mixed media on gallery canvas
36x48"
Lorette C. Luzajic
www.mixedupmedia.ca
My doctor said to play with my cat as a coping mechanism to prevent my suicide
but neither one of us feels like playing today
I...
I guess you saw it coming
I guess you'd marked the edge well
as we walked the path
failure is its own reward
I guess you'd call me...
reading Leonard Cohen
by candlelight,
visualising
bonfire night,
your birthday
were you still alive
under that streetlamp,
we could walk together
to your bench
and talk awhile
it’s what we always did best—
just talk,...
it could be fashioned
of iridescent plumage,
gilt and crimson,
a phoenix in transition,
transformed,
unbeaten
is this thing that we say
in this Mar Vista
restaurant that i open
and close
open
and close
open
every night
it means, to us
let’s go home
lucio
is the dishwasher
in this place
he’s...
If I remember right,
Jesus arrived at the trailer where we lived in Glenville
during the summer when Papaw Henry
poured gasoline all around the elm tree...
Heel-to-toe, he taps to the harmonics of
reverberating bounces and swish-swooshing tempos,
and to the serenades of sirens outside his window.
He dances the Dig Toe Step to beer...
Mother plays piano. It’s a dark night. She plays all the saddest pieces. Tchaikovsky seems to break her piano apart with fervency. Debussy’s sad,...
It’s true, what you said,
if I don’t love myself
I can’t really love you.
I kissed my reflection
on the lips last night
in the motel mirror
mostly as...
I.
My father
would’ve laughed his ass off
at how overly concerned I am
about treating his ashes
like a delicate antique;
he’d say he didn’t care
‘cause he was dead.
My...
‘member
seeing your little brother
just outside Angkor Wat
wearing your father’s face
‘fracted through
a dented, busted
rear view
scooter mirror
peeling plastic husks
from Milky Way
Candy bars
Kalashnikov slung ‘round
his shoulder:
like friending...
I sometimes think of Lazarus
when I feed the seven fishes
in my little pond, my sister
coming back to life, asking
how goldfish could live so long
I...
“A breathless Death is not so cold as a Death that breathes.” —Emily Dickinson
I’m no Dante, lost though I may be,
Nor you my Beatrice,...
The man swallowed
480 ball bearings.
One sphere a minute during
his last eight-hour shift.
No unemployment lines
for the human anchor
sitting upright
on the floor of the sea.
The scuba...
Come to Italy and live in the sun, you write.
Serenity is a giant orange
waiting to be plucked from the gnarled tree near
the old tracks.
Look,...
write for the lost
the
fucked
the insane
most of us
are never comfortable
anywhere
born into a boxer’s stance
weak like fading
orchids, weeping
a NYC fire
escape
hellish summertime
shifting, endlessly
downing pints of
IPA’s
b4 winter salsa...
When moving was certain
Anna pried off the old wrought iron
bell and replaced it with a ghost.
An evening echo to ring down
a thousand twilight suppers...
As I grow older, I see how places and events all interconnect, that what I do with my life affects not only my family...
I stand, pale fine hands clasped over my long skirt and white starched apron -
docent to strangers, in the kitchen of an ancient Vermont...
...though Darling took a charge for one once, and, thrusting her arm into a gum's hollow, she left us well behind to break it...
QUEPOS *
A chunk of a rare type of meteorite crashed into a Costa Rican village this spring. Experts say it likely contains clues to...
My state allows us to compost human remains
I imagine a flower
growing from your mouth
violet or weed? who cares really—
be a place for bones to...
I counted four old people scanning groceries at six open checkouts
I see them everywhere in retail jobs we held in our twenties
jobs you kicked...
Jane from Hastings
got me a 25g score of smack
from some ex of hers
we spread foil and crumble
a small amount of the powder
onto the foil
lighting...
Panasonic camcorder as a self portrait
At most, it was a routine guess before I had industry down a tunnel. I caught the business of...
I’m at the vet with my roommate while her cat is dying behind a few sets of closed doors, & I notice the purple...
nothing's worth anything anymore
I'm surprised my memories were worth anything at all
hours of old video games
sold to some woman who was so mean it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCKt7im62ik
36x48," mixed media on gallery canvas
Acrylic on burlap canvas
18" x 24"
Decay is the theme here. My two inspirations were pond scum and tree diseases.
I mixed baking soda, baking powder,...
I pour my thoughts into a lamp’s light,
and I sense I am heard. I speak as a father,
reciting all the usual warnings and legends,
but...
It was the season of fruit flies
that brought us to the orchard—
no reptile could ever convince me
that you were the gravest of sins.
I caught...
I hurt you, you hurt me twice as much.
Here is how thick boughs grow.
I’m waiting for your carcass to be stripped
of all its withered foliage by the gales.
Your leaves were screwed and twisted back in June,
brown long...
Keep her in the dark. In water. She's no good dead. Gotta cut her while she's fresh. Slip your chipped knuckles into her accordion...
Instead of travelling to a place
I’ve never been
to see something I’ve never seen,
I prefer the seclusion of my backyard.
Marveling over the elusive
residing in familiar...
was the same as the first time I kissed a girl
the same as the first time I kissed anyone.
My tongue in your mouth like...
everything gone
flaccid
my droopy blue
suede
strap on
little anchors
in clouds
precipitated worms
choke fly
crows
like bags of black keys
not meant to amuse
you
never know when to screw
when called upon, I act
test
fuck...
he only hires
pretty girls
i knew that
as soon as i handed
in the application
the rest of the
cashiers are
brooding brunettes
and a young
brassy blonde
steve was pissed
off, "you always...
heron stalks planted,
sunfish glisters—sharp beak snaps—
morning dissipates
Sadly, I imagine you will wake, too,
because the silence has changed colour,
the way, fluting across a murky water,
a swan’s light may gently startle you,
gleaming...
i have tasted air bag, it’s a badge of honor, a one-way ticket to epiphany, it tastes like burnt rubber, like powdery words sucked...
with a nod to Joseph Rice
We only rent the past from the shade
of our declining tribe. They are our elders
laughing under the polaroid image...
the times I pined to leave the city
the clefts between
myself and the friends I lost
the jobs I lost, the plants that
succumbed to mold, to...
The problem with being a dyke
is standing in front of your mirror, naked,
feeling both admiration & shame
for the woman in front of you,
who locks eyes with...
I eat a half dozen Funfetti cupcakes
& then one more
because I cheat on my diet
& I cheat on my girlfriend
in my imagination
only in my...
(after Shelley’s “England in 1819”)
A demagogic moron mad with power;
his brood snapping their tongues at golden flies
with reptile grins of brazed entitlement;
the people’s servants...
The Charles Bukowski Society (Bukowski-Gesellschaft in German) will celebrate the first 100 years of Charles Bukowski in Bamberg, Germany, from June 22 through June...
Summer Couple
Abyss
Entrance
Cocaine Voodoo
When he asks why, I say because I’m out of money.
& because I know there’s a shoebox in the garage
with a pair of clippers...
Below are some poetry thoughts from Wayne Dodd, from a course I took from him in 1991 at Ohio University.
Language as magic, as...
I didn’t really learn what bisexual was
until college, part Intro to Women’s Studies
textbooks, part kissing girls with boyfriends.
The books spit out words like fluid
& continuum, & the...
We all try to get what we can
out of life. Me, I could make do
if you give me a job that pays
enough to get...
she
spread
her
legs
open
with
her
pen
and
let
me
fill
in
the
spaces
We memorized poems
to pass them on,
past the strident winds
out of the Kremlin.
When I walk the avenue
lined with our history,
I trust you to guard
the ashes...
My friend, a poet, over a cup of coffee,
depressed & roaming around in his head
like a bear looking for berries while waiting
for the salmon...
Inisheer Rust 3Decomposition Series 1, Plassey InteriorEngine Room
Descomposition Series II Plassey RustDecomposition Series Harbor Rust I Inisheer Rust IV
Watercolour and acrylic paint on L'Aquarelle Canson Heritage Block 200gsm cold-pressed watercolour paper - 34cm x 51cm
I wake up one morning
and look out the window
and there’s no car in the
driveway but I’m not going to
call this theft; it’s retribution,
paying me...
Black leather, on
Jeggings, tobacco
A femme Danny Zuko
Something’s about to happen
Something baaaaad
Streets designed
let alone the -iesque
for running I guess
Can one run
from ovulation?
All that for a kilometer,
ardency...
like the rug
she sat on, memorizing
the patterns, avoiding
confrontation, she chose laundry:
the warm lullabies emanated from the dryer,
rocked her in a way that she hadn’t
been...
Over here, solvent skyline. A virgin
in white, on a hill. Simple.
How cities seed. Every South American
epicenter, but usually a man,
a cross. An extended release...
https://soundcloud.com/jennzed/01-slacker-1?in=jennzed/sets/android-girls
This is my new album, which I've been working on for the best of this year.
All the tracks have been created specifically for this...
The penultimate track from my forthcoming album Gradients of Light and The Destruction of Space.
Piano and video by me.
Please watch in fullscreen high-definition where...
Here's the secret about war, she thinks, it's such a bore,
government shacks, feckless roaches,
harsh shampoo if you can get it,
staticky radio tuned to cooking...
After ten and one half hours of work
and an hour each way on the freeway
I crawl into a white-trash apartment
and I lie on the...
mixed media on cardboard, 19 x 27 cm, 2019
https://soundcloud.com/floreiii
Was a pair of trousers
With five pockets:
Strewn, wrinkled, gouged
Empty when Mom first told us
She was leaving it
To live with her new husband—
Her third boyfriend...
And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want any greatness for it, particularly a...
Watercolour on L'Aquarelle Canson Heritage Block 200gsm cold-pressed watercolour paper - 51cm x 29cm
The Window
Traversing Alone
Yearning like a flower
looking to tilt its face
toward sun,
only night clutches the world
in loneliness,
when neither moon
nor stars are out.
Dark opaque clouds wrap...
The man swallowed
480 ball bearings.
One sphere a minute during
his last eight-hour shift.
No unemployment lines
for the human anchor
sitting upright
on the floor of the sea.
The scuba...
Click the first image to start full-screen view.
...
RIP Rutger Hauer —Jenn Zed
Mixed media on Strathmore 500 Series Illustration Board Heavyweight Vellum—51cm x 29cm
https://www.facebook.com/jordan.trethewey.16/videos/544170026359890/
Long military coat, snapping blue eyes
a flower, pinned on her sleeve,
not over her breast where it should have been.
Grey hair stuck out from her...
Boulevards of grass
barbered in flattops,
borders of beach sand
and rough.
I am here to prove who I am
but being a novice
the bend of the wind
is a...
For the ruination of Palmyra and after P B Shelley
His shroud was campion in May;
a king's cape of crocus in November.
Curled olive roots held...
What the stiff breeze and the ocean have to say
remains a mystery. Who are we to
try to understand the splinters of a
broken boat that...
Hilary brought mom and dad
from Ashland
where for the last decade
they’d been useful in her home
as bookends and paperweights—
we scattered them on a hillside
mom’s wish
at...
lightning bug streaks
illuminate my windshield, July nights
winding home, slow down
bone glow of tombstones, soon moonglow
the earth sips the sky, red wine sun
bobbing lower and...
The sound of your shoes dropping,
...
Dickie Sweeney and David Meyer
don’t seem to care
when she sidles up
to the neighborhood boy group
assembled in Roger’s backyard
to throw a football. They also build
snow...
do
his suffering
in
grand style…
starting off with
beer in the morning,
then
the good wine
as the afternoon and
the memories kicked in.
toward evening
he
switched
to Grey Goose
and
finished the night
with his old friend,...
Hi everyone,
File this one under "historical news."
In April I guest edited an Ekphrastic Challenge featuring the art of OAF editor extraordinaire Jenn Zed.
If you...
Hey fellow lOAFers!
Head on over to The Ekphrastic Review today and check out the featured responses to @Dale Patterson's piece, "After the Storm."
Cheers!
Jordan
last i heard
she was running coke
for some club owner
in Rio
from São João de Meriti
to São Cristóvão and
up and down Copacabana
to pay for her penthouse
apartment...
I stand on a bridge
between my two worlds.
The river and the moon
are hushed tonight.
They know innocence.
The moon bows slightly
in humility while death,
disguised by the...
It's hard for me to accept things the way they are.
I want to fight for what's right and fair.
Acceptance is a part of survival.
I...
just a morceau, perhaps more so, than usual
With no time
to spend
with my wife
and children
over breakfast
this morning,
I went
around the table and
simply pressed
the like buttons
on their faces.
I sent Bukowski some poems, one of which was “Twisted Living” (a 3-pager that later appeared in Hung). He re-wrote “Twisted Living” and titled...
At
the supermax prison
books on the subject
of superdeterminism are,
predictably,
in super high demand,
flying off the shelves
seemingly faster
than the speed of light.
Recreated images of faces now available via EEG scans.
So accurate, police sketch artists will soon
apply for employment insurance benefits,
while witnesses are tapped like portable...
mixed media on paper, 21 x 29,7 cm, 2019
I pay attention to sunlight,
watch it ribbon in the tops
of trees.
(Kisses are not the answer.)
I'm at war with the walls
watching summer branches
bend in the...
Uber drivers drive reckless, they
loop, round and round
circling Big Ben,
throwing fade patterns
impossible to defend
selling shirts,
touchdown!
outside Heinz Field
coming out the woodwork
they dream of paper straws
covered...
it started by sucking cyanide from the pits
on the edge of a berried desert
brutal emptiness dripped from within
cramping confusing causing seizures
a mexican stand-off between
indigestible...
silk
for those
who gladly
take off
shoes
wool
for those
in fear of
dancing
barefoot
One Way of Looking at Thirteen Blackbirds
with a tip of the hat to Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”
is to go
from...
I met a clown in plain clothes
drinking in a bar—of course.
He told me a kid once asked him
“Are you a real clown?
Underneath the make...
We memorized poems
to pass them on,
past the strident winds
out of the Kremlin.
When I walk the avenue
lined with our history,
I trust you to guard
the ashes...
I created this collage for an employee art show at a medical research institution. It plays on the idea of pH litmus tests for...
“It’s an odd thing but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.”
—Oscar Wilde
Sundown sets the painted ladies dancing
on the eastern...
Frost everywhere this morning; those roses never knew when to quit.
Look at their withered petals, like peering into
my own face.
I’m inside this watering can...
We bought our Ford Falcon
for $200. There were spiders
in the ashtrays.
You kept a closet full of
men's XL shirts and always
used the upstairs bathroom.
The dogs...
there’s only a few stupider things to waste your time on
like avoiding death
or praying
He mouths a left-over thigh,
whines a new path in the grass, tries
to tell himself about bone, tongue-licking
the marrow to taste of the once-living.
I did...
Code 1
Code 2
Code 3
Code 4
Code 5
Code 6
Code 7
Code 8
Code 9
All paintings acrylic on hardboard
(Just so you know, I usually take a walk after breakfast. And as I leave the dining room I may take a banana with...
i fell in love
with my former
employer
in the East Village, NYC
he owns a Testudines sanctuary
in central California
after termination
and my great wandering
i found myself
standing
on the side...
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...
mixed media on paper, 21 x 29,7 cm, 2019
.
.
.
1.
.
it's not like we'll be here foreverwe must give thanks
for the blistersthanks for
the tarps we hide underfor the shame
of being human
-like everyone elseage teaches...
Little shell of a poem,
I wanted to send you into the world
rich with meaning—mine.
Here you come back
empty-hulled.
Anyone with dregs to share, pile in.
Seaweed or...
A quest for spiders might lead to entrapment in silk threads
Palm reading: infinity is embedded in the ice crystals of hand-shaped clouds
Music vapors sing:...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSz7rZzZQRM
Music and video - Jenn Zed
Cello composed and played by Yukiko Louvière, Berlin
This is a pre-release track from my forthcoming album 'Gradients of Light...
Wife smoked and drank hard cider
while I got another headache on a
smoggy sunday afternoon with the
neighbors' children screaming and
banging on the wall. And the...
usually I wear tweed
like the ageing bachelor I am
carry a pipe in an inside pocket
behave politely
give thanks
and compliments about the food
then leave early
as if...
Begin redacting. Blacking out
Until what’s left is cryptic
With knowledge only you can
Penetrate. Choreographer of
Significance. The words pirouette
At the barre. Lozenges like
Coffins of those shipped...
behind every plan to bring her home. Like the burning bush
landmark on Tiger Mountain Road, she is a bright detail
withdrawn by the season and...
you’re insane
she says
you’re just another
one of those assholes
who falls in love
one of those fools
who rides motorcycles
through big cities
waxing their cars on Sunday afternoons
plodding towards darkening horizons
pushing their prams
eating their leggings at the back end
and stuffing a Gregs into the front
all of...
He gave her a book that was navy blue and hardcover and had a strip of numbers taped on the spine.
“You’ll like it,” he...
mixed media on canvas, 22 x 27 cm, 2019
Amber bridge
A footpath and bridlepath that was once a proper field road leads down steeply to the river. As well as the footbridge there...
mixed media on paper, 21 x 25 cm, 2019
Last Word
Before he left,
his finger on my arm
drawing something,
I said it quick: blossom,
but it felt like goodbye.
Lesson for Gluttons
I didn't
know how to devour
passion fruits
'till...
The technique is called blockout poetry, a type of found poetry. I used selected words from a page in one of Flannery O’Connor’s short...
mixed media on canvas, 22 x 27 cm, 2019
come at me, Chef
get yourself within my radius
I warn you
I’ve armed myself with a corkscrew
and a ballpoint pen
my cocktail tray is a Spartan’s shield
and...
There are voices in me so old, I cannot
decipher. Like divers they speak to each other
under water. They bubble up grains of sand--
a burnt-out...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uceoCDf9JGA
and I have given up naming cars, waist length hair
and wishing for a horse. I do not believe I will live
in a spare, but...
The last time at the office of the otolaryngologist
I had smartly typed my next appointment
promptly on my smart phone screen
at the same time it...
My Father carried this with him in a leather board case in the 50's and 60’S working for the Atkinson County Citizen newspaper along...
In memory of Harrietta Lee Watanabe, 1944-2001
She was born in Volcano, Hawai’i and so we put dwarf palms
around our patio. That will do, said...
Is it found in
the thickets
that line the paths
through our minds,
or in the simple
words that form
so easily
out of our mouths?
Words like
"good morning,
sweetheart,"
or "you are beautiful"—
those...
I keep hearing them at night.
Maybe they have already died, but beautifully,
the way a fire can be gorgeous as a red berry-
stained mouth, luscious...
it's an obscure
ornithological fact
the lifespan of a
common hummingbird
is 20 to 25 years
and i know hummingbirds
i feed them
equal portions water and sugar
hung in a red-tinted...
mixed media on paper, 21 x 29,7 cm, 2019
The cawing started in the morning at no particular time, unlike the trills of songbirds that started at dawn. Instead, the cawing began with...
Who tells the bird it’s time to fly,
what is far beyond a horizon,
where is a cloud going,
why did a branch split there,
when will next...
Rita calls.
She's coming over
for a girl's night-in
because she likes
the name of the wine—
Yellow Tail. She says,
I like tail, and laughs
till she chokes.
She doesn't knock;
she...
don't look now
we be at the bottom of the hole
with the butterflies
and pony shit
they taught us
to shoo gnats when cameras were around
because it was...
She is so new,
I am not sure which swimmer is her.
With caps and goggles
and sleek bodies,
I am surrounded by porpoise pleasures,
until this one pinches...
He had tended the garden
pruning stems and branches
with long-handled shears
melded to his hands.
He returned that winter,
cradling a plant
in a clay-colored pot,
a plaid sleeve dangling
where...
Being the hybrids that we are, neither
fully prey nor fully predator, we make
our rounds each night, closing windows
and locking doors.
We are more like hyenas and...
A capella rendition of a song by Gillian Welch, in memory of poet Cheryl Leverette.
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/lb3
the clench in my brain is like
imagination on speed
ghosts fly behind my back
my mom's sweet white hair
the door ajar
her eyes peeking through
the pale blue...
—for Cheryl Leverette
Life gets lost
in the top right drawer of my desk.
Those three pairs of scissors once purchased?
Stuffed there way in the back.
And here's...
In the curve of her neck, there’s longing for the man.
In her closed throat, fear.
Through sheer will
she freezes the waiter’s sleeve mid-air
as he presents...
in my eyes, we’re ageless
in my eyes, each exploding star
dust Pangeal atom
that conspired in our conception
has always existed
we have always existed
the galaxy flashes
in reverse,...
Let's unwind the world a little
for you and the curly haired girl
in your class. For your parents, your aunts,
your cousins and neighbors, for the...
Encrypted Message
Joint Venture
Stainless Brick
Garage Still Life
Street-Wise Bands
Tarpedo
Green Redecoration
Paint Pirate
The Euphoria of Koi in Springtime
Is it possible to create a haiku with form and color rather than words? Something to strive for.
Could You...
She wants me to calibrate against
the wing-beat of searing fluorescents,
the examining room bright
with her skeptical forbearance.
I tell her since I've never been flayed
or broken...
In the meantime, I'm here and they're not. I have learned one thing, because I get treated very unfairly, that's what I call it,...
The last days of Acme looked like the end of the world or maybe a food pantry. Mostly empty disgusting cream and brown shelves...
It came from the depths of the sewhers of New York:
Pasty faced
Flaming orange hair
Highlighted, feral raccoon eyes
Swamp Thing
Decades in the making
This instant horror classic...
Ink on Paper
I tried to catch a snapping turtle
in an old tin pail.
She ducked and dove. I hopped and turned.
It was to no avail.
Half in, half...
Harmeet prefers orchids
Violetta finds courage
Two tough gals
Theadora
As the days draw in
I will head south,
past the lake’s glacial blue,
up the curving road
where the mountain shines,
beyond the musterer’s hut
on whose walls names...
I found them there
in a still spare spring
under cottonwoods grown
in unnaturally straight lines
in small-eyed ducks
and a young girl balancing
on the lip of a fountain
in...
