The Devil Plays All His Own Records Backwards

just to see what all the fuss

is about

scratches the shit out of them

on this used turntable he picked up

at a yard sale seven months ago

and there are no hidden messages

that he can make out

not even a few of his own

and he looks at the album cover

then back to the record

before tossing it into the fire

and getting the next one

out of its sleeve.

Police Are Searching for a Doorbell Licker

I saw his picture on a black and white camera.

They say he walked up to this place at night

and licked the doorbell for over three hours.

Out in California.

Now that takes some serious dedication.

I’m guessing germs are not a large worry

for this chap.

His tongue raw with effort.

Dry as redwood kindle

If you see this man,

hide your palms in your pockets.

The doorbell was not so lucky.

Veggie Patches and the Mistress

The world is absurd.

People walk around acting like everything

is reasonable which makes things

more absurd.

I guess they need to pretend there is

some order to things,

some guiding principle behind

it all.

I know better.

I lock the door behind me.

Shut off all the lights.

You wouldn’t even know I am there.

Pulling at old skin tags.

Thinking about veggie patches

and the mistress.

Not mine, someone else’s.

I don’t have a mistress.

The whole idea of a mistress is absurd.

Like chewing on a pen cap for it’s obvious

nutritional value.

I don’t think I can hold out much longer.

My gnarled spine crawling up my back

and out my nose.

The freshly shaven face like a clean slate.

The mincemeat clarity of sound check

distortion pedals.

A knock at the door

and I am standing in the bathtub.

Sewing heart transplants onto old teddy bears

so the markets don’t crash like cars

in traffic.

Ugly Mug

I don’t think the poem is beautiful.

Everyone says it’s beautiful and everyone else

says it’s ugly and somewhere in the middle

is a fence you get sit on as long as the owners

aren’t home.

I don’t want the poem to be beautiful.

Ugly is okay, but never just for the sake of ugliness.

That fence could be torn down in no time,

but everyone seems to like it.

I don’t climb on poems

or write fences into yards.

Ugly is preferable.

The poem is not beautiful.

Crash Diets Should Not Involve Cars

You expect as much

in California

but the underground

parking spaces

sneak up on you

your truck

is not on a diet

the cameras

show your many attempts

at backing

a beluga whale

into a

shoebox.

Windy City Poem (for Alyssa Trivett)

You got that windy city

wind as well

and it’s really that

biting wind

that cuts through everything

and brings the cold

to the bone.

She tells me I have written a poem

without trying.

I decide that she is right

and that this one

is for her.

1% Burn

If you burn your genitals, it’s a 1% percent burn,

she says out of nowhere.

If you burn your genitals, it’s 1% of your body mass.

I suddenly wonder why she is telling me this.

If she thinks I will burn my genitals or am planning to

in the near future.

Maybe she is planning on burning them

and this is her way of telling me.

Her face down in the NCLEX nursing book.

Maybe she is just thinking out loud.

I don’t say anything.

Men seldom do when it comes

to burning genitals.

Her nursing exam is in a few weeks.

My genitals might be on it.

Untimely

They always say it is “untimely”

as though Death can be

anything but “untimely.”

Like there’s ever a good time

to die.  Even the oldies still feel

they have a little more left.

A few years of arthritis and old war stories

and beer.

But the obits always say “untimely.”

I have half a mind to put one in

that says such a Death was timely.

Like clockwork.

Couldn’t wait for that mean bastard

to kick it.

And just when the son of a bitch

looked as though he was panicking

and wanted to confess to anything – BOOM!

Don’t betray yourself now.

Go out just as you came in.

This nostalgia after the fact is nothing but guilt.

Manufactured or otherwise.

Seems death is always “untimely” unless you are

a hitman and paid for said death.

Still, the family will think it “untimely”

and say as much in the papers.

Barrie Anne Gardens

was the Compton

of the North

for poor families

just starting out

maybe it has changed now

they seem to be levelling everything

to the ground

and erecting condos

with extra fees

these days

but this was knife

fight central

back in the day

lots of wives with unexplained bruises

along the bus path

which was a selling point

as I screamed for milk

because I was still

a baby

my father in accounting

and my mother in damn near

everything else

as long as it paid

and we could make rent.

Front Loader

I stand over the toilet

and think of front loaders

in gravel pits

wiggling the thing around

when I’m done.

If I were a back loader

I would sit down.

Spread the cheeks

like spreading the love.

Fearful Symmetry

I could go right down the line. All of the bullshit. Start small, with those little pricks who are polite to your face but who you know call you a pig twenty seconds later. Probably because they think that the black kids do and that’s cool to them.  They’re not terrible, but they grind you down, not being able to call them out, because you know their parents would pitch a fit.

But that’s still kind of small time. Take the Black Lives Matter crap. I get it that their neighborhoods are tough. I’m called to them enough that I get it. But what are we supposed to do, not arrest any black people? I’d like to see them try to be a white cop. Good fucking luck. If you go easy, the people from the neighborhood will expect you to always back down, and your buddies are done trusting you. If you’re too much of a hardass, you could lose your job after a couple of people complain or you could be the target of some thug. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

And then, on top of all that, there’s that fucking tiger. They said it was supposed to be like a mascot or something. I don’t know why it would be a tiger. We’re in the middle of a fucking city. But they keep the tiger right where we all come in. Stupid, right? And I asked what the deal was. I asked Morris, “You going to just let this thing stay out here?” So what does the prick say? He doesn’t look at me, but he says, “Out of my hands.”

I tried asking him whose hands the tiger was in, but you know how it goes. By the end, he just said, “Look, as long as you don’t do anything to agitate the tiger, you have nothing to worry about.” Like it’s up to me not to rile up a god damned tiger. Like if something happens it’s my fault.

You’d think that everyone felt that way, but leave it to fucking Evans to take Morris’s side. A bunch of us were talking, and pretty much all of us agreed that this whole tiger thing was bullshit. But then Evans said, “It smells fear. You have to not be afraid.” Now think about that for a minute. There’s a deadly creature that you have to see every fucking day. You can’t not. And you’ve been told not to agitate it, and then you’re told that if you’re afraid, you’re agitating it. Makes a lot of sense, right?

And don’t tell me that nothing’ll happen. Just yesterday, Jameson got his face clawed. Yeah, Jameson was being stupid, trying to take a selfie with the tiger, but, come on. Bringing that thing in, we were just asking for trouble. It’s just common sense. But nobody knows what it’s like, and that’s why nobody gives a fuck, and that’s why it’s not going to get better. Go fucking figure.

Action Plan

Go through with it
the daily grind
until the great unwind.
Continue with
the gross overestimations,
the bad investments
of money or time
and keep on playing your chips
when it comes to love
or friendships
do it all with the artistry
of archery
even if it means
aiming for the bullseye
of a good cry
fake it
until you break it
and most of all
keep your journal
of to-dos
you did not
because this
French kiss of living
and vampire hickey
on the neck
of death
is all
that you’ve got

Over Complex

I know who
and what
you are
from your sequential
idiosyncrasies
and the polyrhythmic algorithms
of your speech patterns
and based on my graph
of your laugh
and the amount of
salt in your tears
and taking into account
your good and bad years
I deduce your use,
validity and relevance
in the current marketplace
of those who wish to be
in my space
and if you pass
this take home exam
then I am
willing to give you
the passcode to enter
my emotional wellbeing
now look into my iris
where you will see
your intentions reflected
good, no virus detected

The Last Match

There is somebody
out there for everyone
who is willing to strike
cinematic poses
in the rain
holding soaked roses
or who does not mind
the humiliation of
being the only one
in love
or who can flatter
at a moment’s notice
or pay for a fancy platter
and act like throwing down
one hundred bucks
for overcooked duck
really doesn’t matter
and you are guaranteed
to keep that
special one
if you can ignore
blatant off-white lies,
and distant distracted looks
in their hypnotic eyes
in exchange for
the hope that
they will be there
to light a candle
on that night
when the old cold wind
blows out the power
of your heart
and the light dies

Author, Author

I have been working
on a project
that involves
zero actual humans
and no tangible materials
the gist of this endeavor
is mostly me
and the alphabet
trying to be clever
the chance of it
being finished
any time soon are nil
but when it is done
like a comedian on fire
it is going to kill
this whole thing is
just an act of
cowardly heroism
egotism, as seen through
a self-involved prism
all that I can hope
is that when you read
my scrawlings on the
concave of your imagination
you will be
thoroughly shook
and you will then
tell everyone to
go read my book

—

Ivan Jenson is a fine artist, novelist and contemporary poet. His artwork was featured in Art in America, Art News, and Interview Magazine and has sold at auction at Christie’s. Ivan was commissioned by Absolut Vodka to make a painting titled Absolut Jenson for the brand’s national ad campaign. His Absolut paintings are in the collection of the Spiritmusuem, the museum of spirits in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenson’s painting of the “Marlboro Man” was collected by the Philip Morris corporation. Ivan was commissioned to paint the final portrait of the late Malcolm Forbes.  Ivan has written two novels, Dead Artist and Seeing Soriah, both of which illustrate the creative and often dramatic lives of artists. Jenson’s poetry is widely published (with over 600 poems published in the US, UK and Europe) in a variety of literary media. A book of Ivan Jenson’s poetry was recently published by Hen House Press titled Media Child and Other Poems, which can be acquired on Amazon. Two novels by Ivan Jenson entitled, Marketing Mia and Erotic Rights have been published hardcover. Ivan Jenson’s new novel, Gypsies of New Rochelle has been released by Michelkin Publishing. Ivan Jenson’s website is: www.IvanJenson.com

My name is Alejandra Garzon. I’m a storytelling fashion photographer from Ecuador but currently moved to New York.

                                         
 
Nexus   

What has passed shapes the part that remains:           
The sweep hand holds its breath, then clicks,
	and the clock breathes again.

At day’s end, the sun swells, then drops from its ledge                
waking fields of gems in the darkness overhead.      
And dreams return to bed to reprise         
the searching voices inside us—        
that elusive yet intimate presence  	  
which prickles our skin or sates it.  	    

Then morning comes—light ascends and floods, 
breaking the edges of windows and doors.
There is rust in our tracks from the day before.		 	     	

Each second holds the nub of the next:       
From spirit-sparked dust and cellular mix   
	life pulses through time, just to lose    
its grip on the moment—	            
before starting anew.


					


 
 
  

The Shore of Imagination        
          --Inspired by Richard
 
What’s imagined is true—
for as long as it lasts;
it confers with facts           
as needed.                           
 
Even when crayons          
master trees,                                  
clouds can still be green.  
And the sun can be blue—
seas empty, or full—         
or the sky still blank            
or the beach 
too red for feet.                 
                              
Facts serve to settle           
uncertain beliefs,                        
but the mind’s eye
knows what it sees. 
 
 
                                        
                    

Looking Through the Big End of the Telescope


In the mind, the frames of time are inversely sized:
 
Years are captured in snapshots and windows.
Entire summers hang on nimbus clouds
                         and clothesline rows.  
Days and weeks are fields of clover,
                 countless needles in a forest of pine.
 
While the present is a blur
       of collapsing moments, 
               the endless shaft of a shrinking mine.
 
 
                                                                                   

My home on the web is www.johnmiddlebrookpoet.com, and here, you can find the details of my publication history. I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I manage a consulting firm focused on non-profit organizations. I have been writing poetry since I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where I also served on the poetry staff of Chicago Review.

From Miami to Michelangelo

by:  Norman J. Olson

on Thursday, April 20, 2017, Mary noticed a cruise that she was interested in had come down to a very cheap price that we could afford…  so, we booked the cruise and flew the next day to Fort Meyers, Florida (flights to Fort Lauderdale and Miami were full)…  we rented a car in Fort Meyers and drove to Miami (there are often no drop fees in Florida, so a one way rental was like $35, cheaper than the bus!)

anyway, the drive across Alligator Alley was uneventful, the Everglades are lovely from the road, but we did not see any alligators or giant snakes…  when we got to the Miami airport, to turn in the car, I had forgotten to fill the gas tank, so the rental cost an extra $20, but driving in Miami makes me nervous and even so, $55 was pretty cheap anyway so, in travel, often things screw up and we are used to that….

speaking of screw ups, I had booked a hotel in Fort Lauderdale by mistake and only learned when we called from the Miami airport for a shuttle pick up…  fortunately, the online agency and the hotel agreed to cancel the booking and we found another hotel in Miami that was only a few dollars more…  it would have been more expensive to get from Fort Lauderdale to the Miami Cruise port… the hotel was in a very industrial area of Miami near the airport…  the desk clerk directed us to the only restaurant for miles around which was a Wendy’s…  well, of course, we walked the wrong way and so after a good long walk and not seeing any Wendy’s or any other places to eat, we backtracked to the hotel and then I saw the sign for the Wendy’s in the opposite direction…  so I walked there, only to find that the Wendy’s was closed for remodeling…  well, it was an interesting walk, past industrial lots with wild growth of tropical plants and a barbed wire surrounded luxury hotel…  in the dusty Miami afternoon…  so we actually ordered in some food from a Cuban restaurant that had left a flier at the hotel…  the food was amazing and so we had a better dinner and got some exercise too, thanks to not having good information….

I often say, that the hardest thing about travel is getting good information about logistics…  so, the next morning, we took an Uber ($16) to the port to get on our cruise ship…  the driver spoke almost no English…  I think he said he was from Argentina…

the ship was huge and beautiful and the cruise was 16 days from Miami to Civitavecchia (the port for Rome, Italy)…  this was a cruise line we had never used before, and we headed to the buffet to find that the food was even better than expected…  so, we had lunch and then watched as we sailed out of Miami, watching the towers along the coast become hazy and slip below the horizon as a lovely cool breeze came up and we headed out onto the Atlantic…

the crossing took six days…  these huge ships have lots of activities going on for passengers who want to participate, including all kinds of games, trivia contests, etc…  I found a quiet spot on the promenade deck, toward the front of the ship, which was protected from the wind where I could sit and draw and read five floors about the waves crashing and splashing against the sides of the ship…  I reread a wonderful book in preparation for Rome called Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling and got one drawing finished each day…  Mary spent most of the days sitting with me on deck, reading but she also enjoyed the lectures about ports of call and other topics which were available for passengers of an intellectual bent…  we lost an hour each day, so, it seemed like our mornings were very short but the afternoons were lovely with a cool breeze and the waves crashing just below us on the sides of the ship…  we saw a few flying fish but otherwise, no sea life at all although others claimed to have seen whales on one occasion…  every morning I would walk two miles and then spend the rest of the day reading, making art and eating…  some of my favorite things to do…  the ocean was pretty calm except for two days toward the end when the swell picked up and I had to take an extra seasickness pill…  but actually, the big waves crashing on the ship were very cool to see and hear from our sheltered spot on deck 5…  the place where we were sitting was next to the designated smoking area, so we had a lot of nice conversations with the smokers and they seemed to enjoy seeing the drawings as they progressed…

our first port was on Sunday, April 30, the city of Santa Cruz on Tenerife in the Canary Islands…  it was good to be on land for a while and we walked around the city enjoying the market which had a fish market with lots of shrimp and shellfish as well as large ocean fish looking very sad and dead…  then we had a walk up the hill to a lovely park that looks out over the city…  it was Sunday so many of the shops were closed but the market and the park were full of people…  there were tents in the market selling sweet almonds that Mary liked and it was a warm sunny day with children playing and people enjoying the park…  then after another nice sea day, we passed Gibraltar in the early morning and landed at Malaga in Spain…  Malaga which we  have visited before, is famous as the birthplace of Picasso… and home of a Picasso museum…  I did not feel like looking at Picasso paintings, so we walked around the town looking at the many shoppers and the smart shops and looking at the weird old unfinished cathedral where we had some tapas at a sidewalk café on the cathedral square…  then we walked back to the port and found a little tram to take us back to the ship…

the next day was Cartagena, Spain…   there are Roman ruins in Cartagena including an excavated bathhouse and a Roman theater…  you could see the crumbling stone tiers of the theater in curves up the hill, the old tan stones looking warm in the sun and you could feel the thousands of years of wear and weather that these stone seats had seen since Roman times…  the next stop was an overnight at Barcelona…  we bought passes for two days on the hop on hop off,  sightseeing bus so we had a lovely tour up the mountainside and all around the town including the famous soccer stadium which had Messi’s photo prominently displayed…  we spent time in the shopping district where we saw a building designed by famous son Antoni Gaudi as well as his famous cathedral…  we walked around the cathedral and went into the crypt, which is a large chapel where a mass was underway and where we could see Gaudi’s tomb…  it seems to me that Gaudi’s distinct organic style while groundbreaking and novel has not had a great influence on the contemporary architecture that I see in cities I visit… but the cathedral is impressive and it is interesting to see twentieth/twenty first century builders trying to put the kind of care into a building that was required by the technological limitations of the pre industrial ages…

after Barcelona, we stopped for a day at Villifranche sur Mer which is near Nice, France…  Villifranche is a tiny town built on a steep hillside going up from the sea…  it was a rainy day and we were only there for a few hours…  it took a long time for the tenders to get the people ashore because the ocean was wavy and the tenders were bouncing around…  so we just walked up the hill a bit and along the waterfront…  we stopped in a lovely café and Mary had a coffee while a thunderstorm passed over with torrential rain, thunder and lightning…  it was lovely sitting in the little café looking out over the harbor through the rain and to see the huge ship at anchor at the entrance to the bay…

the next day we stopped at Livorno, Italy…  it was a warm sunny day, Sunday, and a street market was going on for about a mile across the center of the town…  we walked around enjoying the local people and looking at the wares on offer…  we stopped as usual, at sidewalk cafes and enjoyed the warm day and the cool breeze off the ocean…

then we arrived at Civitavecchia… we got off the ship on a free shuttle bus that took us to the town and then found a two euro bus to the train station where we each got six euro tickets to Rome’s San Pietro station…  the countryside of rolling hills and farms was very green and pretty…  I had found a hotel for $59 per night a short walk from Saint Peter’s Basilica… and since according to the map it was only one mile from the station, I decided we could walk even with our three small, carryon size suitcases…  well, it was a hot walk as we got there right during the sunny part of the afternoon…  but we made it with only about two blocks worth of wrong turns and the hotel was in a perfect location near the Castle Saint Angelo on the Via Vitelleschi… that evening, we walked around and tried one of the local sidewalk cafes…  the food in Rome was terrific…  everything seemed to be made of fresh ingredients and was delicately seasoned to perfection…  we had two Caprese salads with the best tomatoes I think I have ever tasted along with delicious mozzarella and basil with a touch of rich olive oil and husky balsamic vinegar… I, who never drink, even ordered a glass of Chianti with my meals and thoroughly enjoyed the heavy tartness contrasted with the delicious food…

in Miami once I was sure we would get on the ship, I had bought tickets for the Vatican Museums on line…  there is a huge line, several blocks long every day to get into the Vatican Museums but if you buy a ticket online for $16 and pay an extra $4, you get a set time to enter and do not have to wait in line…  we had been to the Vatican Museums and the Sistene Chapel in 1972 and at that time, you could just walk in and wonder around the museums with no lines…  anyway, the modern world is a bit more crowded…

the first part of the Vatican Museum is their vast collection of Roman Statuary…  I was very excited to see two of my favorite ancient works, the Belvedere torso and the Laocoon… the torso is still as magnificent as I remembered and somehow, in the mob scene in this museum, we missed the Laocoon…  I did not realize until we were out and this part of the museums was so crowded, we could not have gotten back in I thought, so we went on to the things I wanted to see most anyway, the frescos of Raphael in the Papal apartments, especially The School of Athens which has always been one of my favorite works by this amazing painter…  and the Sistine Chapel…

there was a long line through a long ornate renaissance hallway to get to the Raphael frescos but once in the room, the frescos are easily seen above the heads of the crowd, so even if the room was full of people, one could still see the paintings…  and the crowds moving through stayed to the side of the room so if you went to the middle, you could stand and look to your hearts content…  which we did… I love love love  the absolute virtuosity of the painting…  that this young man (he died at age 37) could accomplish so much in his short life just amazes me…  anyway, The School of Athens and the other Raphael frescos did not disappoint…  then moving on, we got in a narrower line that went down and up stairs and through a series of narrow hallways crowded with people moving forward in a packed mob…  until we walked into a wide open space and there was Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling towering over our heads…  the chapel is large but was full of people…  here again, the guides kept the people who wanted to stop in the middle while those who wanted to keep moving stayed near the walls…  so I could stand and look until my feet finally gave out…  there are some benches on the side and we managed to get to one of those, so could stay a bit longer looking lovingly at every inch as we could see it from the floor…  this artwork was painted over four years, mostly by Michelangelo’s own  hand as he stood on a cantilevered scaffold of his own design, reaching over his head to paint…  he was a young man in his early thirties but still, I can only imagine the pain in arms shoulder back and legs of day after day of that pose…  and how he kept everything so it would look just so from sixty five feet away is amazing…

the whole thing was cleaned a few years ago and with all the varnish and candle wax of five hundred years removed, the bright colors of the draperies and the delicate chiaroscuro of the nude figures absolutely glow in a riot of purples, pale greens and orange…  it is an amazing, beautiful and now, colorful work of art, complex and full of surprises (like the weird figure of Boaz near the beginning of the work for example) and well deserving of its fame…  it seemed large enough and rich enough to reward the pilgrimage of all of us crowded on the floor with our heads craned back…  whatever country, culture or belief system we might have come from…  in spite of the crowds and the misery of the trek through the crowds to get to the Sistine Chapel, I encourage you to spend a day there and make an effort to see it…  to those of us who make art, this is the bar and it has been set very high indeed by the surly, suspicious and difficult young man with the broken nose and the obnoxious family who lived and worked with and in spite of the Pope in Rome all those years ago…

we then went into the picture gallery where there was no crowd and which contains three wonderful masterpieces of painting by Raphael, as well as Caravaggio’s amazing Entombment and as an added bonus Leonardo da Vinci’s unfinished painting of St. Jerome…  wonderful paintings that I have loved all my life…

the next day we went and saw the famous Coliseum and the ruins of the forum of Ancient Rome which was a short subway ride from our hotel… then we walked up the hill behind the Coliseum to the church of San Pietro in Vincoli to see Michelangelo’s statue of Moses…  here, there was no crowd and no entrance fee…  you just walk into the church and the statue is right there…  words fail me in describing these works of Michelangelo…  I just love to look at these things, the finely carved details of flesh and folded draperies…  how lucky I am to get to see these things…  the next day, the subways were on strike, but we took the local bus to see the Pantheon, the only major building that is still more or less intact from Roman times…  the inside of this building with sumptuous marble decoration and the famous dome leaves me only imaging the grandeur of the ancient city when Rome was the capital of the Mediterranean world…  it must truly have been glorious…  also, as a student of High Renaissance art, the Pantheon is special to me because it contains the tomb of Raphael…  this is truly a momento mori…  in spite of his amazing life and his astonishing talent to make beautiful paintings, Raphael ended up a handful of bones and dust in a marble box in a magnificent Roman building repurposed as a Catholic church with a dust covered, butt ugly statue over his crypt… surrounded by people taking pictures with their smart phones and sending texts…

the next morning, we were on an Alitalia 777 flying over the Atlantic at 38000 feet on our way from FCO to JFK…  we got a flight from New York to MSP and after about 20 hours of travel time made it home Friday evening at about 11pm…  I noticed this morning that our bleeding hearts and apple trees are in full bloom and it is green and glorious May in Minnesota…  what a trip…