Through a crack in the wall, I see nothing. I hear a faint swirl of mutters and creaks and nothing. I sense a fear, From me or the crack in the wall? From me. Eye to the hole, I stare and stare, But nothing is nothing is nothing. I see nothing, I hear nothing, I sense nothing. Yet when I am far from the crack in the wall, I see it, I hear it, I sense it. The crack in the wall is made up of nothing, Yet it makes me feel the most of everything. I am it. Which makes me nothing.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Adepoju Timileyin
Before I Was Born the night before I was born cloudy night sent me tons of muse n' caged me on sit the night before I was born my life became the only image my eyelid pledged patriotism the night before I was born nightmare became my company while I'm paranoid by unknown guilt the night before I was born I became friend to my future while my past shallowed tunnel of memory the night before I was born I had this writing as prophecy and for I couldn't wait to write it's end, I'm here to attest the living.
Poetry from Christina Chin and Uchechukwu Onyedikam
the floor still wet with mourning… oh Abiku — with pain & suffering death returns her again weeding holy the field ardor in every breath delivers deliverance sunlight — her eyes piercing through … underwater swim winter's a true relief from heat while birds overwinter in the tropics yawning — idle on the bed's edge to and fro of army ant contemplating what to do Christina Chin / Uchechukwu Onyedikam
Poetry from Chloe Schoenfeld
Maniacal Drama Extremism to its extreme The iliad twice over Yet missing more than A hundred thousand soldiers There's a killer on the loose The new pennywise The curtains haven't closed yet This story isn’t near its end Quiet panic Tension is high Cross your fingers and Pray there's no encore No more- Chekhov's gun is on the wall “La forza del destino” Graffitied on the bathroom stall The spotlight’s gone dark The lead is dead We pity the poor soul Who found the queen’s head The show must go on Sanity is hanging on by just a thread Everything’s gone wrong And the stage is half set We’re only in act three Nobody knows where the prop manager went Iago is carrying the head of Marie Antoinette Exit stage left Keep your eye on the apron- The hit list is too long Suspicion is high Biases are burning Don’t blink It’s all a lie Romeo is dead now So is Snow White Mufasa has fallen Spock said goodbye And Rose couldn’t save Her poor young lover’s life The audience is cheering It all looked so authentic News reports nineteen civilians have gone missing
Poetry from James Whitehead
Socrates You -- god of something we want & we lack – Sacrificed to a life of questioning & Generations before the Lord took His own Life for some odd strange answers. Look: What the hell do you see now, looking back? Thousands of academics answering Counter-arguments at symposiums, A talk . . . on an essay . . . about a book. The Forgiving God deals with all those Hymns Sung by all those armed, those willing to fight. But you deal with people equally right: Know-it-alls all full of propositions. People like you have started Religions. Not you. You just died to ask us questions. Snakes & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails Ignorance is not knowing anything & being attracted to the good. Innocence is knowing everything & still being attracted to the good. – Clarissa Pinkola-Estes. All this reminds me of innocent things made up of the pure Then of memory . . . a fish with a hook stuck in its gullet & frogs tied up to a bicycled string, a dog wanting, & waiting for a sign of the bone in my behind-the-back hand, only long enough for a feigned toss, & that dog chasing empty expectancy. “I was a little world made cunningly.” I feel younger, not un-knowing again, but the pain in the heart of attraction. Like innocent desire compels it. These thoughts are caught in a throat that is mine. & I recall that fish flopping madly. Sit on the barstool next to mine 2 seats down she removes the clams from their shells, 1 at a time, then tosses the clicking casings into the bowl. You watch her suck the linguine into her jowls. What breaks you down so much these days? It’s not the relentless February storms, dark mornings or icy nights, or 28 days that seem to go on relentlessly longer than May’s 31. What drains you so much these days is not persistent fatigue, insomnia or illness; it is not 4 sweating hours each night, the cigarettes, the beers, or sinusitis. It isn’t depression, your diet, or exercise, although your body never lies except when collapsing limply late at night. What drains it all from you these days is not the labor law autopsy photo, proving more than the other attorney’s drone as you listen to her on the speaker phone, & ponder the relatives of the anonymous one who fell head first into the wood chipper, now one-half biped, without chest or head. No. It’s much more simple, more right than any of these basic, tragic recurrences. It is something once rare, now become common. Hard working friends, like love alone did, are dying. 2 seats down she removes the clams from their shells, then tosses the clicking casings into the bowl. You watch her suck the linguine into her jowls, jealous. She is beautiful, you are alone, & you want to say: Please sit on the barstool next to mine . . . I want to see living . . . Available Space 9 planets – & not an Eros or Cupid among them. But we’ve still found 2 homes for Mars. Acquisitions The red-faced neo-conservative political pundit, a total hog, a local celebrity from public tv, walked into the liquor store, my liquor store, where I worked, & he asked for “good Scotch.” “I don’t know Scotch,” I said . . . honestly. “It’s an acquired taste,” he said . . . with a smile. I said nothing, but I certainly thought about acquired tastes. I thought a taste for love must be acquired, since one must acquire a lover. One can read the works of love, I thought, read special guides from the East, or one can simply listen . . . to one’s lover . . . & then act. One can acquire an equally inexpensive taste for books, for knowledge, using the library, & one can acquire a taste for poetry, or prose, learning the greats, or just learning the adequate, even, without ever dropping a taxable dime, or spending one’s Scotch-drinking time, learning, or even listening to the words of some other. One can love & love words. Is this acquired? Can one acquire a taste for generosity? I wondered, say, float some money to a friend, but later give one’s time to the holiday soup line, having grown into it? Is that . . . acquired ? Later, I imagined my customer, the fat-faced hog he is, with money, hating taxes, drinking Scotch. I imagined him finishing his bottle of top-shelf liquor, as I finish my own cheap beer, given my acquired taste for cheap beer. I imagined him later, red-faced, kneeling before the toilet bowl, throwing up a soul, tasting like top-shelf Scotch, unlike language, or love, but still, an acquired taste.
Two Poems from John Culp
This Beauty
My Heart
Could see the No
Hope
With fears thrown on
the fire to keep
us warm
tonight
I'm fearing absentia
missed and
Lost on pure
fruit-filled Faith
A Basket
always empty
Before Love
Can Stand
Knowing
our Love
not ours alone
And my Palm
is Visible to me
Raised to Care
in the Empty
Light
filled on Broth
& stirred
emotions
to soothe
the already
Soothing
turn a Day
from light to dusk
& Rest Knowing
by John Edward Culp
The Dreams
that never Die
& will never be the
Same again
for Now has no plural
form
And Time is A Name in
Passing
the Half Full Cup
that's alway finding
the new
Completion
to Reach for
without bending, just
Standing Here
Sleep finds me,
Baggage at the Door,
fallen to pillow
where confusion
loosens its weave
Drawn to the fragrance
of things to be
Yes, I say yes, in my Dreams!
The Dreams that
never Die & will never
be the same again.
Written the morning of
Monday, October 10, 2022
by John Edward Culp
Poetry from Oona Haskovec
time travelers you took our picture from a car window. i know because i saw the door frame on the edge of the photograph. neither of us saw you take it, but i know it exists because someone in the future is admiring the yellowing picture paper that smells of antique stores and soap. why had we stopped to stand in the middle of the highway? not sure who are you? i wont bother guessing because you care either way. you stopped time in march. the MAR on the side told me so. what year? anyone's guess. all i know is that she is looking at me and i am looking at the blue or the grey or the beige.