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...
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withdrawn by the season and...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...
a
reporter
for the student paper
asked me
what career i would take
if
i wasn’t a writer.
i
looked at him
and said:
at this point in my life
i guess porn star is...
u
i
a nvrjcdfk
xmybqtg
lsczhwrp
e
o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NMtWcxW6Tw
My college buddy from years ago, the brilliant keyboardist Curtis Kendrick, met me in a NYC practice room and we bashed out basic chords,...
So when he left
I longed for the old
house I had. So often,
late summer in that
house, marigolds
on the steps for a
lost weekend.
One year I raked
maple...
Oil on canvas, 3'x4'
We will speak, all wind and hail
icy tambourine of tin roof or nights
I sat on your bed folding warm
towels, pairing socks, still
inside out with...
I’m not hungry. I appraise
the contents of the office fridge
anyway: a carton of soy coffee creamer,
three sack lunches, a four-pack
of flavored coconut water, someone’s
bottle of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsPi3hE640o
Guitar and video - Jenn Zed
Cello composed and played by Yuki Louvière, Berlin
This piece of music is a pre-release from my forthcoming album -...
jaded by the complexity of it all
sometimes it's best to focus on a single thing:
the tops of your shoes
we just keep walking, though
traffic whistles...
After the Violin
Gypsies from Spain cause their own heartbreak
Anthony Bourdain said
I don’t know what that means maybe
we all cause our own
disasters in search of something...
As a tango dancer as well as a photographer I wanted to find a way to combine my two passions, so I experimented with composing...
She tells me I am panicking, to try to take steady, slow breaths.
I wasn't panicking when this started, I was asleep.
Asleep sitting up, of...
Water in toilet is frozen.
Shit piling up on top
(took a good one this
morning,
though I don't know
from what).
Mop bucket of water
harvested ten days ago
to flush...
The Albany Public Library Foundation celebrates poet and teacher Lyn Lifshin this year as a 2019 Literary Legend, together with author Peter Golden and...
After a long period of introspection, I have come to believe two things: 1) that human intelligence is vastly over-estimated and 2) that human...
This year, Submittable raised its prices by over 100% to publications that previously received literary journal pricing. In our case, this price hike went...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/z0001186
Jhonny Flaymz wuz tha mos’ baddass rocah
in da sevun sounze districk dountoun dadda.
Cum bak to da flatt wun nycht hardon
mynd trubbled extreeme ubout Jadah...
One night,
as they stood outside their cave,
the stink of smoked leaves and
urine still choking their breath,
they had visions of mushroom clouds.
Terrified, they ran back...
.john threatens mary.
.attempted murder.
.there were traces of blood.
.hiding the body.
.the confession & doing time.
.john reflecting on his behaviour.
On the last day
a homeless man
offered a woman with a briefcase
a lecture on living
& she listened
& the man with a daisy applique on his...
The IRS said: By law we are prohibited from releasing
hatchling barracudas
hiphop
trains into the tunnel
Screw’s censored 2013 wall calendar
footage from the show
a profile of the...
Oil on hardboard - 100cm x 51cm
Sometimes a discussion helps.
Sometimes it doesn't.
It won't hurt to give it a try.
I could lose those 10 stubborn pounds.
You could harden a muscle or...
Acrylic, pencil, chalk, ink on Kraft 280gm corrugated cardboard paper – 30cm x 37cm.
After an image by Kent Williams.
Standing on a stump,
he talked of Peru
and the mountains
that pierce violet clouds.
I am the hawk. Watch me soar.
He spread his arms and spun,
his poncho...
The first thing I noticed about the golden eagle
perched in our dead acacia tree was its shadow
falling over mine like a pall. The second...
I worked hard
to callous my hands
so I could touch her.
I worked hard
to strengthen my arms
so I could hold her.
She should have known
she was raking...
A wallow started by the hippos
is the haunt of warthogs now.
The sounder’s trine of little pigs
raise holy heaven, godly grunts
as though flung mud will...
The reason for writing will come.
Birds will peck at the lime outside your door.
The solid gray density of fall along the coast
will someday make...
From T.S. Eliot’s “Macavity.”
Master criminals of the world, beware
of blood on the seat, and prints on the stair.
There’s no malefaction you can circumvent:
Lockproof is on...
I feel a pull at my trouser leg while I wait for the light to turn green. I glance down to my right and...
She started
taking small steps
that grew longer
until she reached the end
and bounced
her sleek body rising
as she arced
her arms outstretched
before slipping into the water.
Later she did...
He worked as a framer,
sawing and nailing
rough-hewn boards
for rooms made of drywall,
climbing ladders
until he blew out his knees.
We have nothing in common, she said,
but...
Girls called her Skinny Legs
taunting her in gym
and pulling off her towel
to see the galaxy of sores
erupting on her back.
I can’t eat, she said.
But...
One day in the torridness, they were riding the railing
in the white shadow of the arches,
and laughing forever.
Click an image to open full-screen viewer.
He was hot
and so was I.
Reset
The Humans loved to burn things up—witness what they did with Mars eons ago. After they torched Earth’s exquisite atmosphere, the cold blew in...
john ordered mary
to make his hot drink.
later mary killed him.
the first failed attempt
by mary to kill john
under the guise of sport.
The images presented here represent a portion of my series "ConTEXTnaTURE," developed in 2017 and finessed in 2018. The impetus behind this project is...
There she goes, through the sultry,
the murky waters,
her name in dainty handwriting
on a dark stern of Swahili mangrove—
Allah’s signature in blue on the bow—
as...
The Dark
I am not afraid of the dark.
Sometimes
it purrs at my feet,
in a puddle,
round and still.
It oozes along the floor
and climbs the wall
and hovers...
throughout my life
i held them responsible
for the haphazard way they
went down their roads dragging
us along, but now that they are gone
and I wander down...
“How Deep Is the Ocean,”
his solo like Buddha
preaching, telling us
what we didn’t know
we knew. When my son
was born, I stopped
judging my own parents,
my mother practicing
cello...
Visited Fitzgerald's grave recently...it's in Rockville, Maryland, next to a busy highway, in a small, nondescript graveyard next to a bunch of others who, by the...
There is a sense of humor to this project, but I hope to also stir thoughts around the rituals many develop around food. What foods...
“There are years we lose to people
we didn’t realize we never loved.”
—Philip Schaefer
There are years we lose people.
We didn’t realize how much we loved
the...
Shadow Existence
On the way to work
a large bird flew overhead.
I wouldn't have known
it was there
had it not wedged itself
between me
and the late morning sun.
Bird...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9-iQVu66BQ
Me and my zine
Submissions are open for The Swaying Drunkard's Moose, and I'm so excited to start reading your poems! Unless they're about your cat. Your...
Guitar and voice by RC James
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/z0001070
Ain’ nuthin’ left here ‘cep
six uv us an’ dry stahks ‘a corn.
We’re up ta movin west
soon as I sort...
I left you without saying goodbye
though you wouldn't care
I was Pluto and you the Sun
an indifferent smog grew
shrouding a giant
with thousands of heads
you cried...
for Muddy Waters
On the Mississippi bottoms
West African griot rhythms
filter through Spanish moss
swaying over the river bank.
Lovers find their own cadence,
song settling into their hands
moving...
is the diagnosis that dings even your casual
observation that things may have finally gone
to shit. Your joke that mouse droppings in the garage
will carry...
I’ve laid by her for ten years now
beneath these creaking boards
an axe between my long-gone eyes
a spectacle of gore.
She rests beside me so composed
in...
had a baby.
I go online,
buy a present,
click ‘gift wrapped’
(I don’t need to
see tiny, sleepsuit
feet).
I visit them,
hold him,
even carry him
to his nursery,
sit in a rocking...
There’s a squabble of greying women knitting at our local coffee stop.
They are talking about dumpster diving—how survival is another’s refuse.
I swipe hairs from...
.the bear.
.lucky elephant.
.monkey.
.mouse.
.yellow bird.
.the hawfinch.
.words.
The first time this goat fainted
I wanted to pack him in a crate
& ship him back home for his safety.
It’s hard as hell to...
https://soundcloud.com/rc-james-user841120068/z0001070
Ain’ nuthin’ left here ‘cep
six uv us an’ dry stahks ‘a corn.
We’re up ta movin west
soon as I sort out the T-Ford.
Jenny, ma wife,...
In November 2017, when the cottonwood trees were golden leaved, I toured Georgia O'Keeffe's home in Abiquiu, NM.
—Kelly DuMar
...
Can't recall when the conceit of breaking through barriers into a different & more colorful world occurred to me, but it did. In the...
I play
with friction, skin
and air,
a ripe blueberry
between my lips.
The Autobiographical Note
I walk through the gym doors. Steve is doing chest-flies. He yells
Hey, Flash! (Steve doesn’t know my name.)
Third Person, Past Tense
The sky...
A child chews on his toy
Lucid imbecility
A baby’s lallation
All his l’s are r’s—
My dumb joy
When I talk like him.
You are obsessed with the furniture.
I don't really care about the furniture.
I am lucky if I get to sit on the couch and watch...
https://soundcloud.com/avery-fogarty/roses-original1
I used to be sorry all the time
I used to love you
I swim in and out of your mind
I used to be sorry all...
https://soundcloud.com/user-417500652/muddy-water-woman
Muddy Water Woman
Down in Missisisippi where the catfish grow long
I found her and I promised her someday I’d write a song
About a rebel woman...
It’s hot
the breeze just lifts and settles.
A man sways to dangerous angles.
The kids look quick but play anyway.
A possum half crushed is
half alive so...
. small item .
what you see is magnified.
they leave here larger than life
petrified in their own forests.
scan beds and lens.
light the cracks, the boxes.
tie...
How’s she goin’?
Just passing through, eh?
Course you are. They all are.
Don’t get much traffic up around these parts anymore. Odd tourist who maybe got...
The straightest way
to get from this life to the next
is by climbing through
the sliced-open belly of sky
left behind by
the stoop of a falcon,
she explained.
Then...
never tell a zombie the truth
never lie to a zombie
never say things to a zombie you wouldn’t say to your own mother
never stare directly...
Boneyard leaking bones
till shifting rivers,
tilting hummocks
tilling plows of oxen
turned to tractor, turned to combine,
pull the last remaining
shrined remains,
and leave the now unhallowed soil
to rest...
I painted this in my grandma's old shed, so things got a bit dirty. I kind of liked how dirt looked, so I just...
Streets seem tired,
city, at rest.
We move through balloons,
confetti, Moët,
leftover eggrolls,
last night's jest.
A bare-bottomed girl
runs to a window. Last night
her grandfather muttered
of a world full of violence,
the dread of never-
ending rain, fountains
overflowing their pools,
the earth a...
Most of my abstract work is meant to capture an emotional state. Painting is often a cathartic exercise for me. I am naturally introverted,...
positive side effect
i woke up a few mornings ago
with what seems to be a sprained ankle
although i can't remember having done
anything to sprain it.
so...
Poe wrote "To Helen,"
considered by many
one of the great love poems.
"Nicean barks" & "the glory
that was Greece," admirable
phrases, I admit, but to
paraphrase Tina Turner,
what's...
Today is not just one cup of black coffee after another.
Today, I have enough melancholy stacked on top
of more melancholy to climb up a...
Angels enforce Holy Writ, while others veer
toward the particular
Here, children somersault on grass while the
noonday sun, outstretched as thine hand O Lord
pours through a suburban...
My first beer of the Christmas season
I knew in the candlelight against the stained oak countertops that I should be out smoking a cigarette...
Christmas and New Year’s move
toward us
again
the old sickening
duet
the masses coming out
of their tv
caves
the family
gatherings
the gross
dull
nothingness,
the fake
drunks,
the fake
smiles,
the fake
people
may we live
through this
somehow,
one more
time
* This “found...
After I blunt Ming's grapnels
with files and buffers, she wolfs
down the meat off the pull cup.
In the open yard where I grow
blush Parfait, beside...
Nights
are hardest to bear.
Alone, that smell
of us,
still heavy and
with ghosts,
our sweat, our
heated exhales.
I taste you.
I pull you.
I sink into a
a tangle of tongues.
I taste...
He was there at the mic with a glow behind his head like a literary god, so I fucked him.
Me, two other women, and...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgRU9GzElaw
publishers
is retired
and living in France.
he’s on his second wife and
lives on
a farm in the country.
every now and then
he sends me
these long, long
e-mails talking about...
mixed media on paper, 2018
Everyone believes the crippled kid. A blind and mute paraplegic from birth, the crippled kid lets his older brother, Junior, pad his red wagon...
hotel room in little rock
there were three of them
forceful
drunk
too angry to care
whether she lived or died
she swung
the cardboard pizza box
like a machete
it was all...
The shearer’s oilstone rides the blade’s silver edge.
There is a swish as one blade closes over the other.
It is a fine tool honed.
He wears...
Which came first,
the chicken
or
the chicken,
the egg
or
the egg?
“Pass the Tabasco,”
Buddha said.
“By the way, where’s your bowl?”
“In the cupboard, Noble One.
Giving it a rest today.
I’ve got...
They hug and whisper kind words
in the other's ears. They share
their home-cooked fares, and
delight in the quaintness of
the other's ways and customs.
They express with...
Dougherty: Lyn, what would you say to a young writer who had her sights set on poetry?
Lifshin: I’d probably suggest she go for a...
Always live in regret.
The past is ever present.
There are no new days.
Today is no better than yesterday.
Look down
and backwards with despair.
The Almighty has planned...
Yah! There’s something to be said
for modern Hep B, HPV and AIDS,
but gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia—
the all-time greatest hits of STDs—
keep raising their infection rates!
Stick...
This project grew out of my interest with the tension between the documentary nature of landscapes and the fiction of the story they tell....
Twin
Journeys
Bright Lights
When I hear someone claiming
they had an imaginary friend
when they were a kid
I almost say, “bullshit,” but I don’t.
I’m not saying they are liars.
The...
each freckle is a planet
in this contained universe, a body
that orbits the sun—
drenched experience I’m in. I say I worship
God, but my skin tells...
So when can you free up some time to see me?
Free up some time? "Time is one thing that's
always free" -- remember that, my...
acrylic on canvas with pastel and marker
I don’t want it to rack up the likes
even the nicer obituaries with pictures of charity work
and all the good things are cringe
I don’t...
things get whittled down
to winners and
losers
the prizes
for naught
'cepting participation
'cause we all find ourselves lost
with nothing to kick
yeah
i misplaced the only-est love i had
then the...
You have abandoned the day
to hide your secrets.
I keep your hand, hang the moon
in these dark trees as an offering.
It’s late, but then on...
Postlapsarian, we
carry in pockets, the
lumps of perceived iniquities
which,
distract us from
our actual guilt.
The impure loin or
purloined pear or
Pearl conceived by Hester
can
weight us down, or further...
I take that song and immerse it
in a bucket full of cold water,
hoping that the song chills me
down while I fume for missing
my last...
chalk and charcoal on paper
Soon there will
be more tattoos
on the planet
than people,
more ink on skin
than on paper.
We are already
reading each other
more than books
or newspapers.
I am thinking
of having
X
you are...
".. Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night."-- Subhadeep De
Mixed-media on paper
Oh, you’re one of those, she said. Yes, I said, sadly, I am.
And then I said, You’re not, I take it. She had...
My gay friend told me
he masturbates
three times a day.
Ewww, I couldn't help
thinking. One of my
bad habits, judging others.
But three times a day?
I thought, bro, way
too much...
but if I don't then wheel me to a window
in my own house and don't assume
I don't understand an acoustic guitar,
the hum of smalltalk,...
EXPLORE
Finish to Start
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...
