just prior to
sunrise, the bats flutter their wings wildly
to get the last
few morsels of food
as the stress of
daylight
sheds frenzy into
their flight
I sit and wait for
the day to open up and suck me into that vacuum
we call life
I watch the
darkest sun glower over me
I wait
the lake is still
as death….gray translucent
morphed into
charcoal trees that surround it
the place before
the world
eerily naked and
primal as if a snark or a dragon will creep out
It’s the place
before me
before mind
where I go empty
into the void of
the lake
to seek those
souls
who lure me with
glimpses of
what will come to
pass
but I can only see
it through murky waters
Cheap Thrills
Touch me
tell me I’m not a
mute
I raised kids for
Christ sake
the world was my
apple
and I bit of it
but
I never took the
time to
actually taste
I wanted
but there wasn’t
enough
time………
and if I’m dying
and cannot taste
let me watch your
mouth move
with brilliant
teeth and
satin tongue
let me see those
lips
dull pink
soft like a breath
buried under full
beard that
covers a perfect
cleft……
give me the good
of it
I go out knowing
it was not in vein
I studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly. I am recently found or forthcoming in The Opiate, Anti Heroin Chic, Quail Bell Magazine, Pacific Review, Beatnik Cowboy and Bewildering Stories among many other publications. I currently serve on the editorial team for Red Fez.
As a married man or woman, I can still keep company with bachelor
or spinster as friends.
Does the assertion “forward
ever, backward never “ring a bell to you? Have you read an expression that
reads “Upward will I ascend, downward will I never descend “? Are you familiar
with statement: “dream big “? If you are not familiar with any of these, there
are salient expressions pointing at the need to elevate or graduate from one
stage of life to the other that would have been a part and parcel of you.
At your work place, you
were the only person given promotion from your current designation to one of
the most enviable position of the company you work with, would you still keep
an intimate company with your colleagues that you were the same level with?
What is anticipated, the interaction between you your colleagues? Of course,
painful to say, it is going to be on a low key! This is because your attention
would giving your all-in – all to the challenging and highly contested
designation you are presently occupying interacting more with your colleagues
at the same level for the sake of synergy and continuity.
You and four of your friends have just finished high school and
are seeking for admission in a college or University. Along with your friends
and to your surprise, you were the only one given a latter of admission to
study the course you applied for.Of course, your challenge would be primarily
centered on personally equipping yourself; physically, materially and
academically and socially. No doubt, you we get to meet people in the
University from different backgrounds, make friends with them (based on
evaluation of compatibility, depending on how mature you are) and do certain
things in common on and off-campus activities, whether good or bad . Although, depending on schedule, you will
get to converse with your yet-to-be admitted friends, such conversation will
certainly not be pronounced compared to your stay (with them) as an “admission
seeker” Primarily your concern will be more centered on association with your
level or course mates.
What if you still decide to keep on intimate relationship with
those you left behind as you were elevated promoted or admitted into a
University? A question you may ask.
Consider this question: “can twenty friends be in a place or state for twenty
years”. If they do, such situation shares a similarity with stagnant water. It
stinks after a long period of time. In the same vein, such friendship
experiences stagnancy, social decay and as they say “familiarly bring
contempt”. There is no moving forward.
Before you got married, you
were a bachelor or spinster, probably flanked by friends who were (at the time)
yet to get married. Now, you are married and most of them are yet to settle
down, would it be appropriate to keep an intimate company of still-bachelor and
still-spinster friends? It is
anticipated you associate yourself more with those who are of the same
relationship status as you. In fact, it is expected you keep an intimate
company of like- minded friends who are married. Viewing your current relationship status,
what should be of immense importance to you are things that will certainly
improve, edify and add flavor to your marriage rather than (trivial) matters associated
with bachelors or spinsters. Hence, the reason you keep an intimate company of
married friends rather than unmarried ones. Otherwise, you will be stagnating
the meant-to-be thriving marriage.
It is therefore left for the unmarried ones to be inspired and
challenged by pulling the bull by the horn towards matching the castle of
marital convenience and be on the same level of marital interaction as
you. Sincerely, if you are married, how
would you feel if your husband or wife still keeps an intimate company of
bachelor or spinster friends?
A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. He has published nineteen books, all available through the usual online markets, including And the Trillions (poetry) and The Toothpick Fairy (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.com.
I was standing outside a trailer in Ft. Worth, waiting to get paid at the end of a two-day Bob Marley Festival. May 11 is the anniversary of Marley’s death, a good time, I’d learned, to hustle a gig. I’d talked the director into paying me as an M.C. to do a memorial presentation about Bob, and provide samples and music throughout the festival.
Standing there at dusk in Trinity Park along with musicians from regional bands, I was in a disillusioned mood. This festival had degenerated into excuse to sell products. The throng mostly shopped in a sea of booths. The Bob Marley hustle keeps getting stranger. There was one red-headed singer, a gal in tight pants and with a dubious voice, who went into a monologue about Bob, which ended with her shrill declaration: “Bob Marley died for your sins!”
My time finally came and I was ushered into the trailer. Two 30-ish African American women with processed hair were in charge of paying performers. From their looks, their manner, and the R&B on their radio, I guessed they knew little about Bob. Our conversation, in which I described my work about Bob as a “real revolutionary,” quickly confirmed this impression.
The talk turned to money – the real reason we were all there. One woman insinuated that I wasn’t going to get paid. “Didn’t you read the fine print of your contract?”
“No,” I confessed, although in truth I only had an oral agreement.
She told me the contract said I would have to, in essence, sing for my supper.
“Show me what you got,” she said.
I was determined not to take these women seriously, and they were determined to make me grovel. This went back and forth, as I tried to figure out exactly what they wanted, and whether or not I was willing to give it to them. At first, they made it sound like they wanted a strip tease. Or a demonstration of my bedroom techniques. They seemed to be in no hurry, so I finally stood up and demonstrated a “slow wine” to these women. They squealed in delight or amusement, and quickly forked over the money.
I remembered this incident later while living in Jamaica, when Bob’s birthplace was being invaded by Robert Roskind. In 2001 Roskind published a book, Rasta Heart: A Journey Into One Love. After Roskind fell for Marley’s music, he envisioned the Rastas as saviors of humanity. Roskind’s naiveté was comic in the scene where he takes a jambox onto a Negril Beach, puts on Legend, and begins testifying to Jamaicans about the gospel of “One Love.”
I began seeing Roskind’s name all over Jamaica. Penning a letter or editorial for the Gleaner, in full reverse-missionary mode. Putting on concerts all over the island. Sure enough, Roskind found co-sponsors for this missionary work in the Marley family, and the Jamaican government, who together put on a 60th earthday tribute to Bob in New Kingston (February 6, 2005), which I attended. It had been hard for me to take seriously Roskind’s reports about his various missions, like carrying One Love to the Havasupi Indians in Arizona’s Grand Canyon. But Roskind’s interests clearly intersected with those of the Marley family, and the Jamaican Tourist Board.
We’ll be forever milking Bob, I reflected. I suppose I was as guilty as the rest. I’d written a book with a chapter about Bob Marley, and although it paid me little, it did put me into contact with Marley fans from all over the world. I rationalized what I was doing with the knowledge that at least I was actually bringing pieces of Bob’s voice to public events, sides of Bob that have never been aired in public before. But I was doing the Bob Marley hustle, all the same.
And the Bob Marley hustle continues….in 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled that companies including Wal-Mart and Target could not sell items with Marley’s image, without obtaining permission from the reggae star’s children.
But here in Puerto Rico, where I live now, small vendors everywhere sell merchandize with Bob Marley’s face and name. No court of law will ever be able to stem that tide.
Gregory Stephens teaches creative writing to STEM students in Puerto Rico. He was born in Ada, Oklahoma, and during the 1980s was an award-winning songwriter in Austin, Texas.
a family history i’m trying to play it cool with the medical procedure i have tomorrow morning i’m trying to not think about what they could find when they look at my stomach that a family history of cancer and god knows what else is nothing to be concerned with that i’ll simply be a little groggy when my sister drives me home listening to some music, thinking about how much i hate thanksgiving
god has all the answers i laugh when they tell me god has all the answers for me so, i suppose i was supposed to learn a lesson from my cousin molesting me or my father never telling me he loved me before he died trust me i can take a fucking hint he ignores me and i show him the amount of respect he has earned
just not the one i have had more than one woman tell me i am a great guy, just not the one and on these nights alone where the world makes it feel like the one for me never existed in the first place the mind starts to wander back to my youth and the first time i tasted my own blood where i started to question my will to live and accept the pain how many times can a person talk themselves out of death how many times can a man listen to himself cry before enough is enough it’s one thing to realize being unloved it’s another to stomach knowing that’s never going to change
already burned too much fell in love with a mystic she was already burned too much by this world one of these days i hope to find bliss dripping from her lips and an eagerness for just one special night before either one of us finds the sweet relief of death
shopping on my porch a little over three weeks from christmas wondering if anyone has the guts to go shopping on my porch this year
Spring, Suddenly I smelled a watermelon from the sea. Maybe I miss my childhood-nostalgia when everything was just pleasant and happy.
Summer, If two people live life together, there is much more happiness than loneliness because when two people are together, in everything
There’s a feeling of being one, not two.
Throw away haughtiness, Throw away greed, and hatefulness, and resentment, and the memories which sometimes makes me sad. To live happy and beautiful, I ‘m going to have to throw them all away.
I want to be a woman who always misses someone whom I love. I want to live a beautiful life with someone I love, become the only precious treasure to each other.
Autumm, Autumm prepares for New Birth. Leaves are ripening in Autumm sunlight. I also am ripening, we all are ripening. I learn to love more, how to be one for two or everyone, also I’ll keep learning through life . My body is getting older, but I don’t want my heart which can love someone who loves me, to grow old.
A couple days ago, The sun which I had seen covered by clouds, It looked exactly like a diamond. How breathtaking was that!! I was lucky to see that moment. I feel like that marvelous and amazing moment has shown me a hint that my wishes will come ture.
And Winter, Now I feel grateful, everything is precious. I’ve had a hard and painful time by myself It was for a long time.
A winter sun to the heart hugs me today too.
The sunshine is so warm ……………………….
Marble Icebergs
Words engraved on monuments
resound
from the mouths
of our chosen leaders.
But these words,
when laden
with deceit—crater,
and our trust descends
along with them.
Monuments are more
than mere marble
gleaming—buffed by the sun;
their spirit can be fragile as glaciers
the warmer the earth becomes.
When facades of Statecraft
undermine hope,
monuments’ foundations erode;
statues become like icebergs
that lose their grip
and float away in the fog.
Camp of Dreams
Dreams at dawn fade like voices in the woods
from a gathering of hunters at the end of their trail.
There, they huddle in the mist
to trade one last tale of stalking game—
stitching vapor into legends as full of stuffing
as animal heads mounted in a dusty den.
Then, as the coals of their fire hiss
and the nest of ashes dies,
the hunters recede into a glen
past the bog of the mind,
just before one’s eyes
open wide.
Rural Auction
The caw and cadence of the auctioneer
cuts through the din as dust swirls ‘round
farm wives, daughters, cousins, friends.
Jawbone to ear, they nudge and whisper.
Their strong arms stretch
as they pick through and gauge
the hodgepodge of housewares on display:
pots and dishes and the many evening hours
gathered in boxes of hand crochet.
Ringed behind them, young farmers listen
as fathers swap gossip, weather and news.
Their clay-red faces are outcrops of rock
jutting under ball caps, atop denim and plaid.
Afternoon long, they mill and mingle,
their ears keenly tuned to the auctioneer’s call.
They see, but never watch, the objects they want:
that newly-painted tractor, a tiller, a plow,
that old sleigh and harness—just for kicks,
or maybe those bibs lined with woolen fleece.
About the yard, children frolic.
They weave their families into cloth made whole,
except for the one kid who sits by the road,
draws in the dirt and counts the autos
that brake for a look and drive on.
Under the oaks, the old folks totter
in wooden rockers not yet sold.
Their faces relax and offload worries.
Humming soothes them, as watches lie
stopped on their bed stands at home.
Cattle graze in summer pastures.
The corn grows fatter as the harvest waits.
Toil is tempered with patience and tactics
to outwit markets and partner with nature. These Confounded Desires
I felt at ease with my desires undeclared—
I didn’t want their objects all the same.
But they kept lining up like autos
in used car lots,
lies on their meters
and paint layered over
their hungry scabs of rust.
With so little difference between them,
it took years to see them all.
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.
