Being Alone


Very often I forget the consciousness of death
Although my hands are stuck to the soil of the grave
Every human being wears clothes
Addition and subtraction of demand
A staircase extending from zero to infinity
The galloping horses run into the unknown
The distance radius increases from person to person
People bury dead people and want to escape from death
The time map stops with hands raised
Deeds walk along the path of the past
A dark wind rising from the hole of the grave Hiding the footsteps of dead people
The fragrance of roses, the color of marigolds become like a stranger.
White chrysanthemum wrapped in a shroud
Perception on the leaf is irrelevant
Running from death to survive
Quick exit from the cemetery
Where one day we must come for eternity.
Then being alone.

The Sea

This bay adorned with seaweed 
covered rocks, the slight
foam that we avoided,
due to its displacement 
among what beauty 
we could drain from this 
impeccable dullness. 

The sand now scattered  
with half filled bottles,
the remnants of a planned
weekend piss-up gone
horribly wrong, due to a lack
of hindsight on just
how deplorable this destination
is, despite our longing for nostalgia. 

The crack of gulls upon 
polystyrene clog up the salt air
inhaled, leaving white dunes
in our lungs, absorbed through
arteries, and bled out across
a beach now devoid of promised
pleasure.

The cliffs now split silently
in two, alcoves that barely   
accommodate our disappointment
and slowly close in around us,
as we gradually arise once more
and begin to repair 
what is left of our dignity.  


The Last Days

The owner of this trough
has simply past caring, likewise
it occupants, who feed on its
contents; their sunken principles
stoop to a new low, like a torn kite
through a vortex, never quite hitting the
ground. 

Their breath held tight, 
any forward vision now blind 
with pride, corpulent 
with the grains they have sowed
with minimal toil, and distributed
only amongst themselves.

The tower they deemed 
could never be toppled
now corrodes brick by brick, 
untruth by untruth, 
and slowly falls into this breeze
as toxic dust, which luckily
we finally have the chance to purify. 


Perfect Practice

Chattered words in private,
those footsteps practiced 
in circles that never decrease,
time I considered wrapped 
and protected in this refuge 
which offers no respite, 
like a barb-wire bird's nest,
cradling nothing but discomfort. 

And when the hour strikes,
those shredded nerves now 
engulf each limb and muscle,
a sense of vertigo as that 
time approaches, teeth grating
against pavement curbs, 
the end result is no protection
for a broken throat; 
the rehearsal always 
ends up the finished product.   



Jonathan Butcher has had poems appear in various print and online publications including, The Morning Star, Mad Swirl, Drunk Monkeys, The Abyss, Cajun Mutt Press and others. His fourth chapbook, 'Turpentine' was published by Alien Buddha Press. He is also the editor of online poetry journal Fixator Press.

Tinted Mirrors

Imagine a room
brightly lit with autumn aura
of dried yellow and sweet potato.

No doors,
no windows
except to the soul.
Mirrors line the walls 
in fractures and rainbows,
simplistic to extravagant 
eyes of separate shades
peering into yours.
Oh, the ideas, memories,
reflections bleeding out,
pouring back into
your essence.
I envy your shards 
of opportunity.

Now, imagine the page
in front of you,
notebook sheltered in hand.
The light is no longer warm;
dark blue whispers
emanate through the room.
Pen ink lingers on the page,
colors, letters,
remnants of sensory sorcery.
The tinted reflector
has a color of your own:
blood, tears, touch, eyes
lining fractions of your story
A new beholder 
shall soon perceive
this work of art.

Each bridge he links
To the end of each valley
Is the sweet fruits of his tree of life
Each sweet fruit he tastes
Gives him the bitter part of life 

+


 I drive my piercing Blade
   Beneath the rocky soils
         of a Blessed Sky
              driven by
                winds.
And Fear itself
 Scatters the Rocks
         to leave the Silt,
For Rains will draw
      a carried path
              to fruition.
   A Tall
  Shield differentiates
Love's lights to mend
Our
 Hearts         
     with
       Grace 
           ♡

                                                ............



Composition May 21, 2024
 on a Tuesday Morning 
by  John Edward Culp 

Taxi at the Peace Bridge                                                                 

After a four-hour layover in the Buffalo bus terminal, after crossing the Peace Bridge in the middle of the night and disembarking again, an honest and earnest young man, I naively informed the customs officer I would be “earning my keep” in Canada. Big mistake. No one told me what to say. I was pulled aside, ordered to go here and sit there, and watched through the windows as the other more fortunate and savvy passengers climbed aboard the Greyhound and pulled away, privileged to be trekking into the dark expanse of Ontario.

It was during the Reagan administration. I was escaping trickle-down economics by heading toward Kingston, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, to a little run-down farmhouse and a few out buildings, a place called “Dandelion.” It was a modest commune in the middle of nowhere, at the end of telephone and electric poles. About ten Canadian and American twenty-something men and women lived and worked together there weaving hammocks, tending an impressive garden, smoking a little pot now and then, and generally attempting to live a simple, peaceful, egalitarian life according to the utopia in B. F. Skinner’s Walden II. This, I thought, was my moment, and this might be the place where I might find an authentic sense of self – to pursue my ideals. And just maybe find love. When waiting with my dad for the bus north, the zipper on my bag split open. Dad took off his belt and cinched the whole thing closed. What was I doing? We both choked up, and my feet were heavy on the bus steps. My ideals faltered, but I found a seat.

Turned away at the border, I was dazed, lost, my future uncertain – with no idea what to do next. A taxi must have been called. The cabbie led me to the car, picked up my bag, placed it in the trunk, opened the door and motioned me into the front seat. On the way back to the U.S., he quietly provided me with instructions for another attempt at the border. He seemed to recite these directions from experience: walk nine blocks back to the Buffalo station, find the number 10 city bus to drop me near the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls. Ask the bus driver. He’ll know. Try again. Lie. Keep it simple. Years later, on a nostalgic visit to Dandelion with my wife, we drove over the Peace Bridge corridor in daylight. It was all concrete and asphalt punctuated by orange construction barrels and lines of big rigs. The few grim buildings were blockish and dull, the water flat and gray. This was exactly what I felt and imagined when I travelled this way that night.

After dropping me on the U.S. side, as I watched him pull away, I realized that the soft-spoken cabbie didn’t mention the fare. Still reeling and as that was the first time I rode in a taxi and was unfamiliar with the protocol, it did not occur to me to dig out some cash. He gave me great advice and didn’t charge for the ride. What a good human being, such a contrast to the cold demeanor and the crisp, impeccable uniforms of the customs officers. The U.S. officials asked for identification and questioned my citizenship. I stated too sarcastically that I was just turned away in Canada. Where else would I go? Dawn was breaking as I quickened my step through the Buffalo neighborhoods. I wondered, what if it was raining? According to the cabbie’s prescription, I found my way to the Rainbow Bridge and though I was anxious about where to go next if I wasn’t turned away again, I paused and took in the horseshoe falls halfway across, beneath the American and Canadian flags flapping side-by-side. The vast immensity, the roar of the falls, and the swirling mist were breathtaking though fleeting. I recalled the painter Frederick Church and his portrayal of the sublime landscape. I considered, momentarily and perversely, how fortunate I was to be in this distressing predicament. At the toll booth I paid ten cents and when the pleasant woman asked about my stay in Canada I declared, “Just visiting friends – a week or two tops.” She smiled, knowingly I thought, and waved me on. Somehow, I found a bus terminal, my ticket was good for the next connection in a weird bit of luck, and I took a seat next to a kindly lady who reminded me of an aunt. We talked of Canada and Ohio on the way to Toronto. She spoke of her grandchildren. I wistfully described my grandparents’ farm in the rolling green hills of Knox County. She needed a little reassurance that I was not a runaway teenager. The passengers on this leg of the journey were a stark contrast to the rough, sullen crowd between Cleveland and Buffalo.

At the Toronto layover I browsed through the World’s Largest Bookstore and picked up a corned beef on rye at a very loud, bustling, and confusing delicatessen – my first deli experience. I was ordered by the patron to go here and stand there. From there I made it, thankfully and uneventfully, to Kingston and Dandelion. But I didn’t find love. It was all worthwhile I suppose; however, after four months of hammock weaving, jerry-rigged construction projects, wincing at residents’ attempts at self-taught guitar, and listening to pointless petty squabbles between couples, I determined that people were about the same everywhere and that my ideals could be actualized most anywhere – even Ohio. I discovered that authenticity prevailed more in the kindness and generosity of that Buffalo cabbie than in the subsequent months playing the enlightened hippie.

David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

Redirect to Self

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

I come home in Eucharist

Body slanted in brown-and-broad-faced praise

The simple shape of this Gemini

Made for Taurus 

(I’m born again

Among stars)

The fabrics that strecheth and bindeth me are no more,

Cast away, deemed false

Deemed sacrilege

Deemed too cool

I’ve always wanted to call myself a r3b3l

I’VE GOT NO CAUSE TO PROVE IT

(apologies for the outburst)

This is my temple, my history.

This is my sacred Hell

This is my poisoned Heaven

I ask you to come and worship

Hand in hand with me

And live neither dead nor awake

But dreaming all the same

Dreaming till dreaming becomes too much to bear and the urge to lead some great parley with the sandman bears strange fruit

Skin bagged like dying men

Flesh downy like sheets

I ask myself:

Why do we 

(always)

Worship what we can never obtain?

The static of the commercial world wedges a sea of product placement into my endorphin-dependent sludge 

I used to call you brain

But you have since become 

(insert Egyptian word for brain) 

So that a witty comparison centered around the ancient belief that 

The brain’s only purpose was to hold apart the ears and the heart

Did all the real thinking

I suppose they were mostly right

‘Cept I don’t think that makes me any smarter considering my track record

I still pray to altars of IKEA wood and Amoeba plastic

I still try to use hooks to remove the wart I call reason

I would lay with Morpheus happily

(speaking as a straight man)

If it meant the sleep was dreamless

And deep

And the clock stayed silent

For as long as I am waking

There is nothing left to do

But if I dream

Then there is the lover-shaped void that I tried so hard to fill with broken people

Never bothering

(until now)

To see if I fit myself



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