark,
Shades...
I want a larger territory
than a screen and two fingers allow.
Give me maps
impossible to fold back correctly.
It would not frustrate me
that they never sit flat
bulge awkwardly
testifying to my inadequacy.
Let them unfold
propped up on the steering wheel
over your entire body...
.
more than ever
i need an enema
or an island of my own
the general public
can no longer determine
squirm from quake
and
i won't go back
to hanging tears
on the wall
most people
await "The Jesus"
to provide a salve
to put his finger
in the wound
all the way to...
My first poetry book is now available on Amazon from Dead Man's Press Ink!
I am so excited to share a collection of my poetry as a whole.
“I have memories of my Dad telling me and my sisters ghost stories...
"Where is the end of the line?"
The concept of the EP is a cut and transcribed part of the original voice recording I recorded once when I woke up with that thought. Basically, it´s a stream of consciousness.
—Nicholas Wintzler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK3ROdC41Bg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szNDYJgrLp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDhO7kHZ6yo
"In...
Holy man,
with a common farmer tan,
I watch your metamorphosis into god.
An exhibitionistic affair
I am your favorite voyeur.
Eyeball plastered
to the Sacristy peep hole.
Disrobe, pose and shake for me.
Your pendulous meat enlarging exponentially,
as you don the opulent vestments
of priesthood.
You call me...
Fragrant grasses that covered me.
Packed earth by fire, tending.
Slow walk with an aging dog,
morning or twilight, it is the same.
Open window, girl practicing violin,
notes fly down, cone of streetlight,
red leaves.
We used to cut through, hop fences, slide sideways through hedges, making the distance between our houses a two minute steeplechase.
Ours was a 1960s suburban neighborhood with streets that swooped and swirled like strands of pearls, the houses plunk...
I won’t wear the KN95 knock-offs
I ordered from Amazon, the horizontal seam
like a duck’s bill. Imagine the waitress,
straight-faced, asking, “want quackers with that?”
Or you hand the cashier your $2 win ticket
& he laughs, “aren’t you a lucky duck?”
Way back...
Space Hydrogel
Nurse inserts lifts
to hold up my calves.
Stirrups, I think to myself:
this must be
what it's like.
Oncologist appears
between my legs; I crack a joke.
Doctor looks where Doctor is going…
I pass out.
First Treatment
No pain,
no pain,
no pain,
says the Tech:
something I already knew.
They...
When the Doc gave me the results from the biopsy and the "options" available I told him I needed a couple of days to decide which way I wanted to go. I walked back out to the VA parking...
From the band's latest album. Follow them on any major streaming service.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghP6aeyNL_g
https://music.apple.com/us/album/my-city-of-sin/1640251348?i=1640251351
When she
spreads butter
across toast
she’ll find herself
thinking of jumping
out of a window
paranoid thoughts
fears certain foods
her Nan’s boyfriend
molested her
until she was 9
when he had
the common sense
to take his own life
How did you answer, when your friends asked,
Who was she?
"Someone who meant a lot to me once.
But that was a long time ago,
and I have forgotten just when or where."
Tomorrow night your friends will come back,
and your mouth will...
The woman who walked out of the woods had been in hiding for four hours. Her name was Lexie. She was hitchhiking home to Richmond, Virginia, from the college she attended. Most of the people she had gotten rides...
we walk your district quietly.
wait in the shelter.
I will
quite like a wild rumpus here some time.
I rather would.
It'd be stern,
but tender;
no broken bones
nor bruises,
only a disciplined hand
swift with love;
I rather would
it leave a sting that's
fast and fathering.
Moon sunken and cloth
His head resting on the crested pillow, a cacophony of arms
Belly, soft and strumming
It's dal for me tonight, doll
Before me, the trees and the white sky
My brain isn't so nimble these days?
The stationary platitude, the overlooking,...
It's all too much, the floor strewn with gifts
we couldn't possibly deserve. But our son
is happy, going from toy to toy, and so
are we, smiling along with him as he plays
with the train, the trucks, the scooter.
Tonight our son...
I've been hand drawing a card since getting married 40 years ago. We became grandparents this year and my wife thinks the baby is hers. Used that as this year's theme. —Tom Strong
A dried booger fell
from my left nostril
as I asked the cashier for 2 lottery tickets
I saw it
she saw it
I saw that she saw it
she saw that I saw that she saw it
she handed me the tickets
I handed her the...
and they often do here
over the mountain's edge
like some dark sky bull
the best thing to do is strip
off all your clothes
and lie flat in the grass
feel the humongous drops
slap your ribcage and face
fix your eyes and count
the seconds between...
I once sang operas and burned candles
in a place made holy by nothing but myself
and whatever there was — Charles Bukowski.
And for a while I lived with a very artistic couple
in an old convent in New Orleans with 16 bathtubs
and...
green
brave
naïve
book-smart
rose-colored
beautiful
innocent
everyone’s friend
jumping in the puddles
sloshing through the rain
rolling in the grass
climbing down the trees
squinting at the sun
holding carefully the bugs
planting the lambs ear
sniffing the tulips
chasing thunderclouds
snuggle on your lap
sunning on the porch
sneaking another cookie
coloring outside the lines
scooping up the...
Decades ago I learned my 1982 poetry chapbook, "The Wisdom of Southern California," had been added to Special Collections at Shields Library on the campus of The University of Southern California in Davis, CA.
(I'm guessing a Davis professor donated...
https://soundcloud.com/tater/inhale-blessings
Inhale blessings,
exhale gratitude
if you got, a bad one,
change your attitude
A good lesson in life is to learn
Which bridge to cross or burn
When you burn you can’t go back
And that's a natural fact
You got to inhale blessings, exhale gratitude
if you...
I woke up this morning with a knot of words and got up right away hoping to unfurl them into a sort of typed-out rollercoaster so here I am buzzed on coffee and opportunity. In the words I was...
Prompt: 5 minutes to write about something being born.
Five minutes? To give birth?
It doesn’t take that long.
A crown appears,
a head bubbles forward and out.
There is great relief then,
before the shoulders fold up
between the pelvis bones
and the cottage cheesed miracle...
everything hinges on death
their own black heart locks
the armed chickens within
their copper jacketed cage of
bitter fruit wood ankle deep
in the litter of mass killers
my name is man reading newspaper
and the street corner where he stands
my name is his hat
my name is his shoes
my name is the money in his pocket
my name is the sidewalk beneath his feet
my name is the church he...
Timmy taps
the walls at night
he’s an
excitable chap
his fingertips
sucking out
Helen’s life force
she tells
the doctors
of the gleeful
sleazy noises
that he makes
Helen knows
that winter
will be difficult
she might not
make the spring
my dog
is part howler monkey
the monkey part
are his vocal cords
he’s all dog, otherwise
he doesn’t wrap his tail
around tree branches
or climb trees
nor does he have thumbs
to hitchhike
like howler monkeys
might do if the leaves
& fruit they eat
became scarce
& if the trucks...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq7JTLGuSec
I took an online writing course which I tried to cancel but it was too late. Our first assignment was to tell one truth and one lie and our fellow writers had to determine which was which. I said I...
I talk out loud to ghosts
and never mind how it sounds.
Stella, I tell her, I'm sorry I did not keep up
your garden. The bougainvillea must be
with you now, but the barrel cacti
are huge and house those rock squirrels
you love....
depression white waves
no caramel corn
Sara says something in the wind
I don't know what it is
slow walk down the boardwalk
some of my friends
buy trinkets from the few stores open
the knickknacks already look like they're going to break
some are brave enough...
The big
deal of my
day may be
a bowl of
popcorn
and tv.
O I hear my
father’s dead
slippers
on the cold
linoleum
floor.
Hands at ten & two,
late Miles on Bluetooth,
I’m driving north
where once it rained,
where I rode my old gelding
around the reservation,
visiting the hogans
of my friends. We’d
drink coffee & laugh
at my little orange horse,
his cow hocks, his blaze face
& his nasty disposition.
I’m...
days come darker still
considering the night
white they peer
sadly into empathy
faces cloud
shoulders bowed
"...acquitted on all charges in the August 2020 shootings of three men, including two who were killed." - CBS
At what time the fog took over, I do not know:
I was, if not sleeping, attempting to, tossing
and turning like a Heron's...
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 royal procession
of a single hand, divinely unaware,
passed among the common columns
of steel and teeth—that no...
2:02 a.m.
... collaborating with dead people ...
I sit to breakfast with my stupid wealth
Jack sits across with his butter & toast
a pure victim of my imagination—hell, I've done it all my life
I was there when the bananas came
and ate...
I’ve never had sex before
will you sleep with me
so I know what it’s like
Dana, you would regret it
for the rest of your life
I replied
so we didn’t fuck
and for the rest of my life
I've regretted it
there was no way to know
one of these guys
would be a child molester
they were just four guys
wearing beige slacks and button-up shirts
your standard uniform of suburban bliss
each with a beer in his dominant hand
I was...
hold my breath as
he checks my phone
i've nothing to hide—
still it’s a habit
that familiar fear of
getting caught being myself
later i'm scolded for staying up too late
asked if i am being difficult on purpose
or maybe asked if i'm being annoying
or...
this happens
when hours of sleep
are eroded with compulsion
morning alarms ignored
gadgets forgotten
doors left unlatched
then blown open
while I was at work
something got in
shit on the carpet
my heel sank in
as I walked to the sofa
holding my bowl of chilli
shit!
wasn't one of my...
what if God said freeze
& you had to wear that face
you make forever?
She fell into my bathtub,
sometime this afternoon,
as water drained
too slowly for
tiny mouse survival.
By the time I found her
rigor had set in,
so I could see that she had died,
still swimming
in mid mouse paddle-stroke:
Rear legs spread wide,
her tail a stiff grey...
this poem
left tracks
_________________
spice tea, darkness,
the scheme of things,
end of October
_________________________________________________
A truck rushes through pre-dawn darkness
empty trailer
one of the slack cargo chains ringing out like a bell
_____________________________________
a girl bends forward
to smell a flower that has
already gone to seed
________________________
two hands cradling...
Unable to quit to save herself,
five mouths to feed, all minors,
her husband, undocumented,
deported months ago, she still
woke up early to catch the bus and wore her maroon hospital
uniform, the mask tight on her
cheeks, a bottle of disinfectant
in her bag...
mixed media on paper, 26,5 x 38,4 cm, 2021
(Content warning: death, suicide, incest, rape, murder, and other assorted morbid trash.)
15. What Remains
My neighbor ran after the garbage men screaming, “Stop! Stop! He’s in there!” after they took her trash. All three of them are throwing bags and...
Give me a pen and I will break it into three pieces
the way P possesses enough of pity, pain, patience
and E earns enough of endorsement, equality, encouragement
and N receives no, nor, none, nothing
It’s hard to tell the poor ending N that being nothing
isn't equal to being something...
I am humbled by the reviews—
Just when you think Jacobson is going to make a point or reach a conclusion, he finds yet another tragically obvious way to get totally lost.
— Sir Franklin Johns, Professor Emeritus of English, Queen Maud...
I let the screen door close behind me
And the rest of the day was quite easy.
At the dining room table
Covered with plates covered with crumbs,
I picked up the tea cups,
Smothering butterflies and flowers in my palms,
And noticed an egg-shaped...
The sun hums
a sphere song
rising south
along the horizon.
The winds cool,
greens lessen
& brittle,
leave the leaves
festooning
falling kites
attached
to unseen strings.
Persephone
eating pomegranates
on a hay ride
begins the harvest.
Holes are dug
to store food
to bury the dead,
both to seed
& sprout again.
Prayers
& pranks
like prattling parrots
flap in the...
Rest easy unborn
while the warm air cools
without a sun
a dark blanket
growing damp
until gravid
with aqueous eggs
delivered to
each curving cradle
of an expecting grass
ready to fondle
its adopted child
until morning comes
with a warming sun
to hatch the diamond sparkles
to whence they came.
Do not keep the herringbone wool, the upright
Hoover or the red galoshes. Never mind
that the wooden wagon of colored blocks still
sparks joy. Go ahead and throw them out.
Pile the coats on the bed as if Thanksgiving dinner
was winding down...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/starrs-blues-lyrics-starr
For Miss Auntie Lola with love from your Starrchild. xo
Lemme tell y'all sumpthin—
It don't get no betta than this.
It jess don't get no betta;
ain't been no heat fo' days,
so ah gots t'put on a heavy sweata.
'N lemme tell y'all...
pigeon-breasted Margarite thanks god
that the pitch-glued cabbage leaf barrier
and pessary of honey-soaked acacia
are relics of the past—
for freedom and modern convenience
she bares ankles for coiled silkworm guts
to be wound tight around her cervix
while the desperate whore dances
the lacedaemonian leap
jumping...
buttery sun sinks
another hairpin turn
a million more mountains
After she died
I thought I’d miss her
being here.
But I got over that.
Now I know
what I miss
is never knowing love
like that
again.
Once I sprained both
ankles playing basketball.
Sedentary, house-bound
for weeks, I smoked pot,
snorted coke, chased speed
with shots of whiskey. Take that,
brain! Take that, heart & take
that, liver! Punishment more
than recreation. We both survived,
my body & I. Here we are.
I can’t hike. I can’t walk
100 yards without limping,
my...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/done-gone-wrong-ii
Everything done gone wrong
done gone wrong
over the top
down to the edge
can't fix it baby
I got nothing
I got diddly bop
every damn thing
done gone wrong
you touched me
touched me forever
there was no going back
it was a helluva jolt
you were nothing if not...
Did you know my doctor has no teeth
and smokes
in the patient lounge? You can never trust
a guy like that
(the things I could tell you)
and who is the little girl in the photo you sent? Did
you make that blanket for...
On Sunday I wrote you a letter about how the sky was such a deep blue
Then, on Sunday, again, I wrote you another one, a long one, about the sky
And how I walked into it, over and over, like...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlS63_RVL_s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6jzz8a_zYM
"Why do you teach kids to be proper" is the title of my new performative album.
Some time ago, I was at Kysak train station waiting for my train to Krompachy. There is a waiting room in the building, in...
Tiny twin fluttering fans dart up to hover just there,
beak fronting and losing its length to bud inside.
Wonder of airs elite sharp drawing sap succulent
stand we aghast at the seminal speed entranced
by powers so small whoops a daisy, oh...
I’m still suckin air
big Bob says
when I ask him how he’s
doing
to be funny I say that sucks
he doesn’t get the pun
and thinks I may wish him ill will
get it
sucks?
as in the sucking of the air?
but he still doesn’t get...
As midnight tolled its long count
our host Stefano tumbled down
into the oleander plants
around the border of the lawn
Valley dogs were barking
as we pulled him from the fiori,
laughing and unspectacled.
We offered our grazie mille
then left by separate ways
diverging from the lantern light
into...
it doesn’t matter if it followed
a single night of passion
weeks of an affair
or a lifelong commitment
the consequence must be embraced
this stirring has its own life
a tiny soul to share and shelter
its own fate to pursue
deformed or stillborn
perfect in all...
Click any image to view full-screen.
sick in bed
I hear talking outside
the fan is blowing too fast
that motorcycle is too loud
somebody’s music is playing obnoxiously
every sound is intrusive
how did they get so ugly in my head?
like a chipped tooth smile
perhaps the sounds aren't disgusting but...
I've got
no excuses
for my mistakes
or the awkwardness
that falters inside me
or the yolk yellow prevaricatorial
nature of my emerging posture as a goat
inhabiting the corner of a building
and working toward a distant conclusion
where the human infection that is
consuming me will either...
father's ashtray
the night she died
silent volcano
This is a two track single named Magnitude 8.0 I finished some time ago.
The two tracks are
A side - Sun Runner
B side - Kill for Candy, Fuck for Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAFHGZR9u0g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKS6PFr_NYQ
my boy
will not get
a game ball
it is a foregone conclusion
you can see the truth
of my assumption
in the glittering eyes
of the kid-with-the-big unit-windup
and the griffey jr. stance’s
mom as she
asks me, quite disinterested
offhand
fully focused on my lack
of success in nurturing a...
in the other chair
he had
a pensive look
as if unsure
i was ill-fit enough
to grace
the darkness
of his halls
i guess
i may stick around
a while
Dear Tenant,
It has come to our attention that you’ve really been appreciating shelter. You lie on the couch and are so grateful to have a place to rest your aching mind. You look at the cat and imagine yourself...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/she-left-me-for-a-william-burroughs-novel-1
Looking out a summer window
wondering where it's all gone
coming up with distances
falling through a prism like a song
Sunlight plays over the Spanish wall
a dragon shaped cloud moves
toward the Guatemalan moon
like it's got something to prove
There's an impossibility here
you know...
Click any image to view full-screen.
he asked me who will be afraid of our ghosts
ghosts of humans
when we are gone
i replied the animals
then after i thought
it will be everything left
behind us
plants and earth
land and seascape
littered with the stuff
of us
the terrible ghosts
there's a dreamer at the edge of the prairie,
an ancient angel of brutal sex, arranging his affairs
he's bravely able, the bull in the maze, the wolf on the hill, slave of chaos
a perfect cranium crater not interested in rape
but...
Click any piece to view full-screen.
I am going through old brands
one by one until I find that diner counter
white cup with two creams and a dark
green stripe around an ordinary
afternoon. The waitress's smile is an absent
nod to 1964 and warms up my dubious want
from...
Now available in our Resources section is a copy of the original, out-of-print magazine Clock Radio #2. This is a special "Bukowski" issue, featuring mostly work by Charles Bukowski.
Complete author list:
Charles Bukowski
Robert Peters
Tom Clark
Janet Gray
Lyn Lifshin
You will need to...
Q: Would you categorize poetry as fiction or nonfiction? My own opinion would be nonfiction because it speaks or alludes to universal truths no matter the form or content.
A: Please understand and accept that text is not a human...
https://soundcloud.com/concussionbox/easy-lies
Takes a few miles
to get there.
Gotta get warmed up
calibrate to conditions
get through the lights
outta traffic.
Find a rhythm
a gear ratio
a cadence
a speed
in sync
with threshold
breathing.
The road unfolds into
coming coming coming
gone gone gone
…coming coming coming…
…gone gone gone…
Between coming and gone
is me
stilling.
around the house by the glow of fairy lights
from above the window and a lemon moon
centered underneath. There is a path worn
into the saltillo floor made of feral dog prints
and worry which I follow believing after midnight
they lead away...
"Arf!" I barked,
hoping she'd acknowledge my existence.
No luck. A woman with a dog
is more content
than any woman
with a man. Dogs
love unconditionally;
not men. Dogs
want food and attention:
men want a threesome,
it's their dream.
The fate of all men
is to lose domestic bliss
to...
all the libtards wearing masks
that’s how you know who they are
fuckers suffocating our kids
pandemic’s never existed anyway
global elite just want to
inject us with magnets
heavy metals and poisons
tracking sensors and microchips
space lasers shooting us dead in the streets
libtard death actors...
I guess they’ve read enough
Dan Flore poems
here’s one to shove at them
I put out a cigarette on it
because there’s only ashes left of me
text me, sext me your red hair
burn up my screen with it
I’ll put the smell of...
I think Teddy Roosevelt stayed here once
after the asylum and before the second fire
back in the time of postcards and parasols
ostrich feathers and wicker rockers
stains on the remaining walls of the bath house
show where the sulphur water once leveled
gardens...
At the institute for divine research
we smeared live brain cells
on microscope slides
to see what consciousness looks like.
Under intense meditative stress
we stared into space
wondering if god
needs a therapist
because
he's an introvert
and traumatized
from being ad infinitum
everlasting. No wonder
god's favorite time of year...
It's not the impending absence,
but the calculated haste
and slow sudden death;
it's the free fall dream
where you wake just before impact;
it's the time lapse of stars
and reason,
lessons learned too late
and forgotten too soon;
it's the casual leaving behind
of sacred things
and the...
it’s Sunday night
and I was at my mom’s house
for the weekend
and we are going
through the McDonald’s drive thru
as a treat
because we have to
say goodbye
the fries seem
a little colder and mushier
I don’t want to leave my mom already
the ketchup squirts...
I would define this project as an attitude, expression, or gesture (which is the way I do things in other art disciplines), but now I used some other mediums. I have a habit of depriving utilitarian objects of their...
Click any image to view full-screen.
I've spent the past week thawing bags of frozen peas,
saving our microwave the burden.
Now I stand at a clinic counter holding an empty semen specimen cup.
The young female attendant points to a door.
A tiny room.
Bright halogen lights and a...
the dirt patch under
the power plant
has seen some grim fairy tales
overlooking dreamstreet
the mangiest of mushrooms
grow there, spottily,
near dessicated evergreens
and faux palmettos
it was the last stop
on the groove line
& she, the last customer
stepping off,
she tossed the
Korbel bottle at
one of the...
By the Brazos River a butterfly crossed my path;
twice it waved its wings when I cried already missing you,
wished we had taken you one last time before
to wade in the water; you couldn’t walk, but you wanted to.
We carried...
These portraits are from the series "I took that personally." —Nicholas Wintzler
Click any image to view full-screen.
There’s a hum
under all the noise
the quiet voice
of silence
a sound of void
filling muted noise
like the dark of night
fills receding light.
An old bar called
The Rose Tattoo
flew in from the past.
The flat blue outline of floret
appeared on an imaginary arm, filled
with that dank red
only pink flesh
could hold.
I hadn’t heard
Tangled Up in Blue
in ten years.
Early one morning
some redhead
flicked on the radio
in...
Nothing approaching
the soul-on-fire,
“I saw the best minds
of my generation destroyed
by madness…”
more like tossed potato salad.
Still, I don’t put down my pen.
My desktop Thesaurus
tries to help,
recommends I use
“ne’er do well”
to describe this slacker
source of inspiration
with a bad attitude.
I resort to...
Day after day with no entries in my Google calendar.
Tell a friend who lives in Philadelphia to move to Idaho.
Disable my Facebook messenger service, I mean, WTF!?
He's 53 and has a 1 year old. It's hot. I have a new shirt.
Re-check...
the dirty swill marks of yesterday's wine
using bottled water
this is crazy
it is 36c and 8pm
the sweat ring around my titties is visible
what more can go wrong
the wine is chilled
I have one ice cube left
in this moment
when the ice makes...
i guess you are out on the bike speeding about the tracks
whizzing along
and i may have found a photo and wonder if it is true
exercise came unusual friday
a walk with the cat in tow
not too far for fear
of losing...
My whole day today is going to be writing in a notepad that I used to care about
I'm going to write about how much of a sick old bird I've gotten to be
how I'm an old lady in Acme...
EXPLORE
digital/mixed media art
Sit Down Beside Me
Girl of Our Dreams or Nightmares
Mother of Flowers
Dressed To Kill
Self Portrait with Alterations
Beatific Vision
Girl with Polka Dots
Creation of the Universe
Sammy
Mi Casa...
