So may I someday, sitting at play in my little unknown courtyard.
-A line from the poem “The Last Romantic” by John Ashbery.
May I, I pray,
someday, say TIME.
My mouth open, but breath stopped.
No air twisted by my language.
Not the word, but the event. TIME.
Its meaning will be conveyed by rote memory
directly into the minds of the people. TIME.
My name will be undead.
From then on, my name will be foreknown
by every baby born, by every deathbed rosary grip,
as the philosopher who knew how to tongue the name of Saturn
that no mortal had ever pronounced before. TIME.
The soundless rote memory of each molecule
and flexed in crystalline chirality. The turn of a closing sarcophagus jar,
screwed into the body of a helical protein. TIME.
The cousin of those twins, Heat and Pressure,
who would hear my call, and would answer,
by vibrating the hollow bones of birds, BIRDSONG TRIUMPHANT,
in simultaneous exultation.
Their talons on the ledges of the rows of ossuaries
that line the psychic riverbanks of the city.
Saturn returns a kiss. Lovingly.
Placing his expressionless lips on the forehead of my skull.
Willard van Dyke, Funnels, 1932
Photo in Phaidon, The Photo Book, p. 127.
If one is intake and the other is output,
they circulate ironies.
On the right, boater hat straight to the sky,
one attentively waits on an arrival.
On the left, face bending the first,
a gossip attends only to its companion.
Sky setting for HVAC,
Denver periscope and snorkel extended in ether,
either one pipe-fitted to purpose,
differently, anatomically differentiated,
completely interchangeable.
Below the photographer’s frame
there has to be a maze, anatomically has to be,
in architecture, on a rooftop, a circulatory system
and unseen rhythms of building inspectors,
repairers, roofers, breathers, odors,
all breathing in timetables, calendars, municipal bylaws,
chartable but not really charted except by Willard van Dye
who looked up to a sunless cloudless unbirdened sky
without the draw of church steeple or billboard or neon light
and the shadow of the pie-plate topper on the straight one
indicates the Sun it shining in its face and on van Dyke’s back
and from this angle he must be lying down on the roof,
Willard’s camera as far away from the base of the Funnels
as inches are between the soles of his feet and his eyes
the hypotenuse thereof ridden by the focus of his lens –
the only straight line of the entire picture
that is not hooked by a corner and recycled forever in circles.
Canadian farmer Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appeared in CV2, The New Quarterly, Dalhousie Review, Nashwaak Review, The Great Lakes Review, Pamenar Press, The Ex-Puritan, Studies in Social Justice, and ~200 more places. He is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for funding during the polycrisis.
I write from the gutter I write from the gutter my poems belong in a trash fire and even if I had the choice to write from an ivory tower my legs couldn’t climb it they’d give out at the first step
Art snobs and theater kids Art snobs and theater kids always rubbed me the wrong way and I still don’t understand 90% of the poems I read in journals even though I write them, too
beauty isn’t made by people with an education
when a bum on the street throws up on the sidewalk that’s real art
If you can play If you can play the guitar you can make someone else happier when they’re down on their luck and need a good tune to keep them from drowning in a river of sadness
I like cheese I like cheese I always liked cheese because mice eat cheese and I’m quiet like a mouse
Mean like the grinch Mean like the grinch Bitter like Scrooge Sour like Mencken Bah humbug
—-
Dmitriy Kogan is a short story writer, poet, and essayist from Staten Island, New York. His work has appeared in The Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review, Oddball Magazine, and A Thin Slice of Anxiety.
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s a 3 time Best of The Net nominee and a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at The Rye Whiskey Review, Night Owl Narrative, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy and Crossroads Magazine. His most recent book, to live your dreams, was published by Whiskey City Press. You can find more info on the book by going here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245883678-to-live-your-dreams.
As most people who know my work know, I have lived all of my life in the Twin Cities Metro area (St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota)… I currently live in Maplewood, an inner ring suburb of St. Paul…
I do not normally give my art works titles because I want the audience, such as it is, to see the work without any of the limitations of meaning which a title would perhaps supply. This is predicated on the belief that these works have any meaning at all, and if they do, I would hope that it is on a psychological, emotional and/or symbolic level… or at least not on a topical level… Anyway, after I finished this drawing, I decided that it could appropriately be titled “Minneapolis, January 2026” This is a small drawing in ballpoint pen on watercolor paper…
