Epic of Love
The depth of your eyes is endless
There is a vast sea
I lost there in my every breath
I touched the waves of the sea
I want to be a boat of your sea
I want to be a sailor of the ancient sea.
My heart is a hut
It is poor and tiny
The space of your heart is great
It is greater than hundred worlds
It is full of dream and liquid love
I want to be a dreamer
I want to be a true lover
I want to swim in your love sea.
The flagrance of your breath is sweet
It is sweeter than all the flowers of the world
It is unconditional and true
I wan to touch your breath
I want to take a bath with your breath.
The rhyme of your voice is pleasant
It is more pleasant than the verses of my poetry
It dances the air surrounding you
I want to be a listener of your voice
If you are mine forever.
I want to stop writing poems
As, you are the epic of my love.
You have a soul that connects me
When l saw you first but that was not first inside me
I conquered you before your heart bit.
Threads Baring
new lapels disfigured mediation
busters harried to the tenth extreme
seek remedial disasters planned
under wedging banter associates
columnar when their vocable thread
transforms cased carrier remnants
to particle misgivings that hedge
the bettors shrubbing their green
with a nonchalance left unsuited
for the tidal remnant massage
dismembered as any catalogue
request impaneled many stairwells
casing the place for customer jars
buried as a threat of last return
to the clever parlor tricks turned
in Reno slot machines corporate
as any corporeal inflation suit
litigated under a fading gauntlet
or store a subterfuge in the pine
casket longing for a short return
on a retreat binding loose shrieks
to vacant cleanser armies trapped
in arrears or security bank lifts
its torrential rhetorical compendia
toward reactor bastions dancing
cradle riffs under moonshine wind
somatic upturn notwithstanding
the columnar implication dread
gradually shedding incumbents
of dormant centipede infraction
prints tracking lawns long gone
to granite vestibule packaging
arthritic numbers in stale heat
to lessen the platelet impact
consumed as a quadrant vocal
turning silent on a squeaky pivot
No Cigar Too Close
a Havana leak imploding
ratchets calcium in spite
a disconsolate liquidator
frying pawned banter
erased porcupine litanies
molting solar remuneration
developed darkening eyefuls
where headboards scattered
paradiddle femurs to daze
solar paperbacks with shock
the witch tonsil ache foiled
leaking punctuation reform
one bored seawater escape
released a subliminal jotting
and stapled scarves divulge
queasy octagons needle
rampant spitfires encompass
the disconsolate liquidators
harkening scripture grouches
recycle their pauper caravan
Kindling Ash
a conflagration mentor
firing up a passion lost
conical invitations rapt
in fashion
gear turned to spark
and catch
the lessening arc of the flare
as touched
by inspiration
inventing the fashion
of the passion come
much before
aspiration circuits
fence convention tents
along the downslide glow
the grin
in the dark
inspired
lightening the shouldered
incentive that fear turned
cynical the will untapped
despite
the endless recitation
a replay deployed
cylindrical
invective rations
a rhetorical spin
and out
no invitation needed
after dark
Vernon Frazer’s most recent poetry collection is MANTIC PANDEMIC, a C22 publication.
C22 will publish Frazer’s Voyage in Port in July 2024.
NOT FOR PLEASURE
In the sun-lit beauty of the evening
I watch as a flock of birds travel across
And it hit my mind, like a sort of knowledge previously unknown
That birds do not fly just for pleasure.
These birds may, like man, have hustled the whole day
In their own type of office and school
And are returning to rest their aching feathers.
They fly to get home, not for pleasure.
Sometimes they fly to escape threatening danger
To save their lives and slip away from death
At this point they fly for safety
Not for pleasure.
They fly to find sustenance for their little ones
Like man they too need something for their belly
So as I watch them now fly past
I know for certain that they do not fly for pleasure
Dictum
It is when words fall
that they lose their im-
pact. Must remain in
the air for more than
a second or two, cling-
ing to clothing or twist-
ing upwards in the way
that cigarette smoke does.
Articles
I like using articles to end a
line. Sometimes an article
of faith, sometimes of clothing. &
occasionally a particle of speech
to give the space between lines
that extra bit of frisson. It is a
continuity, the way forward, not
the end of the line that some
flat-earthers seem to think it is.
The Clearing
Not how I re-
remembered or
would have left
it. Too much
foliage, as if no
one has been here
to tidy up since I
last came by.
Tradition always
suffers when the
oracles move into
the marketplaces.
A kind of census
The mind’s mosaic has
been taken in for intro-
spection. Why learn for
the sake of learning? Un-
necessary facts might just
as well be fiction for all
the use we get from them.
The fragments are taken
out for sensual inspection.
Left so the air can breathe
on them. Those that acquire
color are kept to form new
pathways of the mind. The
bland are used to pebble
pathways in the garden.
Another Sunflower Sutra
In sunflower I find
pistil & stamen, their
output arranged in
a Fibonacci spiral.
& following on
As the sun sets, the
credits start to roll.
This day was brought
to you by the seven
ayem garbage col-
lectors, a poem that
glistened just beyond
the edges of the trawl-
ing net, Sketches of Spain
with Miles Davis & Gil
Evans, four coldcall
intrusions, all declined,
The Last Samurai on
cable, washing off the
line. No special effects
were provided by either
Industrial Light & Ma-
gic or Marvel Studios.
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Horror Sleaze Trash, The Asylum Floor, The Rye Whiskey Review, Disturb the Universe Magazine and The Beatnik Cowboy. His new book with Casey Renee Kiser, Altered States of the Unflinching Souls, will be coming out in August of 2024. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights.
