A lunatic in a Tucson Walmart
placed a Ben & Jerry’s pint
of “Oat of this Swirled”
into his shopping cart
& unsolicited, he began telling me
how innocently it started,
his becoming a lunatic
one night in Bisbee, AZ
by complimenting
the milking color
of the full moon’s...
He was a celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century.
I am a middle-aged-white dude-high school English teacher in full Hail Mary mode, going long on the MFA, seconds left in the game.
He was one of the greatest singers...
Click any image to view full-screen.
Sunday, you rotten bitch
everything is closed
and there's nowhere to go
even if shit was open
Roger's wasted
so is Zack
some guy
is blowing
his lawn clippings
into the street
my wife is sick
but she doesn't want to
admit it
the cops are trying to
make their traffic ticket quotas
and...
For those of you on Facebook, we've started a group so that
publishers can post calls for submissions and
writers and artists can post publication announcements.
Here it is:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/submityourwork
Why are we doing this? It's an experiment, like everything else, and...
My dog
is a sonofabitch.
In his mind
I am dog
separated
from my mother
as a puppy
when we tug
a white sock.
It’s a dog
eat dog world
but not in my house.
I don’t want
to put whines
in his mouth
but in his eyes
I see myself
reflected –
a muttonheaded-
birdbrained-dingbat-
turkey-jackass
for keeping him
out...
Click any image to view full-screen.
During the period of creating the Agnosia photographic series, I was inspired by visual agnosia. Visual agnosis is a disorder of knowing familiar things and their meaning, people, or spatial relationships. A person suffering from visual agnosia cannot recognize...
Fledglings leave the nest,
the nest is an egg, its
shell cracked open.
We tell our children stories
about the heat of the sun
& of melting wax.
They smile & watch us
slowly dissolve
inside our longings
to enter into the light
after we have taught them
to apply
the...
I left my window open. Moonlight knocked over
the dresser, flung socks and secrets like a thief
scared away mid-theft. A fly rummaged my body. I survived
bombs meant for I know not who, mistook my beating heart
for unexploded ordnance. Whose war...
I break my hard shell shield from sharp cold,
find soft shoots and grass to eat in the warm.
As I grow out my young selves into old
I eat tougher stems, and my wings take form.
My stomach hears sounds. droplets from...
All I think about is killing you.
With my .38 caliber pistol barrel
stuffed into one of your nostrils,
that you dig and pick.
The bullet trajectory angled at your brainstem.
A one shot explosion,
an extermination,
splattering toxic brain bits.
Then I will remove your fingers...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/booda-wot-doddy
nobody knows where it is I been
but you can bet I’m goin’ back again
booda wat doddy
booda wat doddy
wadda bop den
when your number comes round
oo wop a dee bop baby
the riddim woman rides that sound
she got a hoodoo eyeball drive...
another night of nothing
the TV is giving me a headache
the fans are blowing
in fact the fans aren't just blowing
they're blowing up
minutia is flying everywhere
I hate every second of this
I begin to understand
nothing is an illusion
there is always something
something
is
happening
to me
tonight
though...
Most days
Shuffling behind him, collecting his socks,
She regards his three heads and
Two left feet, bedhead breath, beer belly,
Broken bones and battered plans
And sighs.
Wraps a great blanket of judgment
Around him, burrito style,
And calls it love
Or something.
Until today.
Alone out on the...
the day i first
declared myself
The Artist
you laughed so hard
we both wet ourselves
it was autumn
of some year
and we left behind
a smoking crater
that was once Paris
i knew i was
The Artist
when the drawing
i had just finished of you
naked on a red bedsheet
compelled...
Of all the forgotten faces
let me be one.
Like the wind
felt
but unseen.
Like the dot
that never grew
beyond
any dimension.
An epiphany
of
voice, thoughts
and feelings.
A regurgitation
of moments
that never stilled.
a tiny chinese woman in sumatra
moves from shanghai so she
can be poor there instead
makes me a stir fry with onions &
bok choi, ginger & ants—
tiny ants that taste just like pepper
somewhere between our broken
indonesian and my very broken
comprehension, we...
If I had more time—
neither family nor job, neither
errands nor sense of duty—
I would visit every week,
light, free of all this weight
which presses me to the soil,
the way a low-flying plane
flattens a field of fragile wheat:
praise the interval between...
we all face is the falling—
that gradual descent
between young energy
warm spunk
and the weary bones
eaten by each and every day
the heap is not a bad place
from here I can see lights
those supers
and below the murmurs
of discontent
the stirring ashes
churned by their...
You like those poems
Americans write
where some lines
are just
one
word
Emphasis
And nowadays
it’s all the rage
to write poems
with slashes/which
really have no/
purpose/that
a line break
wouldn’t achieve.
And as for rhyme…
No one’s allowed
to use that
except
Performance
Poets
who force in rhymes
where they’re not/needed
making their poems
cheesy as fuck
like a duck who’s
outta...
oh we talked gravel yesterday
how they sent a substitute
that I had not ordered the wrong colour
explained I quite like things come random
that all was well with the path
yet not the politics
it is suggested i don’t go down that road
nor...
I used to tell people
hey, I got published
and they would always ask
did you get paid?
invariably the answer was no
so now I just keep it to myself
I go out on the deck
with a cigarette and an energy drink
smoke and sip
my...
I stretch before an open window, shaking off
a sticky ache, a symptom of two days and nights
of flitting from one party to another.
Ecstasy evaporates,
leaves an empty halo around my head.
An inner hush heralds the arrival
of my narrator, who knows...
I tagged Barbara
because she is obsessed with
protecting wild herds.
Not sure why I included the descriptor
prom date on my post
but Donny replied,
You are the best Jenn.
You always have been.
Storm of interpretations commence:
maybe he regrets
maybe he wished
maybe he still...
What did he...
you're gonna
meet death
out there
somewhere
you could die
in a place where
someone else has pissed
or where no one
has ever died
tra-la-la & boom
man going by
on his bicycle
piano in his apartment
he plays at night
all the way to dawn sometimes
tra-la-la & boom
tra-la-la & fade
a man...
I hang my tired shoes
on a power line
above the height
of tireless hopes
not to fall down again
not to be worn
by a naughty kid
whose life-long running
has never quenched
her thirst for playing
Sometimes I go
by the name
of Avideco
She tells me
that it sounds
like the old
ice cream brand
Avidesa
I tell her
that it means
Greedy
in Esperanto
She thinks
that I’m ridiculous
I agree with her
100 per cent
the pigeons
do their dancing bits
right here on the
street and call it life. If
you stay still on Sundays
you can hear the flute music
at the underpass
where they meet,
pigeon angels
singing to the winds
wearing purple feather vests
their golden eyes raised
their beaks
waiting for crumbs
Just out and soon available on Amazon (w/ 2 of my poems), the "While You Wait" anthology.
This was commissioned by our local poet laureate who got a large number of local medical folks to put this in their waiting...
They got me because our canteen over-quenched civilian curiosity
They got me because two hands on your saddle horn I lost the reins
My name is not his name, his eyes
are not your eyes. They got me
and they will do it...
Richmond shakes his head disgustedly.
He taps the filter end of his cigarette
on the corner of his gnarled wooden table.
He sticks the thing in his mouth.
"Bukowski didn't start writing prose
until he was in his forties."
Richmond's eyes are wide; he inhales...
It is possible I reached
my full potential
when I wasn’t looking
or thinking straight
I may have left
my ideal self behind
in a jail cell
under a bare light bulb
when I rushed outdoors
thinking I was free
https://soodabehpoems.wordpress.com...mOS23IMdQKutp0ONzSycm4PuLhto9bFN7XkBuN8DNpZGo
The book is available on amazon:
The passwords of my Bank accounts
shall get buried with me & no skeletons
will remain. My self-centred children
might guess the names of my dream girl
(Deepika Padukone) & childhood crush
(Martina Hingis) but will never be able
to know about my special character.
They shall keep...
please tally
all the languages
in the world
sojourning linguists
at last count 7,117
are spoken
a ton
of different tongues
the # of poems
incalculable
my hypothesis
to formulate
our thoughts
we grind & encase
our notions
like sausage inside
the skins of words
& inside
the skin of a poem
meaty &/or
plant based
words return
to thoughts unground
A first today.
I cried at work.
Been plenty angry
while working jobs.
Never bawled.
One positive—
I work at home.
My daughter is five,
traumatized—melts down
in daily transitions—
screams, throws chairs.
Classrooms evacuated
while in blind red rage.
This is her normal,
accustomed to the colours
of her brother’s lingering,
pre-adoptive trauma.
Her teachers...
For Kelly, whose tomatoes never made it to Rachael
Forgive me
I have taken the tomatoes
I was supposed to pass on to your friend
I have dropped the cherry bombs
Into an innocent cast iron pit
Thick with garlic, green pepper and buttery yellow...
So, I finally did it ... published a "book" of my poetry. Please stop by and have a look, and maybe even read a poem or two. Thanks to everyone who's been part of this epic journey.
Totally Disconnected Website
This selection of photos comes from Paul’s ongoing photography series, Limited Light. The series was born from a desire to photograph artists in a way that captured the essence and emotion of their art, rather than focusing solely on...
a sharp pain shot through the ground
in a room without windows
car doors slam
buddha arrives
from indiana
with feathers
in her hair
every month
staggers in
with lettuce
turning brown
sky is clear
wind is blurred
it's a perfect day
I kissed buddha
several times
as the sun squatted
behind the forest
it's time for...
the best poems rattle
like a tin can down an empty street
they hang from lamp-posts in the dark
heads shaven
tar holding feathers
from some exotic bird
the best poems hitch a ride home
at 2 a.m.
belly full of beer
heel missing from one shoe
and not...
I saw myself
up ahead
on top
of this sand dune
waving to me.
Now I’m here
nowhere in sight.
I might have known.
These footprints
that don’t exist
here where
I am standing
would have been
the same size
as mine
if they did.
It’s strange.
I was actually glad
to see myself.
I seemed so happy
to...
Longhaired strongman
divorced
weary of seeing
the horrors in the world
has hung up
his jaw-bone-of-an-ass
seeks a Delilah
for fun & bondage
will gladly turn your grind stone
& attend to your place of worship.
in the present extreme
I want it all
to go away
all variations of viability
mainstream or otherwise
artistic principalities
as a means
including
extreme
shall be considered
pray for me mom
in the present
fetter of time
searching for jesus
on a belgian slope
4 soldiers lie
frozen
the way watercolor
captures light
curl and sleep on the...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8m6HUU-70A
Did you know that in the will he made
before he lost his mind, he left it to me?
I cried when I read the old bequest, as if
there had been a subtle restoration
of regard before the bullied revision.
These gaudy heirlooms...
i want to strip
off my cheap clothes
wander out
to the back lot
of my rented, North Hollywood apartment
dig my feet
into contaminated soil
slowly sink, ankles first
lastly my mouth
spilling coins
my own, weird little fucked up
wishing well
the ghost in my house is me
it’s my dog or cat or
nothing, someone
I cant remember who
said—it’s nothing, you heard nothing
nothing brushing past me
nothing in blind spots
nothing misplaced
it doesn’t feel like home; I think
that’s good so I might leave
I think I...
the wind was blowing
the tiny flowers
over
and whipping
against Wendy
they were all too fragile
to be there
lacking a young imperfect secretary
but with a handful of straw
I walk into the bone night
great Italian girls wave to me
from their upstairs windows
so beautiful that when they place
a cigarette between their lips
20 men show up from nowhere
with opened lighters
flicking...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHGneCMNLsg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzt2UOALrGc
Enough, the Centenarian's story ends,
The two, the past and present, have interchanged,
I myself as connecter, as chansonnier of a great future, am now speaking.
("The Centenarian's Story" from Drum-Taps, Walt Whitman)
When I was a boy
not very long ago
they interviewed ex-slaves
for...
the sign on the door says
Believe in Jesus
Christ Be Saved.
By God,
I knock and score
enough for me
and my friend Ben,
the suicidal Chihuahua,
to get tranquilized
alley-wise over by the Walgreens.
between dumpsters
lie wicked dreams:
deposit me in the passenger seat
of didion's bright stingray
screaming down
early...
Information is just another way of keeping people down.
If authority can't justify itself it must be dismantled.
Multiple causality becomes the ultimate finality.
start by asking what does jesus know
about the second coming of 9-11
including mossad's expertise
in controlled demolition
and global pandemics
(won't...
picture and picture of my bare pubescent bodies blur
a tanned and pink magic lantern show
sick stomachs flat or deep
and all my numbered ribs marked off
one when I was nineteen,
between my two hips
a third protrusion
gentle roundfort
green body deformed in that...
i was on the tv show PAN Connection...for 1 hour...which is probably 56 minutes more than necessary...but it is what it is. anyway, i got to talk about my new book SMALL TALK as well as my more than...
“I want a cat.”
“You want a cat that will sit on your lap,” mother intoned.
This is so metaphorical, I thought. It wasn’t even a question; to her, a pet was to be loved by.
“We’re moving through time,” said Donnie...
after the miscarriage I dreamed
I was leaning against a yellow doorway
peering through the half-open Dutch doors
alphabet squares and blankets were draped
in a pseudo-cubist's take on dali
I had an idea which one was mine—
something about the nap-matted hair
half-hiding her wild...
As I watched the sea of Hong Kong millennials
fight with helmed authorities armed to maim or kill,
blue face masks worn also to cover up identities,
bottled water handy to wash off the sting of tear gas,
placards of bold Chinese characters...
family stories of Allen generally
include the phrase
what was he thinking?
and a trip to the ER
roller skating on the front porch—
he stopped himself with
glass panes of the garage door
prying a jammed piece of gravel—
his fingers crushed in the gears
of the...
i tasted myself on him
the way a cat’s tongue
rakes through fur
or a pinched reflection
in the corner of my eye
resembles homesickness
time wraps around itself,
stuttering frames of old movies,
a promise of water
after a long ride
settling onto silk
breathing syncs into tandem
while morpheus...
You convinced me that migraine was
the throbbing ache of the mind, so
I believed you, telling myself
nausea was a dead butterfly
in my belly and vomiting
acid air was the resistance
of my innards because I did
not listen to you, nodding too,
without asking...
Artist Statement:
Years ago when I was 17, my parents hit rock bottom. I went out on my own and ended up living in a trailer park with a boyfriend. I lived there just a couple years before moving...
I follow, as she careens her cart
through Mauna Kea Mall, tossing in cracked cups,
mismatched sheets, biographies
of people no one remembers.
"Why must you rescue beltless bathrobes?"
I pant.
She fades suddenly,
and I’m awake and sweating,
wondering who that was.
Might have been Aunt Margaret,
an artist,...
like
a murder of crows
sitting upon
the branches
of a barren tree,
---squawking
so
my words
rest upon
the black lines of
a white page,
---squawking
there's clippings of bad poetry
all over the deck
where I thought up
and discarded many lines
I have to stack them up
and put them in the dumpster
before they end up
in a poem
primrose says I will be her lips
bean says I will be her thighs
broom says I will be be her clitoris
meadowsweet says I will be her fingers
burdock says I will be her arms.
nettle says I will be her tongue
oak says...
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
brings the priest and the doctor
in their long coats
running over the fields.
("Days," Philip Larkin)
I stopped near the house
of my dead parents,
down a thin lane
pinned by the wind
to vegetable fields,
where unwalked footpaths,
like...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCW3T3xZZwc
For Lawrence Ferlinghetti
When I ate a croissant in bed,
flakes of brown crust
fell upon my pillow,
fell atop the sheets,
and made the white down comforter
resemble a speckled trout
whacked upside the head,
eyes akimbo,
ready for the pan.
Once it was me awaiting the pan,
grunting...
he takes a sky tram
up the columbian mountains
noticing the neighborhoods
crumble deeper
every meter they rise
above the city center
until sheet metal
walls and roofs
become brick
balanced
on top of
mortar-less brick
finally her stop
he assumed she must be poor
but not this kind of
poor
there is nowhere to sit
he presents:
strawberry...
Persuaded by my wife to return to our
marital bed so she does not have to get
up every two hours to monitor
my struggle for every breath and let
her see the progress of my virus symptoms.
As I try to sleep on...
Dance for the day
The location is only known to the few who care to take a long walk mostly uphill. One hears much that is derogatory about Morris Dancing, and yet, adjacent to this spot, is where people dance...
Just for now,
let us narrow the picture,
postpone those conflicts,
see art in a bullet
dormant in its chamber,
allocate the quiet of cancelled epithets
for poetry and benediction,
consider other reasons
to raise a hand,
expand definitions to include
the absence of,
imagine we have finally met
some cosmic...
The moment Galileo Galilei innocently
gave the Books the proverbial finger,
it was clear, there and then, that we'd all
end up in therapy.
Even Atlas was screwed, as his contract
had to be renegotiated and weight
redefined, but he, too, was limited
and couldn't rise...
I get the sequined jeans.
In the window I catch a glance
tight stretch denim, flared legs,
my palms press down my bottom and damn
look at that I do have the hips of a woman!
Historically disguised by androgynous Levi's,
these low riders with...
A crude black crayon drawing
could be anyone.
But the only
other significant color
is blue,
in one eye.
Heterochromia, the Internet offers.
Etched in the back of your mind thereafter,
the word rises every morning
as you brush teeth,
just as the
Houston
Marriott where you met
appears in snatches of...
I'm retired
the clock belongs
to me now
Today is more than just one cup of black coffee after another.
Today, I have enough melancholy stacked on top of more melancholy
to climb up a sad stairway, out of my down-in-the-dumps, here - into
what could be the snow covered...
Regarding a corpse
at the bottom of a ravine,
I wonder if it’s mine.
I wonder if as it tumbled,
sinews tearing like tissue
soaked in another’s tears,
it felt my pain. I wonder
if there is relief in not-
feeling, not-being: absence.
I see no headstones, nothing
to...
feather-sized flakes spin
then faint on the grass
we look at the sky, wondering
eggshell facts melt on our faces
life isn’t quite irresistible
nor do you have to be suicidal
to stare in death’s eyes
the offending knives
the slatted square rooftops
we might have made rounder...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TT6R5OryGU
There was no sign of a woodcutter
in the tin shack raised from the red earth,
the black wood of an archived forest.
Dismembered trees haunted the air,
ghosts in the pungency of cut pine.
A tepid cup sat by a soiled plate
and a...
Laneville-muted sunlight, good sex, bipolar, playing Jay-Z in the morning pissing off the people below me. Laneville-crappy bars and not in a good way, buildings like prisons, walking the streets, so alive unlike now in my catacomb spirit. Laneville...
this game's going down in history
randomly craved poetry
is best
take the enamel right off your teeth
I saw a great grandmother reading it
in her minivan
she imagined Kerouac in his cold northern grave
and smiled as she stuck a poem in the ignition
and...
Before you lost what was left
of your mind, did you have any idea
that the scales of betrayal you kept
even with your thumb would tip so far
against you? We tried to recalibrate them
for the rest of your life. No, we...
I am fascinated by the notion of representing abstract terms with abstract art. —Michael Acker
Perhaps you miss folding the May blossoms,
sakura, creeping phlox, chrysanthemums;
maybe your fingers are itching to fold
cicadas, damselflies, moths you can hold;
endure the gloom so when we meet again,
no one is gone, a folded pine or crane.
I try to keep an appearance
of a well-manicured lawn
but my moles keep showing up
hungry, silently heaving sod.
And I gotta lot of them
so I never leave the yard
stomping the heaves
so they don’t kill the grass.
My wife thinks I’m crazy
and wrecking...
Wishing my penis
could detach itself
and crawl
off somewhere
far away from me
She insists
she understands
how I feel
especially
the moments one
is tempted to snip
it off with a
pair of scissors
or cut it off
with a knife
"You should
not do that"
she orders
"Let it be"
But I tell her
whispering words
of...
The cove
is in a fog;
out on the beach
a meth head
beats his dog.
No one sees
a thing.
some days, a squirrel
jumps up from the oak's branches
above the grandma's balcony
and tells us how to pour
our grief in a cup
of lily of the valley,
how to inspire
a penniless gypsy
to build
a shelter
out of wool,
how to crawl
into the air like
the relaxing...
nothing’s really wrong
I’m just laying in bed
in the middle of the day
because I’m tired
I'm thinking about all the stuff I could do
that I don’t want to do
some people may mistake this as a reaction
to my depression
there’s always a doctor...
you're just a stupid child
she coos
in broken English, mixed in
with some French
swirling around
in there
like strong
Vietnamese coffee
you will never understand
and
she’s right
I never will
I have the same
dull blue
gunmetal eyes
as my father
who flew F-4's over lush
countrysides
dropping fire:
American fathers
always
pour lighter fluid
over 4th of...
He doesn’t know where to start
so he looks into the styrofoam cup
to find a reflection he has become
proud of staring from cold coffee
it holds. A reflection just as nervous
as him. So, after a long, deep breath
he begins.
Even when it...
I need dense text
heavy panting
flowers thrown in the creek
I wanna go back to Cochranville for a week
when it’s summer and I can sleep down in a row of corn
I need sleep
I need the smell of you frying bacon for...
I went to Regents Park Zoo
Sat on the bench at our old spot
Watched the Galapagos tortoises
Dolly, Polly and Dirty Dirk
According to the resident herpetologist
Dirty Dirk is uncommonly randy
For a tortoise in captivity
Though I’ve never seen any evidence of it
Polly...
everything hinges on death
their own black heart locks
the armed chickens within
their copper jacketed cage of
bitter fruit wood ankle deep
in the litter of mass killers
I fear losing my strangeness, my hands and feet
dissolving, my distinctive features bleeding
into a bleary rabble. The patient man perched
on his balcony, who waits for the clan, the tribe,
or the chaotic crowd to decide his future,
he makes me hum...
My stockpile is such that
when I open a drawer I brace
for an avalanche of toilet paper.
In the kitchen are enough cans of beans
to last a months-long struggle, for my son
to pass the hours building beautiful steel pyramids.
I’ve strewn fat...
it is a thankless task
sweeping together
the parts of a person
dismantled by the wind
gauging by feel and heft
if everything is there
the limbs paired
the feet engaged
that they might carry the assemblage
through another day
it is the endless toil
of hands callousing
on rope and...
non profit phone bank job
in hollywood
that I found, on craigslist
in December
when I was
living in Van Nuys
down on my luck
i guess you could call it
a desperation gig
and i shaved my face
took a shower
got the job
for a couple of days
and i...
i heard a scuttle in the bushes
and listened
sensed an angel suffering from a fall
the sounds my body makes
when standing still
gravel crunched as the postman turned
leaving a bank statement
and a 2 for 1 offer on pizzas
under the bushes
i saw where...
There is a tumble
of ribbons and words
forming bows and twirls,
wrapping my thoughts into
pretty little packages.
I line them up one by one
on the shelf
to gather dust.
One day you will come—
eagerly pluck them down,
blow them off,
admire each little gift
before removing the...
He’s old now, very old
living in a recliner
reading his favorite book
about death
feeling like an eaglet
in a treetop nest
curious about
what jumping does.
She wondered how an old boyfriend
spent New Year’s Eve,
if he was there
with his wife
being nice, or maybe mean
saying her clothes looked slutty
or how she came on
to the grocer,
making gossip
in their small northern town.
But now she knew.
It wasn’t much different
than...
I explore gender fluidity in my art, assuming a fictional identity as a female, although I am mostly a straight Asian male, who occasionally fantasizes about becoming a woman. My life is a struggle between two wolves inside of...
OAF friends, if you ZOOM, I'll be one of three poets featured on Flying Out Loud, a Zoom series out of Kentucky, Jan. 11, 7 to 8, EST. If you want to attend, let me know, and I'll send...
New Year,
resolutions rising from reverie
running outdoors with a smile
singing and skipping
into very concrete streets
resolve to pay credit card bills, student loans, interest on interest,
visit sister and mother at last, drive a little slower
stop drinking, drink slower, wear a jacket,...
Today I stop to photograph
a backroad milestone which reclines
in fescue and rough dandelions.
The miles ahead, the miles behind.
Simple numbers all declaring
how far we’ve travelled from our source,
and how much further we may go
along our crooked, shrinking, course.
Perhaps some poet...
the Archangel
with the power to heal,
hovers over the roof
of my house.
He’s been up there
since you left.
I went to a Catholic school.
I tell myself
my guardian angel
was happy to be reassigned.
Raphael keeps my house
safe inside,
me & the dog tame,
neither of us...
Removes unsightly
people whose grease and dirt
spoil your landscape.
Cleans as it polishes, replaces
their awful smell with fresh fragrances.
Their profane beliefs with fresh air.
Their noisy children with heavenly quiet.
Our history with revised pages.
Preserves our pure culture.
They are an infection that will...
Henry was brilliant; at least he had me
believing he was. He read at the Coffee
and Cruellers, the place with the sawdust
and peanuts on the warped wooden floor.
He offered a cupful of courage and got me
to read a few there....
My father remembers ancient banyan trees.
He sees ghosts in the tall temple grass,
smells rain on abandoned sugar cane.
He watches the ocean and waits.
Lately, he sees a tall ship in Honolulu Harbor,
silent and crewless,
and my father thinks
it is there for...
He was positive at 96
approved for hospice care
on O2 and morphine
to make labored breathing comfortable.
His last thought was walking
from the maternity ward
67 years ago holding that tiny casket.
Remember me?
asked the cherub child.
Hold my hand.
When the next breath didn’t come
he...
mixed media on paper, 21,2 x 29,9 cm, 2020
Looking at a man selling tomatoes
my intellect begins to play a game—
are there enough in the fridge?
If there are too many & I buy,
Maria will get mad at me.
If there are none & I don't buy,
Maria will still get...
All animals are equal,
but some animals are
more equal than others.
— George Orwell
I guess I am the lowly spokesbird
that can reveal anything
there is to know about our jungle,
no spin, no hyperbole.
The...
They call it Pattern of Life
The high resolution images
Data, collected by satellite
Analysed to spot the unusual
To predict what happens next
Make a preemptive arrest
Find Jimmy Hoffa
See if McDonald’s is open
If the algorithm suggests
Where I might be in spring
Can I sign up...
I once tried to kick in the screen
of a 21” color tv wearing
my Tony Lama shit kickers.
The boot’s heel & slick sole
slid off the smooth glass
like I was dancing a one legged
boot scootin’ shuffle.
I was drunk on my ass
on...
For Christmas, I received:
A six-pack of Budweiser, with a note from Dad. Start young, preempt disappointment.
An arched eyebrow and muttered menace when I didn’t thank him.
Another story about Mom. A reminder I had her eyes.
Rent and termination notices to burn.
Dad...
Click any image to open viewer.
the waves brought it
right to her feet
that old improbable
message in a bottle.
She took it with her
kept it near
but did not want
to open it
to spoil the mystery
of her selection.
Resting in the garden
she dreams
starfish dreams
opens her hands
like fans of coral
feels her...
These days all we do is swipe.
right for double cheese burger,
left for pasta with white sauce.
Gone are the days when Pav-Bhaji
would be home delivered after hours!
Zomato is a smooth criminal—
it has killed the thrill of chase
but nothing can substitute...
my heart beats less in November
it has nothing to do with love
ice crystals in the morning sun
the dead leaves around my feet
tight shoes
gloved hands
last year’s down jacket
it beats so much faster in July
when I can’t
stop the sun’s honey from...
Publishing a book is important, whether self-published (without imprint) or cooperatively published (with imprint). Yeah, you won't get rich or earn a lot of money from the book sales, but you will open the door of publication opportunities for...
The directions
on the shampoo bottle:
“Wet hair thoroughly
before applying.”
Someone got paid for that?
Why not me?
Here’s my resume.
Published Poet.
Will work for food.
I try on a suit to look handsome for the stars,
ask the mirror what I have gained and what I have lost.
I mourn the death of those yet to die,
seek an urn to hold the ashes of what might...
We sit on the stoop for hours.
A few passersby, one wearing bright red kicks,
Hey man help me out. You wave a royal dismissal.
Red-kicks nods, fades into the sidewalk.
Craving closeness in any form,
I squeeze closer, my shoulder to your shoulder.
You...
You pointed out a spot along the fence in the pasture and
recounted how you once snuck up behind a coyote and
just to see if you could, roped him, deftly
snuck the expert loop of your lasso around his neck.
(After, you...
here's a new batch for you. I know
that i erred when i couldn't resist
and sent several times when you
specifically scowl on excessive
submissions. I guess i was overly
anxious, yearning a slot in your very
fine journal. I'm not really obsessive,
nor one...
He’s addressing the nation on CNN.
How do you know he’s lying? His lips
are moving. Four years ago,
the joke was funny. Now, we shrug,
at a loss for words. Dante damned
corrupt politicians to the Eighth Circle
of Hell, Stone Ditch Number Five.
Even a singing cowboy, back
in...
The petrifying things
that haunt me include
waking up one day to realize
I have become that person
who enjoys the OMG
Facebook games
that make cute acronyms
from the letters of my name
my wine glass empty
spit marks
down the barely reflecting mirror
a book mark in the...
When she says my name it feels like my skirt flipped up
To check for underwear
Under where my brother hid when I was born,
There are now mousetraps and cricket tape and
He was waiting
To tell my name to the slippery red...
Am I impressed? I suppose.
The bull’s head, the horns,
the way you puff up
three times your size. Still
you’re the same old, same old.
Considerate. A bit of a slob.
Some drool, green as mint,
on your side of the pillow.
We are cognizant
of the black hole
at the heart of all
expectations,
yet our love
feels like an orbit;
slow and elliptical
around a private sun.
I, male, seem flighty
as though driven
by the panic of
self-propagation.
While you, the woman,
sufficiently immune
to the shadows
of destruction,
are committed to
the growth of...
A violet aura fades to indigo along the skyline.
The drug of anger, and euphoria, are extinguished—
everything that gives me purpose
is extinguished.
Extinction appears, on the twilit road,
dressed in a hooded, knee-length raincoat;
implacable as a stop sign, they point across the...
Ocean City, NJ, 1967
Meggs arrives wearing dangling earrings and attitude
Afternoon walk: Nefertari and Ra
My mother
waited up late for me
early Sunday mornings
chain-smoking cigarettes
off the pilot light,
her gas flame-blue shadow
cast across the kitchen
as I came up the back stairs
from the porch;
All the other rooms
slept.
Cigarettes burned,
all the other rooms
tossed and turned.
Darkness
never felt
so good.
In...
"The creature
that does nothing
will get dafter!
And dafter!
And dafter!"
A man alone
keeps screaming
as he walks towards
Leicester Square
where at 8 am
barely a soul is stirring
where no creature
will hear him.
King (in his own world)
De deskundige
Selectieve verontwaardiging
Counting the days
The wrong side of history
belongs to people who eat candy corn
one color at a time.
Scientists say
the twelve ingredients include
sweeteners, artificial colors,
animal skin and bones
and little red insects from Asia.
Those on the wrong side of history
reject this ingredient list as
liberal...
Compose it now, as a guarantee of surviving
this turbulent age, take it out for reassurance
when you need it most,
like a fifth of vodka,
or memories
of an appaloosa mare,
calling to you from across the pasture.
Recollections of the moon rising over the...
1.
there is a strange hill
at the cliff’s edge
verdant and delicious
smoothly curved
from the distance
it is not a hill, really
not stone flesh
with hairs pricked up
green to the follicle
branches
push up under the surface
creating a hollow
hill of trees
we hide us in it
I am...
I don’t use a washcloth in the shower. It’s probably bad for me. Not exfoliating, I mean. I bet someone has died from it. Somewhere, I read that dust is 70% skin, which means when you walk into the...
"Chun" is a series that I am working on in which I depict myself as an Asian woman, although I am a straight male, in order to explore gender fluidity and to express my love and appreciation for female...
Silence chauffeurs loss,
I call it—God—
another conundrum unsolved.
A discreet chill lingers to speak,
a farewell from the arctic concludes:
if millions of anything dies
it isn’t equally tragic.
Primates are most vile;
what could Jane Goodall see
in chimpanzees?
Maybe as humans, we are of different genera,...
something in the moonlight
like one long goodbye
I never heard
there's just the upholstery staring at me
the long death of the day
click and drag on a cigarette
have you ever cut a flower
on a summer evening when it's not too hot
and smelled...
“Dick Hertz and Connie Lingus, phone call.”
That was always me. I’d call the restaurant
and tell the hostess: “Huge emergency!”
I always told the waitress, “Cock tail, huh?”
A wise guy. Smart-ass. And I’m still that way.
Melania’s embarrassed to go out with...
Mel took off to Cleveland last winter
cramming everything
she really needed
into a hatchback Honda Accord:
herself, her purse,
a fluffy Alaskan Malamute Koda.
Her blue 10-speed Peugeot
got left behind—
that bicycle rests against
the wall
of my garage
to this very day
tires gone flat now
dust covers frame.
I saddle-up...
California, 2020
North, South, and Central,
wildfires under a quarter moon
threaten the entire state.
The fire moon looks down on them
red as it rises into the night.
The Devil, I think,
grins there tonight
as I walk along the street,
avoiding late-summer heat and smoke--
the evil...
.
there are things made bright
bled
folded
autumn arrives
and the yellow eyes close
sunflowers jiggle
then lean
upturned dirt chokes-up
children's fingers
birds
dive
on
a
belch
of
wind
:
i want to go
.
An apple orchard;
slim pathways on the hill
in the near distance
have turned blue
in dawn light.
I tell blonde Alice
I’m going to head out
to take photos.
Where? She asks.
I say anywhere
they jump out at me,
and she laughs
as if I’m chasing rabbits.
The valley we’re...
Michael B. Carroll Jr.
I’m not mad. I’m angry
We are not a threat to your America.
I’m not mad. I’m angry…
so angry that I could explode, spontaneously, like an unstable gas.
Don’t you understand that we yearn and fight to
prove that we...
They pile us on a field. Try to identify us, contact loved ones.
I think of older sister Nancy.
She must be coming.
She could joke about my love of Polo shirts and say I love you. Call me a man-child, but with...
We have tons of hammers but not enough shoes.
Really, isn't it the same for you? We'd be just fine
if all that's required is beating out the gold leaf
of our down time until it covers this comedy of fright.
We might...
I am ashamed of my schism,
my contortionist brain and tongue.
Told status is a ticket to love.
Take hurried notes on how
to be righteous.
Worship Satan at my school.
Eat full-metal propaganda.
I should be enough–one day.
I am a contradiction.
Confess on knee through a...
just
don't
fucking talk to me
don't try to buy me
a drink
just
don't engage
...
-after "Einstein’s Dreams"
A man and woman walk hand in hand down the Grabenstrasse. The street is quiet on a Tuesday afternoon. An aproned man shakes a rug over the sidewalk; scraps of dust and paper settle on a pair...
My virginity is still lost somewhere in Athens, Greece.
After serving my hippie time
for marijuana possession
I admit I was happy that prisons exist.
I didn’t need rehabilitation then
like so many of those assholes.
I must have driven drunk a thousand times
after my...
The artist Ann Chernow was born in 1936 and grew up in New York City. She has worked extensively in the mediums of lithography, silkscreen, etching, and colored pencil as well as oil painting. Known as “The Queen of...
When my son died
I was devastated by
the colossal waste
that was his mind.
That rare nonjudgmental
visionary kind.
My flattened affect belied
a manic hemispheric need
to understand his death.
When my son died
I became less human.
Existed anesthetized
by pills and booze and doubt.
Garish makeup my disguise...
Aisyday is a collector of things.
Hats and canes. Handbags. Scars.
I can't be sure. I am certain.
She saw me as hard tissue. A door
left ajar. What I said. Honest.
Insecure and reaching.
A ringing nerve along her jawline.
Me. Jarring and disobedient. Always.
Her...
baby Christmas trees
in a field
little bump in the backseat
driving past them
but most of my life I’ve been intense
no wonder I’m crazy
no wonder my little pill bottles have eyes but I’m the one who’s always watching
I’d like to give you...
I refuse to die in a bunker, even if
it’s with you, my dear. I want the
slow death of struggling for light,
hand in hand, through the tremors
and the flames. Do you recall when
we thought things were okay? I am
thankful to...
In the port of Saint Petersburg
wavy-haired mathematicians
exhale vodka and sanctions-ringed cares
and caviar and smoke-circles
and vodka, questioning
the nature of consciousness, until they lose theirs.
In the port of Saint Petersburg
nests of Greek-column-roofed
cloud-tickling fortresses where crane-drivers bask
in the sub-arctic majesty
pull mothers with...
Comforted by the rough of the stucco wall, my back
leaning on the hint of dew as I watch the moon hide
out of shame, alone now, struggling to finish the day,
trying to unearth all blues in the black of the...
who sit with understanding.
Focused, iridescent eyes
attend to your wet ones.
Well-timed hops on your lap,
headbutts; well-placed paws,
chins by thighs on couches.
Furry steps tap out
you are not alone. We got this:
anxiety, infertility,
marriage, adoption,
parenting, childbirth,
divorce, depression and death.
When it is time,
they become...
hammer apple
peacock tank
poached
|
raisin leather
defunct traction
capstan
|
boulder frack
inflate piss
ratchet
|
your anus above me
like a faucet
up a tree
|
your ice lolly
a placard
for your love
of contrast
|
catapult invert
potato reputed
curving
|
palace slippery
inkwell rebate
stone
.1
For the umpteenth time this mangled year
she asked me why I was crying
mama what’s wrong mama
the coffeepot was sputtering
vainly promising my restoration
on yet one more in a long line of mornings
too familiar to my desperations
what was I supposed to...
Some Pinky pencils live longer
as they remain hidden in the dusty
pockets of blazers
that no longer fit.
Then there are unconcerned
ones that idle in a pen pot
and their only job is to make
managers look busy.
Some hibernate on dressing tables,
others remain in...
A small shiny insect crawled methodically across
the clean, white sheet of paper,
trying to crawl across before I stained it
with my useless words.
So arrogant and determined in his steps.
I am grateful it was not a spider.
So very grateful it was...
It was by no means
coincidence that a tortoise
the size of a manhole cover
walked out of the open desert
and into the path of our car.
I believe in the goddess
of close calls now and built her
a hand polished shrine by the...
for Trish Saunders
First off, it isn’t Mr. Trump.
It’s Mr. President. Alright?
You want my tax returns?
I’ve 5 accountants working on them full-time,
but you can’t get even one to squeal on me?
You don’t deserve it then.
I’ll give you one big clue....
Strangers
We never shared the same space;
circumstance kept us apart.
We passed so close I’m sure
we must’ve touched
on some level, but life went on
unaware, invisible threads.
Friends
I got you to laugh in the middle
of our tragedies, and you let me
cry until I...
so full of yourself
with no room available
before you implode
My grandmother
asked. I was six years old
and thought she had met
Abraham Lincoln.
An old beach photo caught
her in sandy ankle boots
and cinched waist, her long
hair blowing free of its pins.
She had lost her husband
in France to shell shock
and later to...
I buy my own groceries,
fix my own meals, wash
my dirty dishes: what more
could a woman want?
She might want a stiff erection,
that's what: something I last had
back at the turn of the century.
She might want a man to give her...
Edwin was going bald
in high school.
Don’t ask me to describe him.
Just take my word for it.
He was not handsome.
The popular girls
didn’t want his cooties.
When he laughed
his buck teeth bucked.
His thick glasses
made his eyes look fat.
It’s no surprise
that Edwin
was a...
gust on a carousel, revolve in Summer sun
as she kals to her mam on her doorstep.
Blown me nose on more material.
says her mam. Cheese-wire me arse.
They're comfy, mam. 'sides
lads like 'em.
Off you mean. When they've
got it on 'em.
Both snort...
I won’t accept death delivered in prose.
Darkness fell twice tonight; can we still know
what’s real? Give me your hand and we'll compose
ourselves. Do you recall, not long ago,
when one could mourn but not despair? When pain
made sense? I’m tired....
was
this old
friend of mine
who gave me my first
and only award for poetry.
it was
near 3 in the morning
and we
were drunk
on cheap vodka,
complaining
how we couldn’t
get published anywhere
and never
won any awards for our work
and
we were
standing on this corner
ready
to call it a night
and
he...
I kissed her cheek
and whispered,
"Good to see you."
Snore opened to smile,
her eyes looked up.
"Hello!" she said like a girl.
Then I went into a room with her
back on the day I was born.
