it would be late for you to come to my bed wake me brush my forehead and say belatedly "I'm proud of you." Maybe that's why we die. When it's too late. ******** Shadows are elongated today. I am slouching the other way toward an art supply store to pick up some canvases, tubs of paint, pig bristle brushes and charcoal. It's cold. The earth won't yield to my weight. A stray dog and I look at each other. Neither of us can decide whether we're right for one another. Then we separate. A woman hides behind her window curtain. She's beguiled by me, my smile. I agree with David Hume. What I see are the ideas I work with. The row houses to my left are appealing. As are the pinnate leaves in the gardens. As are the people. ************* You have to have a barn. The warped red wood the sunlight through its slats the straw that's left on the ground. It's required if you want to write a poem to a country meant to last. You just say what you see. You are a cirrus cloud. You are a witness. Like the scarecrow there in the dry brown field wearing the farmer's hat who has left to work in Long John Silver's restaurant in town. The supervisor is strapped to his back. He plows the people. He fetches bags of fried fish and hamburgers. His mule is now a tube of glue for children's projects. He makes about 20K a year. Enough to make repairs to the home he built to last for all his years.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Arthur Russell
On A Night When The Crickets Insist They are interested in power. They have a passion for moving large solid objects with their minds. They like waking up and tennis, from which they draw life lessons. They like chess as a metaphor , but they do not play. They are past wanting cars, watches or love beyond affection. They like frying chicken in an iron skillet, and cornbread stacked like a pyramid on a dinner plate. They don’t care about horses except as backdrops. They don’t know where fatigue comes from or where it goes. Ideas, even those filled with white moths, are steamer trunks. Their mother is 96. Their daughter is 30. They care about voter registration; less so, but still, to some degree, about the minimum wage. The moon is of no interest. They have no interest in construction sites. At a reception, when they see someone they worked with years ago, they brim. Harto is the word in Spanish. They have made their peace with their partner, though peace is not what they thought it would be. The center continues to vibrate like an impacted wisdom tooth. They are clean, sober and off Paxil. On the walls of their townhouse are souvenirs of longings they once felt the possibility of fulfilling when a gallery opening made them sense that life had been wasted on social missions. They love best at arm’s length. They are not afraid of famous or powerful people or intellectual prowess or athleticism, but they love Simone Biles. They never underestimate their enemies, or mistake passion for loyalty or kindness for weakness. The speed at which the Earth moves as it circles the sun – 67,000 miles per hour -- is never far from their mind. They used to go to a club in the basement of an office building in midtown and nurse one beer. People would sit down next to them, start a conversation, then move on when they didn’t respond to the vibe. Bees on a blossoming tree once meant something to them. They like a Korean barbeque place in Astoria. They believe in God without an ounce of anguish. They do not keep a clean house. Their maid once quit citing futility. The hallway that goes from their front door to their kitchen has African masks lining the wall. They are prepared for the end that often never comes. There are three people whom they keep away from their other friends and from one another. They sit on the board. They have one cup of the real stuff in the morning, then they switch to decaf. They remember: on the Staten Island Ferry, one New Year’s Eve, at midnight, in the harbor, out on deck, in the rainy wind with the woman whose idea it was to come, how their face felt, pelted with harbor spume and droplets of rain, hurting, vivid, but they don’t remember where they met her or how the night ended. They saw, early on, the limits of what intelligence could accomplish, but never escaped its addictive gleam completely. They like being in control the way books put them in control. Pick it up. The book speaks. Put it down. It shuts up. Speaks. Shuts up. Speaks. Shuts up.
Poetry from Michael Robinson
Resurrection For Dr. Stephen C. Wright In the mountain skies of Vermont were heaven reigns, Remembering the night while darkness surrounded me. Beginnings of a life of prayer with an earnest heart. Redemption always eluded me at Sunday Mass. Seeking absolution for all the sins which came upon me. Night prayers left a feeling of loneliness in troubled times. My life song came when God saved me with his grace. Easter Sunday sunrise birds flew in the open skies. Celebration of birth came in the quietness of morning. Tears of joy circled my soul for the first time. God’s beauty never fades, giving me life eternal
Poetry from John Culp
Sold the path through the Walls of Disbelief,
for nothing can still the Heart
than then when
than then when
Faith's steps time Blend
Delicious fruit taste
Delicious
I am Stupid
Yesterday
& Eyes open
taste the light
that
Hearts drink
In waters I swim
Alive running
Thank you
for the nothing
I'm creative today & your
name is as good as
mine
Ours Creation
♡
I'm Love ARE WE
the shared
is a lie where
All is in
sharing
Just rests
Triumphant
without an
opponent
You're good for the
nothing
Knowing the Completeness
the Greatness
unbounded freedoms
GAMELESS Victory
Comfort sleeping
on the Granite warmed
from Beneath without a Blanket.
Cold as snow Drawn
to Life from within.
Thanks for
the nothing that
fills my Heart
from within where
sharing has creation
Beyond what any
thought possible
to give.
Creation is already
with or without
my attention to
detail.
Thank you for the nothing
where Welcome Stands
to fill the VOID
Creation's Call
My Heart Sings,
And rises as if yours
is mine all along
without evidence the
LOVE Pillars
Built Before
time Began.
And I'll find my cup Full
Before You Stand to Smile
& Pour LOVE'S Grace,
Knowing Full Well
the LOVE we share
Creation's damage
Broken clocks , all to say, Before & After,
Where NOW Stands the Glory!
Poetry from Sushant Thapa
New Chapter
While studying your lessons
Do you wish to open the ball of clothy imagination?
Do you care to lighten your path
With a delightful conviction?
While touching the books from your shelves
Do you realize they are your
Guiding kingdom breathing in you?
The scent of pages of your books is
A perfume of true human essence
That has been inked by magical minds
Surpassing generations.
It can be the world you see with your mind's eye.
What forgiving hands hold the books!
A well-engineered nest of comfort
Where even a winner of the world
Takes a dive of love into another precious heart
And losses his own.
The teachings you choose
Make you a teacher itself,
A lifelong student deep inside
To appreciate the teacher of purpose.
You may teach life a new chapter every day!
2. Pleasure Is the Forgetful Pain
Freshness, joy
Height of bliss!
Solitude is a name
Of beautifully alone early dawn
Even before good morning
Is greeted.
Recollections keep finding itself in the
Address of deep and dark dusk.
In nature lies the truth
The zeal to uncover,
The moment to capture.
The net of will casted to
Cage the wide sky is eternity.
Forever the sleeping time awakes
In one moment.
The music of the rain
Pleasure is the forgetful pain.
In the atom of thought
Simplicity chooses
To become the only clarity.
Written by Sushant Thapa
Nepal
Poetry from Ryan Quinn Flanagan
No freckles in a foxhole No reason to go straight with all the roads and learning on the curve. No freckles in a foxhole, that’s what I always say with no one around. Slowly spooning cubes of green Jell-O out of the Borg continuum. Wishing Hitchcock Photography was in charge of all my best close-ups. Midnight taco trucks playing greasy shell games to God. Everyone down at the Employment Center in line looking for the works. Land Bridge Once they close the damn thing down, you start to think of all the circuitry involved, that intricate green board of so many unpleasantries, a murder of crows for silicon valley, the cops on the scene with massive hangovers so you can watch your toilet water tax dollars be flushed away; truckers like lonely monks without the sash, but I could never accept the cabin like a coffin for so many miles; all those rules of the road, that carnival itch of a six day beard – how closely I resemble this land bridge of complex carbohydrates, a bedside table full of happier times I can hardly remember standing over this buzzing ice machine waiting on another glacial pull from the heavy-eyed doldrums you find west of the Rockies. OshKosh Brioche You can’t take the vaude out of the ville no matter how small the population gets and it’s OskKosh brioche, all factory stacks to smoke; the smoker of cigarettes travelling around in packs, dry-mouth nicotine armies blowing smoke rings of unholy matrimony, during those many long lunch hours that seem like they should be for more than drugs but never get there in the late-January snowshoe sense. Prayer Mats in the sprawling dry mouth desert spitting hump day camels at market going Bedouin for the long haul all those prayer mat Fridays facing the East instead of liquidation waiting for some simple scorpion sting around the fire under all those stars from the sharing fellowship heavens of the waiting galactic federation. Long Gone He said he worked at a gas chamber and it took me three hours to figure out he had said gas station, but by then I was sitting at home and he was long gone like all those shoot ‘em up extras in spaghetti westerns that don’t even live as long as the horses. She Smacks Her Lips Those ugly gusts of wind are almost enough to keep the once-friendly dog parks indoors. I threaten to drop the bomb even though I have never had the bomb and any of its known accomplices in my popular employ. She smacks her lips so you know she is preparing to say something important even if it doesn’t mean shit to anyone else. On that slippery plastic couch my grandmother once died on with a tongue so thick it could be some cement mixer ham steak the kiddies can’t bite through come dinner time. Crack a tooth and cry on command. Put all your problems to bed. Sit up in the dark on a phone that threatens to come over. Her snoring husband in the background of a movie no one will ever remember seeing. Name Plate Nevermind the name plate, you could be anyone’s failing blood feud, pick umbilical at that bacteria-laden innie half a world away from the stringy pink placenta some performance artist in Europe insists on eating to the great bemusement of a failing union – standing inside that last payphone in town for warmth, I blow across gloved hands out of habit, watch the cheesemonger with mites for legs crawl home to some seasonal flood zone in the burbs; that scratching body lice of old records along the bus route, no way to get anywhere that ever pays near enough to make it in a naked
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle though his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Synchronized Chaos, Literary Yard, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
Poetry from Frankie Laufer
NOT MAJOR HOOPLES BOARDING HOUSE: I just returned from a long mostly silent journey. To discover I just inherited a twelve-room house. It feels vaguely like the last house. But don’t ask me its location. Exterior needs a little paint but don’t they all. Remodeling seems to be a work in progress, just like so many of my paintings. There are tenants occupying most of the rooms. But even those that are currently empty one often hears the whispers of the past. It’s rumored that Tiny Tim produced his best music in room number three. The Venus room looks wonderful, but Saturn has done the decorating. Surya shines bright and bold, but I find it too hot…Jim Morrison felt the same way. A hell of a fight breaks out in room number six, Mars breaks a window or two. The Moon is milky sweet but is afraid of Rahu’s shadow. That snake scares me too. Why oh why did they decide to be roommates! Mercury is fast but sometimes outruns himself and forgets to lock the door. Jupiter is gracious and our guiding light, watching over everyone like a sleepy owl. In time they all will transit to other rooms. Google maps says follow the neon sign shouting Color TV and Free Coffee! Damage deposits and thirty days’ notice required.
SHADOWS: My dear departed wife collected dolls. I am now collecting shadows. Storage is not a problem. This collection is not for sale. I normally don’t play favorites but this one has all my attention. Its exact location is hard to pinpoint. Google maps does not help. It often appears under a passing cloud or nestled beside me in the warmth of my shadow. Often it shows up in a dream, wearing a blond wig and a t-shirt that says I love Cairn Terriers. I even wrote a long and beautiful love letter to it, but it was too long and too beautiful. Now it’s gone AWOL… was it stolen or just a runaway? Is there an app for this? Searching Frantically! I might put on a milk carton… Have You Seen Me? My friend Jenny collects sentences.
Frankie Laufer is an oil painter and writer living in Walla Walla, WA. His paintings have been shown in both the SF Bay area and Eastern Washington state. His poems have recently appeared on Piker Press.
The expressive nature of both painting and writings creates the possibility of rediscovering lost or forgotten feelings and the possibility of new discovery.