Back in the early 2000s, I was publishing lots of poetry…  for several years, I tried to write and submit 3 poems a day, five days a week…  I would send these compositions to different literary journals all over the world…  the print journals were just being supplanted by the on line journals in those days, so I was still collecting boxes of contributors’ copies… one journal that liked my work was published in Louisiana and edited by a professor of English there… 

a literary conference scheduled by an organization that I knew nothing about was held very year…  this conference was scheduled for various institutions in the USA and Canada and was a place where professors of English could meet and present their papers on subjects like, “symbolism in Wordsworth from a post feminist prospective,” or “new French cinema as an heir of DADA…”  I had a MA degree, but had never been a real academic, so did not know anything about these conferences…  this conference decided to add some poetry from non academic sources and the editor from Louisiana had some say in that, and invited me to be one of the non academic poets participating…  instead of presenting a paper, the poets would read some of their published poetry…  I had always said that I would gladly read my poetry in public if anybody ever asked me to, so I agreed to do this and was pretty pumped about it in fact…  my wife was working at the airline, so, I could travel on employee passes and so cheaply get to whatever city the conference was being held in…  I learned that most of the participants, including most of the poets, were academics, i.e. professors of English and/or creative writing, and had money from their department to pay for the travel to these conventions…  but, having no such resource, I was on my own…

I attended four or five of these conferences…  I would fly to the city, check in with all the professors and then show up at the room to read my poems to a few of the professors who had chosen to attend the session that I was part of…  seldom was the audience more than ten and on one occasion, I remember, I think it was in St. Louis, nobody showed up except the poets who were reading so we read for each other, kind of a pointless activity I guess, but that is how the poetry world swings… 

anyway, one year, sorry I do not remember which year exactly, the conference was in Toronto…  I got my name tag and made it to my session…  I was surprised to find that some of the people in attendance were people who’s names I recognized from journals we had been published together in…  among them was Gerald Locklin…  I introduced myself to Locklin and he introduced me to several other well known small press poets and publishers…  as usual, I was very nervous about reading my poetry in public, but, they all seemed to like my very dramatic reading style and so the whole thing was, I thought, pretty successful…  I had brought some drawings and paintings to set up on stage as a backdrop to my reading…  after the reading, Locklin, his wife, and the others were planning on going to the Natural History Museum…  they invited me to join them…  I don’t remember how much the admission to the museum was, but I remember that it seemed to me to be more than I wanted to spend, so I told them that and declined…  but Locklin offered to pay for me, so I joined them and went to the museum… 

then, after listening to some of the others read at a later session, I left to head back to Minnesota…  in thanks for Locklin paying my way to the museum and for the kindness he showed including me, a relatively unknown poet/artist with the group of well known poets, I gave him a drawing…  I never really had any other contact with Locklin after that, and I came to regret giving him the drawing because, I came to believe that it was one of my very best works… oh well, done is done…

Locklin’s poetry was not like mine at all and his reading was very different from mine as well…  where my reading was dramatic and serious, his was conversational and light hearted…  he said he like to do a song and dance at those readings so he could say it was the same old song and dance…  and in fact, he did sing something and did a strange kind of shuffling dance…  I never had been a huge fan of his poetry, but after meeting him, I realized that his poetry was like his personality, surprisingly sophisticated filled with wit and willingness to not take the world too seriously… 

I just read today on Facebook, that Gerald Locklin died January 17, 2021, from Covid 19 complications…  I was very sorry to hear about that…  I’m sure he was a wonderful professor because he seemed such a basically decent human being and the interest he took in me and my work certainly felt genuine…  he was successful in a way that few from the poetry world are and even if we never became close, I always liked the idea that he was out there at California State University Long Beach and USC keeping it real…  RIP Mr. Locklin you were a fine poet and a kind, unpretentious and helpful person…

Exile  

Flowers do not grow on cemented graves, 

Only weeds grow in the cracks in summer, 

Living in the Nation’s Capital in 78. 

Departing at the height of my descent into darkness,  

When life had been so violent and bloody, 

Going to a place where there are no, 

Cemented graves and the sounds of  

Gunshots and screaming and suffering. 

My soul can rest among the flowers.  

Sing in the light of the rising sun.  

Living in exile in the mountains of Vermont, 

Left all the deaths and pain and suffering and, 

Cemented graves in the mountains. 

9-27-2020 

A shooting Star 

A star shooting across the night, 

In skies full of stars and the moon, 

It was the beginning of a life’s dream. 

Away from the prostitutes and drugs, 

Away from the daily deaths in summer, 

It seemed to have happened in a flesh.  

Listening to the peacock’s crow and freshness, 

of the nights’ air surrounding me in the summer, 

With tears falling to the earth like that star.  

9-27-2020 

Beginnings of Life 

When the rains of violence stop, 

And the sounds of death stop. 

The standing of the corner is over.  

After the inner-city summer’s winds, 

Blow its despair into my life is over, 

Prayers from the depths of my soul.  

A soul is reborn into a life of contentment, 

Sitting on the porch as snowflakes fall, 

Living in the middle of winter’s crispness. 

9-27-2020 

Beginnings of Life 

When the rains of violence stop, 

And the sounds of death stop. 

The standing of the corner is over.  

After the inner-city summer’s winds, 

Blow its despair into my life is over,                                                          

Prayers from the depths of my soul.  

A soul is reborn into a life of contentment, 

Sitting on the porch as snowflakes fall, 

Living in the middle of winter’s crispness. 

9-27-2020 

Voice of Soul  

            For Richard Wright 

The voice of depression and anger, 

With all the grief of life being black. 

All the years of slavery and beatings. 

Lynching of family and friends at night, 

Burning crosses and white robes in shadows’, 

A chorus of glee as the body swings on a tree.  

It has been four hundred years and it continues, 

As those in white robes come in the middle of day, 

Carry their flags of Nazis crosses chanting  

In 2020 there is a return to high tech lynching 

10-23-2020 

Belief  

Do you believe the soul of black men?  

Does the color of their skin disturb you? 

And their voice of suffering surrounds you?  

In the shadows you seek to quiet those voices, 

Still those souls will not be quiet in injustice, 

Years of waiting to sing for their freedom.  

Yearning to find their voice of solitude, 

With God while the whip cuts into them, 

Whispering for liberation of the body. 

Believing in God’s compassion as they cry.  

10-23-2020 

Crosses of Black men 

            For Langston Hughes 

You have carried your cross made of endless justice, 

Carrying your cross as you breathe in innocence of,  

Your race as they are put upon a cross of life. 

As they carry the burdens of blackness as they cry, 

Crying for a life without a whip cutting into them, 

While they bleed, they cry for salvation are heard.  

10-23-2020 

Freedom comes for one 

            For Mary 

It is the blackness of my skin, 

Covered in a tide of blood,  

It is my black skin falling, 

As a storm of hate surrounds me. 

As the crosses are burning in the yard. 

As the rope swings in the tree waiting, 

For me while in my youth of life.  

Swinging back and forth waiting for me.  

They wait to watch me hanging from a tree, 

It is your gentle touch that holds hope for me, 

It is your gentle voice singing that I hear, 

As I swing from that tree of whiteness.  

10-23-2020 

A Sea of Hope 

Wishing for freedom from the agony, 

Hoping for the tears to stop plummeting, 

Into the sea of turbulence of agony, 

As the waves rush to the shore, 

And the tide carry me into the ocean, 

With blue twirling clouds watching, 

While the angels gather to pray for me. 

10-23-2020 

the 2020 election
 
so over seventy million
people voted for racism
for fascism, for the thought
that money is more important
than people
 
most of these ignorant fucks
are from families lincoln
should have slaughtered
after the civil war
 
instead, the losers got to tell
the story of that war and you
get what we have here
 
generation after generation
of stupid fucks breeding
even more stupid fucks
 
ignorance is a disease
and no one in this country
seems to like the cure
 
they are more than proud
to be stupid and dress
themselves in the flag
and think that makes
them patriotic
 
and if they are willing to
die for their racist leader
 
let them
 
thin that fucking herd
forever
-------------------------------------------------------------------
raven haired beauty
 
she was a woman
straight out of a
springsteen song
 
a raven-haired beauty
full of desire with eyes
that could burn through
your soul
 
as much as i longed
for a kiss
 
i was hoping that she
would be what would
kill me
 
take me from this world

once and for all
---------------------------------------------------------------------
some kind of loss or relief
 
i suppose i was supposed
to feel like some kind
of loss or relief when
my father died
 
it was neither
 
it had been over twenty
years since i had seen
or spoken to him
 
it was like being told a
ghost had finally been
captured and killed
 
i thought of it as a
tuesday and i must
have stumbled onto
some television station

i barely watch anymore
--------------------------------------------------------------------
unless provoked
 
all my friends
have moved on
 
i sadly never
got the chance
to do so
 
i'm never good
at burning bridges,
unless provoked
 
yet another joy

of apathy
-------------------------------------------------------------------
a difference of opinion
 
i never thought
of myself as
an addict
 
apparently
 
the authorities
have a different

standard

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know where the bodies are buried. He’s been widely published over the last quarter century, most recently at Dumpster Fire Press, The Rye Whiskey Review, The Black Shamrock Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy and Terror House Magazine. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

 
 
Detours
  
Couple bottles of Boone’s Farm that Belinda’s 
older brother got for us at A & C Beverage 
when we met up with him around the corner 
and of course the peyote buttons and we were off
cruising country backroads in my mom’s ’63 Impala
convertible that last summer night after graduation
when we found a moist valley of fireflies that 
swallowed us like the sparkling, star-filled sky
as if we entered a Kusama Infinity Mirror
when time was giving us a second chance
to lose ourselves before maturity showed up
with handcuffs and magicked the key away.
  
Midnight phantom footfall inside the bedroom
ceiling and the scene dissolves out of focus
and then into focus again
landing me in that prickly flip of past,
not to repair history in order to save
a Joan of Arc or Soulika sister,
but to squirm into my middle school locker
so that this time Ruth White won’t find me
with her punches when I take the last
chocolate pudding cup in the cafeteria
before she can get her spoon-ringed
fingers around it.
  
A jet stream snares me, squeezes me
through jalousie window slats
to territory of bigger/faster/more/more/more
instead of snailing through sweaty lines
of government cheese and unemployment.
How to make doppelgänger sense of it,
these roundabout visits that send me rewinding
to never meet up with Gus who stained me
with a mickey he claimed was the size of a whale’s.
  
How can I be my best ingredient,
in glory to each birthday’s butter cream?
To follow the next trail of twine
through hallways where Easter eggs
are painted zygotes and that if I swallow one,
I could clear my throat of trouble.
  
  
  
 Clothes Horse
  
 You like wearing a soup of polka dots
 with rascally pockets 
 and that hat of ostrich-egg-over-easy.
 You’re a landscape
 seen through pinhole, born for knowing how
 to keep your clothes
 dancing. Passersby nod through clouds around you,
 gardenia with a bit of ginger on top.  
 Sometimes you’re in the habit
 of spandex, buttery soft camel toe
 whispering for guests.
 Sometimes you’re all in for the dissenting swag
 of a judge’s collar.
 But always you’re hungry for the click & collect,
 or thrifting
 in the hunt for your next highlight reel.
 Closets never enough,
 scarves and gloves and bracelets color-sorted
 in the pantry.
 You tell us it was the shapeshifting of adolescence
 that got you here, 
 the scripture of accessory,
 the rebel arithmetic of your  
 outsiderness + your outside-ness
 = bondage trousers, chain mail nose
 ring, neon spikes for hair.  
 Now it’s martingale back and designer
 pouch with teacup pooch.  
 You say you always wear your soul on
 your sleeve, your style slippery or stonewashed. 
 And there you go again, chiffon creature 
 preening in limelight,  combat boots prancing
 for romantic notions like sprezzatura 
 and je ne sais quoi.
             

  
 Rod Serling Takes a Stab at Stand Up
  
  
 Before he says anything he draws deep
 on a fresh Chesterfield and turns his head
  
 to profile so he can better think sideways.
 Swish pan / swish pan / swish pan / ah,
  
 there’s the ringmaster, hot light, hot mic 
 and he’s rapier thin cool in a black mohair 
  
 3 roll 2 sack suit and crispy white oxford
 spread collar.  Glad you all could make it tonight 
  
 because you’re traveling now with the best 
 dressed man in any dimension. Rod straightens
  
 his Brooks Brothers double stripe and clenches
 his jaw for the baritone glide.  I just flew into
  
 town an hour ago and boy, are my gremlins
 tired.  Rod straddles a stool. You know, some 
  
 people call me the Arthur Miller of science 
 fiction TV, but my wife calls me television’s 
  
 Groucho Marx of  eyebrows…Yeah, I’m a
 Jewish kid born on December 25, that one 
  
 Christmas Day my parents had something else
 delivered besides Chinese take out.  He grips
  
 the mic and a beam of light launches off his
 silver military bracelet. You might have
  
 heard I was a paratrooper during WW2,
 but hell, that wasn’t half as harrowing as 
  
 battling with TV sponsors… I’m no dummy
 but we all know what it is to look into the face
  
  
 of the Twilight Zone—you have to have toilet
 paper with you at all times for the doo-doo- 
  
 doo-doo… But seriously, I do hold the record for 
 winning 6 Emmys in outstanding writing for a 
  
 drama series but what the hell do those two aliens
 in the front row care.  They’ve probably got better
  
 jokes on their planet, like “an Earthling and a Martian
 walk into a diner”… A mound of ash has been softly 
  
 growing near his Florsheims. My daughters keep 
 telling me that I smoke too many cigarettes, but then 
  
 I remind them of our digs in Pacific Palisades and
 Cayuga Lake, and they stop nagging me. Oh yeah, 
  
 Sometimes I like playing the“ In Rod We Trust” card.
 Rod drops his cigarette butt to the floor and rubs it 
  
 out with his shoe.  So that’s my time, folks.  I’m heading
 back home now to the hacienda and when I get there, 
  
 I’ll walk into my study, sit down, put paper in the typewriter, 
 fix the margins, turn the paper up, and bleed.
  
 
  
 Consider                                
  
When you consider a pitch to end all pitches, a pitch for
angels some say, for what  materializes in the dusty corners
of your apartment, a pitch as delicate as Shantung Silk 
carried across ocean in satchels underneath the ruby 
throats of birds, then your perfumed scarf will touch 
down upon a vestibule’s tapestry rug and proclaim 
the final exit.  How euphemisms spiral into themselves
as our pendulums slow, and cantankerous static clings
to our nose hairs. How we want to chew the date off
our ticket to the Imperial Lounge and just keep rolling
around a lush field, olly olly oxen free. How we yearn
to get drunk on cocktails of instant smiles and 
cellular serums, our pinkies tapping our lips. 
How we limit, to a parakeet mirror, our scavenger hunts
for wrinkles and dearly pay to have done what alchemists
do with plastic. Death will launch the trajectory
of our accumulating selfies and leave us with our
monkey minds godsmacked like undigested bits of beef. 
So wag your tongue all you want at that grandfather clock
and swath your phone in a crochet shawl to muffle calls
from the grave. Branch shadows will play upon your
sleeping face and your scarab ring, too loose now
for your fingers, will twang to the floor. 
No such place as exactly what happened.  
  
  
  
Poetry Accessories
  
after Rod Serling’s “The Bard”         
  
 spurs of moment + tertiary motivation 
 + worn copy of Ye Book of Ye Dark Arts 
 that flies off top shelf + riddle for riddling 
 + doodle for doodling + fecund uncertainty 
 + that crazy moon + blacks, whites & grays 
 spring-loaded + quill pen at attention 
 + title/act/scene/cup-inside-cup-inside-cup 
 mash-ups from Brother Will + sand conjured 
 from your loafers + first picture book cherished 
 + porcelain tureen with footnotes brimming 
 + six-foot hot dog bun for napping under stars 
 + dust motes whirling in sunbeam 
 + pixel by pixel hearing + gaze unmediated & gliding 
 + cockles squirming your heart 
 +  Harpo’s harp in barbed wire 
 + Méliès’s flash, dazzle & poof 
 + world too small to be satisfying 
 + horsepower via headstone + va va voom +
 ipsy dispsy  + za za zoom
  
 
  
   

Overtaking

You’ve led a life of doing many things

but now shadows overtaking

slowing of your stride

slit of eyes and cold hands

sudden and surprising

longing for when you’re ultimately free

humming your story

only part of your remembering

tightness in the throat

hero and fool

balanced in-between by circumstance

love hopefully

a someday soon apex

as the world chaos

judges you

not caring of the evidence

jail or to the barren desert

perhaps a guillotine

but a pardon from an unknown source

yet knowing in your spirit the truth

a release at midnight through a squeaking gate

the long walk

searching for the lost family

where are they

how to find them

building endurance

time of little time

striving on for contentment

the hope

in the breath of a new believing

of the old belief

racing over earthquakes

shaking streets and rattling windows

people watching you but most in the quick

stir of their own silliness

their own fear turned backward

and you realizing

you were and are one of them

an endless family

so you pray

oh how you pray

cup of hands filling with salt and tears

some of the who and what of God

praying and praying

until the climax finally overtaking.

Christmas Bombing in Nashville

There was a Christmas bomber

In Nashville one day

While watching the news

About the Christmas bombing

I am filled with curiosity

Who was this monstrous man?

Who was he?

What did he want to do?

Why did he do it?

What is the deep meaning behind it all?

The suspect said

To a neighbor

The day before Christmas

I have good news

I will become so famous

Nashville will Never forget me

Then this 63-year-old –white man

A reclusive strange man drove his RV

A believer in the shapeshifting lizard conspiracy

Perhaps a Q cult member as well

Drove his RV

filled with home-made explosive devices

To an ATT office building

Blew himself up inside the RV

Damaging 43 buildings

Knocking out power

The internet and cell service

The silence from the political leaderships

Speaks volumes

If he were a Muslim, an immigrant

A foreigner, a black or brown man

Authorities would be denouncing it

As an act of terrorism

And everyone will anxiously be wondering

When the next bomb will go off

And authorities will be hunting

The land for his associates

Fanning the fear

Driving the news cycle

Instead, we find out

 he is just a pathetic old man

Who was sad,

 which make us all mad

That he could do such a thing

And soon this will fade

Into our collective memory

There was a Christmas bomber

In Nashville one day

And we all forget it

Soon enough

It was just another day

In our crazy whacked outland

In these sad days of the pandemic 

We see the homeless people

Men, woman, and children

The strangers sleeping on the streets

In the richest country

In the planet

Millions were driven homeless

The strangers Sleeping on the streets

As rents go up and up

Jobs disappearing

Coronavirus spreading

The strangers sleeping in the streets

Social safety nets unraveling

Forcing more people

Into dire poverty

There but for the grace of God

We do not say to the Strangers

sleeping in the streets

As we walk by

The nameless men, woman, children

The strangers Sleeping in the streets

We seldom wonder

How they got there

And whether we can help them

The strangers sleeping on the streets

All too often

We walk on by

Consumed by own problems

Having little empathy

For the strangers sleeping on the street

Just enough for coffee

A homeless man

Stood on the street

Counting his change

From panhandling all morning

Just had enough for a cup of coffee

All in all

A good start

He ambled off to his favorite coffee shop

Where the owner

Was kind to the homeless

Sometimes

Treating them to a meal

On the house

The man said

I was in your shoes

Once years ago

And you never forget

When you are down

And out

Everyone forgets your face

No one knows your name

For you are now

Invisible

Almost a ghost

The old man tried to pay

The owner said

Keep your change

You need it more than me

Have a meal with me

My friend

On the house

He ordered up

The homeless man’s favorite

Lumberjack special

Eggs, pancakes, sausage, bacon

Cornbread

Lots of hot black coffee

To wash it down

The old man

Often had just one meal a day

Usually, a late breakfast

Sometimes if he were lucky

He would have dinner

And on a red-letter day

He would have three meals

The homeless man

Had been on the streets

For too long

Barely remembered his life

Before early-onset Alzheimer’s

Robbed him of his job

His dignity

His wife

His life

His money

Now he drifted

Waiting for the grim reaper

To call him home

Any day now

He prayed nightly

To a god

That he no longer believed in

Eve in the Garden  Eats the Apple

Eve was in the garden

Talking with Mr. Snake

Her new best friend

She was complaining about Adam

And about the management

Of the garden

The snake suggested she eat

The forbidden fruit

She said but the man

Said that I can not eat

That fruit

It is forbidden

Yeah that is what the man said

That is what he does not want you

To experience

The man and Adam

Are in on it together

I heard that Adam

I Will eat the apple tonight

But you need to get there first

Do you trust me, Eve

Of course, Mr. Snake

So you know what to do

Eve ate the apple

Called Adam over

Told him to eat the apple

While the Snake chanted

Eat it eat it

Set yourself free

And so Adam ate the apple

And joined Eve

In knowing everything

God came down

Banished them from the garden

Telling them

Well you made the bed

You will have to sleep in it

Go away

You disgust me

Humans…..

And Satan

You won your bet

You damn Snake