When I first cycled due to my bipolar disorder, my brain concocted an elaborate story about what was happening to me. At the time, I was practicing multiple nights a week on a play, Sense and Sensibility by Kate Hamill, a lively interpretation where each character except the two leads played multiple parts.
My brain convinced me that this play was an experiment to get me pregnant. While I worked on something I loved (the play), I would be filling my brain and body with the joy of working in theater, thus reducing my stress levels. I believed that the contract I signed when I accepted my role in the play was actually a contract for this experiment. In my mind, the directors of the play were working with my doctors and workplace so that I could go on leave as soon as I was ready to deliver. So when I was placed on leave from work, I thought that part of the experiment was being fulfilled. I frequently rubbed my belly, imagining new life growing within as I dreamed of twins.
It wasn’t until after I stabilized and saw the incoherent text messages and emails did I understand why I was dismissed from the play and put on leave from work. With my new diagnosis of bipolar, my dreams of a joyful pregnancy were also dashed. I couldn’t imagine living with the disorder and experiencing something as challenging as pregnancy and postpartum.
Cox’s Bazar
Cox’s Bazar is one of the biggest sea beaches.
This is a tourist place of Bangladesh.
We can see many types of birds,
In the beach.
That is a natural beauty of the beach.
In the morning,
The sun rays fall on the water of the sea.
Then the water shine like treasure.
When the sun rises and sets in the beach,
The entire beach makes yellowish.
There have many different types of stones,
That look like diamonds.
There has coral island,
That contains many colorful fishes.
This is the best place for tourist,
We can go there any time.
So, many foreign tourists come here,
To see its beauty.
The name Cox’s Bazar has been taken,
From the name of Hiram Cox.
Who was an officer,
Of British East India Company.
This is the longest sea beach of the world.
So, it is a great gift from the God.
Don Bormon is a student of grade 8 in Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.
under amber skies
saddled by the sadness
a long cool breeze
as the sun dies in
the evening
under amber skies
the poet laughs at
the mere thought
of anguish
discomfort
a longing that is
fond among these
parts
the whores are too
expensive and the
poet is too broken
to enjoy it anymore
a quiet death
on the western
front
the right hand
reaching for
a gun instead
of a towel
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
burned for kindling
random moments of genius
scribbled down in a notebook
you figure they will be studied
or burned for kindling
each will bring the desired
effect
never lived the life of luxury
or pleasure or being wanted
i was always the break glass
in case of emergency at least
he knows how to use his tongue
in all the holes necessary
not exactly a glorious life
but plenty of stories that
become little poems of
experience
that goes a long way
in the right situation
---------------------------------------------------------------------
in some mystical place
atomic dog
on the radio
your soft
brown skin
running
through
my mind
thinking of
the way you
taste
and all the
years that
have
escaped
us
i still have
the occasional
dream we bump
into each other
in some mystical
place and we make
up for lost time
or maybe i'll be
smart enough to
just say i'm sorry
and not expect
anything good
to come after
that
----------------------------------------------------------
covered in snow
a lonely tree at the bottom
of a mountain covered
in snow
this is where the guilty
go to die
something bob ross would
teach you how to paint
a lonesome cabin
ghosts galore
bob never did tell you
those details
tread lightly my friend
-------------------------------------------------------
visible for miles away
the skies aren't quite purple
but this haze is certainly
visible for miles away
like some sci-fi movie meant
to scare the living shit out
of you
old people scared to venture
out, especially with all the
other diseases still fresh
in their minds
prayers for rain or whatever
else aren't quite working
imagine that
i suppose this is revenge
from canada for all these
years of not winning
the stanley cup
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know where all the bodies are buried. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at The Rye Whiskey Review, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Cajun Mutt Press and Misfit Magazine. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
NOTE: The composite imagery used to conjure an impression of the stage is intended only as a suggestion of what each play should look like during a performance. Not all of the details described in the stage notes are precisely or realistically reproduced by the images accompanying the plays. These images are meant to provide a visual blueprint or shorthand for the stage and the action.
Stopping On One’s Ways—Stage Image
STOPPING ON ONE’S WAY
While curtain is closed, there is very loud machine gun fire together with a man’s screams.
The machine gun noise and the screaming should last approximately thirty-seconds. They should both be uncomfortably loud.
Immediately after the screaming stops, the curtain opens to reveal the man’s corpse. It is positioned at the left wing, as close as possible to the edge of the stage (an ideal stage for this piece would be one where wings/curtain edge and end of stage are close together). The head is concealed behind the curtain, remaining offstage. The man is dressed in some kind of obscure official or military uniform; nothing that can be easily recognized.
A painted backdrop, depicting an expanse of desert, fills the back of the stage. At the center of this scene is a passenger car in flames. A curved and clearly paved road leads from the car (which should occupy the mid-ground of the backdrop) to the stage floor (i.e., the foreground or bottom of the backdrop). The stage is also dressed as a desert scene but there is no physical or visual connection between the road extending through the backdrop scene and the on-stage desert set. It must be clear that this “road”is terminated by the bottom of the backdrop and remains pictorially disconnected from the stage.
The backdrop is flooded by harsh white spotlights. The front of the stage, the entire line of vision begun by the corpse, is kept in relief: not total shadow but enough dimness to compare distinctly with the rest of the stage. A soft white spotlight (haze as opposed to harshness), in a beam no larger than a silver dollar, blinks on and off (in intervals of five seconds), illuminating the feet of the body. The spotlight begins blinking only after the curtain is fully parted.
Fifteen seconds after the blinking of the light (i.e., after it has blinked four times), a man enters from the upper right wing. He is on his hands and knees, crawling very slowly and moaning softly as he moves. His clothing is burnt and scorched, hanging from his body in shreds. After advancing several feet in this fashion, his moans become louder and more agonized, and he speaks the following words (his head remains lowered, thus he speaks facing the ground, so it must be clear that he is speaking to himself):
CRAWLING MAN
My wife! My children and my wife! My wife and my
children are dead! Are cut up! Are dead and cut up!
O this grief! My grief and my body and their bodies!
I know! I know their bodies and this grief! They are
gone! The flesh is ripped! Gone! Ripped! Grief!
No Wife! Suzy dead! Yes! Johnny dead! Yes! Dead!
Yes! Dead! Yes!
He stops speaking and resumes moaning, softly, as before. Fifteen seconds after the moaning begins, he painfully and slowly raises his head, in great surprise notices the corpse, stops moaning, and with unexpected exhilaration and agility, hurriedly crawls towards the body, stopping just in front of the feet.
CRAWLING MAN
Sir! O Sir! I am assured that you will listen! I can
assure myself that you will listen to my grief! I am
assured that I finally can express my grief! O Sir!
Sir! I will tell my story! You must listen! All of
us: myself, my wife, and my children, we were
going on vacation, we were going to be happy, on
our vacation, on our vacation in the mountains,
we were going to enjoy ourselves! We placed our
bodies in the car, as we had done hundreds of times!
There was nothing unusual about that! The car
brought us to so many beautiful places, so many
miles, so much beauty! O Sir, you should have
seen the beauty! I drove continuously for two straight
days when it started to rain and the wind blew
and the road became indistinct but I continued to
drive because we had placed our bodies in the
car as always in order to travel many miles
and see beauty and enjoy ourselves on vacation
in the mountains! On the third night, a bus came
racing towards us! It collided with the car! Sir!
I could not avert the catastrophe! That you must
understand! I could not avert the catastrophe!
You must understand that! The car was swept
off the highway and rolled down the entire length
of a very steep hill! But I was thrown through
the door and watched as the car rolled down the hill! And I
was dazed as I watched the flames! The flames!
The flames! My wife! My children! Their bodies
were in the car and consumed by flames! In the
car and ripped by the shattered glass! In the
car and endlessly bleeding as if their bodies were
hundreds of slowly squeezed tomatoes! Yes!
Yes! I watched and my lips quivered and my
face contorted into a harlequin’s mad wild smile!
Yes! Yes! My face! My face! I saw! I saw!
All the ripped burning flesh! All the ripped burning flesh!
He stops speaking but does not resume moaning, remaining silent instead, and continuing after fifteen seconds.
CRAWLING MAN
I have seen no one for years. I have been gone.
Away. Crawling. Away. All concerned parties assumed
I was incinerated along with my family because the
mass of charred flesh could not be identified.
But I was not. I have been crawling. I have been
away. I have been gone. I have had a terrible
experience, don’t you think? Yes, it was terrible for
me…for them…for me…for them…for me…for them…
for me…for them…
He continues repeating these phrases, less and less intelligibly, until they become a murmur that slowly evolves into the soft moaning, as before. Now moaning, he turns around and slowly crawls towards the upper right wing. His movements are slower and more labored than during his entrance. He reaches the wing and exits, although the moaning, now faint, is still audible. Fifteen seconds after the CRAWLING MAN leaves the stage, the spotlight stops blinking, with the moaning still just barely audible.
Starting Out
To begin, begin, beginning, beginnings
A nice word, a nice concept
Something we all have experienced
Something we all know.
We start out, we can even start again
Begin, begin again.
It’s the first step, the first mile
First move, first chapter
It’s sunrise, the beginning bell.
We step into it, things are fresh, new
Untested, untried
And yet
We know what comes next
Have lived it in so many forms.
There’s the middle where beginnings
Get to play out, drag on
Can go a number of ways, not just well
As the beginnings might have suggested
Maybe not badly.
Life has taught us that both can happen
And eventually
The sequence fills in, unravels.
There’s that beginning
Then the middle
And, of course, there is inevitably
Like right now
The end.
And Then Some
“Some” is an indefinite word
That is a pleasure to use. Say
I want some of that, and no one
Really knows how much, a sip,
A cup, a pint. They say, take
Some with you and run the risk
Of you taking more that they
Meant. “Some” also works well
In its compound forms. Say, I’ll
Be there sometime, and they will/
Might be waiting, sometime after
Five, sometime after that. It gives
Us such leeway. When I say, I left
It somewhere or someplace, they
Get to know how easily things get
Lost, the somewhere where things
Collect and remain caught in that
Indefinite world that our words can
Create. Somewhere over the rainbow,
The great somewhere, the greater
Somewhen where and when we will
Gather our indefinite, vague selves
And become something more than
The nebulous words we so often use
To cover the ambiguous lives we lead.
Forgettable
To forget, he forgets, I forget the forgotten.
It’s a matter of where it all goes.
The name of the star of that movie. It was
My favorite, but then it’s gone – a name
A whole frame of mind. My watch, my
Wallet – somewhere, distant, close up.
The forgotten are like that, away, gone to
Me. Now that you ask. You ask the author
The king, the kid who carried the story we
All loved, but I don’t remember who or even
When or where. The world we know now is
On its way into that other place, the land of
The forgotten, just slipped my mind. It’s a shuffle
Of the deck, a distraction, a slippery slope, a skip
A drop, a fumble on the five-yard line, a miss,
A mile, a search, an empty minute. Who was it?
Where did they go? When did I do that? What
Was that – the one that should have played out
So easily? Hell, they all/it is the infinitive of that
Guilty party – to forget. The he – who exactly –
Forgets, stumbles a bit, then asks. But, of course
I forget, I forgot. Then there they are, out there
Waiting there for us – all our forgotten.
Thank You For The Opportunity
But I’ve re-imagined my purpose in life
and I’m going in another direction,
neither northeast or southwest
but someplace with fewer shadows.
I was rather stunned by the antiseptic
atmosphere, the robotic recitation
of your strategic plan.
I had a sudden vision of being trapped
in the heart of the mundane.
You scared me or I scared myself,
either way, I won’t be accepting your offer.
That tie, with the parrots, was the tip-off.
I’m liberated, if not by my unsettled
situation, by the empty hours before me,
with birdsong. One must strive
for authenticity although that itself,
like a rogue wave,
can be a sly subversion.
Make Me A Rothko
I do love the paint-
ing, blues and blacks,
the inconstancy
Separate swathes be-
fore merging, like the brink
of a rainstorm
My heart in layers, too,
revealed by contem-
plation, slow, measured
The painting changes
with the light, cool morn-
ing, sullen evening
I’m attached to the colors,
they slip into dreams, sub-
sume my regrets
Sky of wind, like rough skin
raked across, I, too, be-
long to nothing else
The Pallid Observation of the Duo
Old people in lawn chairs
Blue-eyed infants eating peaches in the shade
The end of summer, the past become
Loose morals and abandoned rosaries
All the bits in their own cubicles
their own atmospheres, time
as a dizzy mistake
before the celebration, minus the noise
Gasping in the side yard
The slurp as a distillation of sound
Winter broken in two, the future
Sins, mortal and venial plus repentance
To each a place in the sun, no
walls, circulated air released, echoes
of several weeks in chaos,
anticipation, that holy moment
