Howie Good, Frowny Face and all

The patron saint of Shopping Mall Santas.

If only wishes had the impact of bullets!

The Lord has showed us His glory but also His great big ass.

I might not have the shadows of carrion crows tattooed on

            my eyeballs.

Children on their hands and knees peck at the ground for seeds

            and insects and adults sniff around like dogs.

…love means teaching  a child not to step on a caterpillar.

Kids are warned, “Don’t ever talk to strangers” but strangers

            have the best candy.

There is always a superannuated star of 1980’s action movies

            exposing his mummified balls.

Do cows get excited: The parable

One night the chalk outline of the body mysteriously disappeared.

Extreme (Art) Materials at the Memorial Art Gallery (2012)

Breakfast cereal on wood panel

Insects, wax, and mixed media

Condoms and fabric

Taxidermied animals and crochet fabric

Breastplate #6: Lead and American .233 military ammo

Rainbow: Dry dog food and silicone

Coyote Juggles His Eyes: coyote skull, enamel, and glycerin

Organized Knowledge in Story and Picture: an altered set

            of encyclopedias

Fireworks Drawing: lit fireworks residue on fibrous paper

Centipedes: Bundt cake pans, bicycle brake liners, found objects

            and cold cathode tubes

Plaster infused marble, steel wool and lead

Inkjet prints on used coffee filters: a set of six

Post Extinction Fossil Grotto: bones and mixed media

Orthoptera: Grasshoppers, antique brass, steel watch parts (gears

            and springs) glass dome, walnut base, and sueded mat

Wheatfields: Udon, squid ink, spaghetti, and porcini mushroom

            spaghetti on wood

Pulled Tooth Drawing with reclaimed gold fillings.

Liquid Asset: Discarded plastic bottles, tinted polyacrylic mice

            powder and rivets

Human hair, steel wire, fiberglass screens, thread and wooden

            beads

Before Something Else Happens: Rose petals, synthetic hair and

            glass beads

Chemical Balance II: prescription bottles, mirror, and epoxy

Tampon Cake: layered tampons and applicators

Corpus Regis: Blood, resin, and clay on board

Albion Dream: Glass, bacteria water, vinegar, and epoxy

Lynsey Addario’s: It’s What I Do: Photographing Love

            and War

Troops firing at government helicopter as it sprays area

            with machine gun fire

Afghan women shield their faces at woman’s hospital

Rebel fighters and drivers look into sky anticipating a bomb

Anti-American demonstration in Peshawar

My shoe without laces where we were tied up

Transgender prostitutes in the Meatpacking District of New York

Women of Jihad Afghanistan

Young Afghanis listen to music in public for the first time

Civilians carry the body of a severely wounded comrade after a

            car bombing

Indian man bathing in the street: Calcutta at dawn

Kurdish soldiers deface a picture of Saddam Hussein

Children swimming in artificial lake at Saddam’s palace

Rows of the remains of bodies found in mass graves South

            of Bagdad

Scene in front of British Consulate minutes after a car bomb

            exploded

Soldiers with 173^rd Airborne Battle Company react to incoming

            mortar round

Afghan woman stands in labor on the side of a mountain

Death of a U.S. marine in Soth Afghanistan

Iraqis watch a 3-D movie in Bagdad

(The Defenestration of) Francesca Woodman: On Being

            an Angel

Self Portrait in sheer nightwear in attic loft with hanging

            sheer curtains, Rome

Black paint splatter on graffiti wall with disappearing woman

Dramatic pose in darkness with white gloves highlighted

Posed as a naked angel highlighted in derelict loft

Self Portrait at 13 with piano, already among shadows, Rome

Double exposed crawling through a headstone, Boulder, CO

Easter lily with headless nude

Naked bodies in and on glass museum display cabinet

Escaping naked and exposed from natural history exhibit

            with taxidermed animals

Disappearing as if blending into partially peeling flowered

            wallpaper

Naked body, time exposed

Time exposure of FW in polka dot dress with pocked bare walls

Lightning Legs: FW’s bare legs beneath raised polka dot dress with

            jagged piece of torn wallpaper

Supine on a Victorian settee facing a wall wearing several layers

            of black lingerie

Three kinds of melons, four kinds of light: FW naked holding

            cantaloupes and a picture of a melon

Pinched sitting: headless nude with clothes pins attached to

            nipples, stomach, and belly button

Face: Headless nude sitting on a couch with a plaster face mask

            covering her pudenda

Suspended: gripping a door frame with face averted

“Sometimes things are really dark.”

Crouched, naked, facing a wall hands pressing against it:

            “Then at one point I did not need to translate notes:

            they went directly to my hands.”

Lying naked face down on a floor with a curled eel in a white

            enamel basin

Self portrait talking to Vince with “bubbles” escaping from her

            mouth

Self deceit #1, crawling, naked around a stone wall and seeing

            herself reflected in a broken mirror

Self deceit #4 standing naked against a stone wall face covered by

            the piece of broken mirror

About being my model: three naked women holding three different

            faces of FW over their own

Francesca’s head on an oriental rug runner: pigment-based inkjet

            print (reddish)

Last view from a loft window: no note 

Lustmord 1920-2020 : A Centennial Celebration

Morbid Curiosity: The art work, the underground sensation,

            the headlines

“I don’t particularly want to chop up women but it seems

            to work.” Said Brian DePalma

George Grosz as Jack the Ripper: a self-portrait with Eva Peter in

            the artist’s studio

Otto Dix “Sex Murder a self portrait

“A boy’s best friend is his mother.” Norman Bates

Nosferatu peers out of the ship’s hold carrying him: a movie still

“Everywhere the mystery of the corpse” Max Beckman

Case Studies:

Otto Dix: Walpurgisnacht, the orgiastic witches Sabbath

            Flares: skeletal dead bodies of soldiers with fireworks

            Metropolis: garish excesses: a triptych like Bosch

            The Seven deadly Sins-personified

            Shell hole with flowers

            With corpses

            Self-Portrait with Muse: sensual, otherworldly, threatening

George Grosz: Double Murder in Rue Morgue

            When it was over (the axe murder) they played cards

            For the fatherland-This way to toe Slaughterhouse

            Homunculus: A Frankenstein monster gone radically wrong

            John the Lady Killer: figuratively and literally

            Pimps of death aka military officers

Fritz Lang’s M

The Corpse Vanishes

Trapped Like a Caged Animal: the child murderer frozen with fear

Reinventions: Murder in the name of Art

The Third Man: Harry Lime observing the people below from a

            Ferris wheel: “Would you really feel any pity if one of those

            dots stopped moving-forever.”

Dark Souvenirs

The Year in Review in Pictures: an abridged selection

                        from the New York Times

“Every war is ironic because every war is worse

than expected.” Paul Fussell 1924-2012

American sailors with captured Somali pirates

Thousands of people return home after ten years of war, Darfur

Frozen child, refugee camp, Afghanistan

Man on fire running, New Delhi

Nik Wallenda highwire walking over Niagara Falls Gorge

Kim Jong-Un reviewing the troops, May Day, North Korea

Human skull and bones mass grave, Mazar I Sharif, Afghanistan

Pussy Riot in Moscow Courtroom cage

Wendy Maritza Rodriguez after seeing the corpse of a relative

Forty-six new graves cut in a field, Krymsk, Russia

Statue of Blessed Virgin Mary after the fire, Breezy Point, Queens

Aerial View of Manhattan showing blackout of the city after Sandy

Israeli family braced for incoming rockets near Ashdod

Palestine residents clearing debris, Gaza City, the next day

Night in Syria after airstrike in Aleppo

26 killed, 20 children, 6 adults, Newton, Connecticut elementary

            school massacre (not shown)

            Published in New Verse News 2012

Who Am I?


[Originally published in the Somerville Times & Fleury’s book You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self]

if you peel layer 
                  upon layer
                           upon layer
maybe then and only then
you will find me...
for i am a multilayered entity...
a building block of heterogeneity 
i can be fierce and unflinching
              apathetic and also doting
                    docile and also volatile
                            lovable and also irritable
                                      compulsive and also discernible
I am a man
I am a “black” man
I am an American
I am a “black” American
I am a DNA test from
Ancestry dot com’s family tree
And twenty-three and me
I am African ancestry
I am Afro Haitian ancestry
I am European ancestry
I am the legacy of a middle class family in Haiti
I am the legacy of America’s social and economic disparity
I am the story of Horatio Alger’s characters thriving over adversity

I am a malady
I am a remedy
i am a rainbow
i am a shadow
I am a son
I am a brother
I am an uncle
I am an author
I am an educator
And pervasive human valor coconspirator
           I am in attrition
             I am in progression
               I am an amalgamation
I am perfectly imperfect
And imperfect perfectly
I am a thesis of social injustice
I am a vision of personal apotheosis
                  I am all this and more...

I am            ME!

Jacques Fleury is a Haitian-American poet, author, educator and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His book “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self”  & other titles are available at public libraries, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc…

Manner of Human

Nothing is permanent.

Don’t stress yourself too much.

Because no matter how bad the situation is,

it will be changed.

Satisfied life is better than successful life.

Because our success is measured by others.

But our satisfaction is measured by our own soul,

Mind and heart.

You’re strong when you know

Your weakness.

You’re beautiful when you appreciate your flows.

You are wise when you learn from your mistakes.

Never regret being a good person to the wrong people.

Your manners says everything about you.

And their manner says

Enough about them.

Ranjan Sagar is an Indian poet in Guderpali Bargarh district of Odisha. He is a comedy script writer, multilingual poet, lyricist and an active social activist who has won numerous awards and recognitions. His work has been published in several foreign literary magazines and newspapers. He is a member and ambassador of international literary associations. The purpose of his writing is bringing about progressive change in society.

The Moonlight in my Life

You are the the moonlight in my life

that still leads the way to our happiness

You steal every passionate feeling within me 

like the hummingbird that draws the sweet

nectar from the depth of the honeysuckle 

The heat of love we both have for each other

soaks my skin like a misty layer of morning dew

Whispers between us are sweeter than any love poem

and the feel of your hand on my arm still thrills me

When the dawn comes and I feel your gaze upon me

It is the way you still look in my sleepy eyes 

that will always make life worth living.

Longing

Arms of mine, long to wrap around you

Lips as delicate as rose petals, yearn to touch yours

Eyes so inviting, I can’t help but dive into them

Hands so strong, I always feel safe holding them

Heartbeat so fast, I ache to feel yours beating with mine

Words so sweet, I hunger to hear more of them

Memories of times together, I wish for many more

Love so deep, I desire never to lose you

Kristy Raines was born in Oakland, CA. She is a poet, prose writer, and advocate for human rights internationally. She has received many literary awards and advocates for the Rohingya people and for an orphanage in India. She is most known internationally for her unique style of writing.

Kristy has just launched her first book, titled, “The Passion Within Me,” which is a beautiful collection of poems from a passionate heart. She is now working on her first children’s book, titled, “Princess and The Lion.” See her first book, The Passion Within Me, on Amazon.

Spock! Spock!

It’s clearly the wrong Spock.

The whole point of the right Spock

was that he was right,

Nimoy slightly stooped, the long face

impassive not with lack of emotion

but with the contained quiet of competence.

You could trust him to jettison the fuel,

to identify the imposter and brave the radiation,

to boldly go with raised eyebrow and without fuss

into the plot holes and out of them,

like a tricorder tracking the moral law.

He said, “it is logical,” but he meant, “It is good.”

And then along comes Ethan Peck

with a beard and a tragic backstory

babbling about child development

as if the only character worth having is trauma.

If you want a character defined by trauma

why make him Spock?

If you want a character who is Spock

why define him by trauma?

What is the logic of an identity

that is not an identity?

Maybe there is no logic to identity.

There is no Spock. Spock is just an image

you watch because you are you.

He is behind you like a tragic backstory

and before you like a tragic backstory.

You cannot escape him

as you cannot escape your own beard

which grows like narrative out in space

a rough fuzz on the viewscreen.

It makes a brittle sound like the teeth of a comb

which says, “Spock! Spock!”

Both of them turn.

Samuel Beckett’s Poetic Drama Waiting for Godot

Write a critical survey of Samuel Beckett’s modern Irish theatrical drama and stage production Waiting for Godot with references to its cultural, theatrical, historical and political contexts.

(Image of two men, one seated and the other standing, with boots and coats, on a rock by a tree.)

Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” is a surrealist and existentialist poetic drama in the anglophone and the francophone traditions. Beckett harnessed the vogue of experimentation by breaking from the stereotypical stylistic forms of artistic expressions but considered concentrating modernism. Vaudeville comedians and archetypal clownish buffoons showcasing their popular slick routines concerning circus antics with props, pratfalls and idiosyncratic discourses bereft of substantive information. This void of meaning is implied in Estragon’s speech-act: “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful!” Estragon and Vladimir are humbugs and chums passing their idyllic time together upon a somber environment that might have caused themselves to be mutated, disintegrated and superimposed. 

Allegorically Becket and Suzanne were desexualized, lackadaisical, lachrymose and lugubrious out of their wits, just waiting for the abominable genocidal holocaust concentration camps to end like the tramps wandering for Godot. Antagonism between Didi and Gogo biographically allegorizes the existentialist antagonism between the symbiotically dependent couple. Counterfeiting dualistic antagonism, Beckett underscores reciprocal friendship in sacrificial subversion of Didi’s earlier response of “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful!” to afterthoughts of “We always find something, eh Didi, giving us the impression that we exist.” Elemental human experience and fundamental truths of human condition concerning time and evanescence, mysteriousness of existence, the paradox of change and stability, necessity and absurdity have been brought into focus by these pauper-like tramps. 

Vladimir and Estragon are the everyman epitomizing archetypes of all humanity; with Vladimir representing the mental spirit and Estragon representing physical spirit exposed to the existentialist dilemma; ie existentialist truths potentially transforming themselves with transcended worldview and manner of living in terms of motivations, ideals, values and behaviour. Thus mind/body duality comprises this composite humanity in these tramps split into two beings with the body and the mind. Their outfits consist of old dress pants, baggy jackets, scuffed shoes and bowler hats. Vladimir is concerned with intellectualist operation upon retrospection and clairvoyance while Estragon is concerned with creature comforts such as materialistic hedonism and sensual gratification. These vagabonds are differentiated selves of a composite being: Vladimir as stalwart of despondency and Estragon as stalwart of presumption. “I’m accursed! …I’m in hell…recoils in horror”, implicates Estragon’s sinisterish hearsay of blasphemy toward the Saviour. On the contrary, Vladimir’s supplication in contextualizing the redemptive quest toward salvation is implied in “It’s Godot! At last, Gogo.  It’s Godot! We’re saved! Let’s go and meet him!”     

“All my lousy life I’ve crawled about in the mud! And you talk about the scenery! Look at this muckheap! I’ve never stirred from it!” exemplifies the admonishment of nihilistic existentialism embodied in the protagonist Estragon. The less spiritual and the less metaphysical but aesthetic containment of consciousness with the more hedonism and the more materialism. Nation and worldly realms are the domain of Judaism of Estragon waiting for the Messiah while otherworldly and extraterrestrial realms are the domain of the Christian Vladimir waiting for the Messiah. Estragon and Vladimir’s ruminations reveal the philosophizing of humankind in accord with the elusive nature of the mysterious Godot figure. In metafiction these biblical allusions are vestiges of culture corresponding to the parables of the fig tree correlating to wilting and then blooming, and the ten virgins correlating to Vladimir and Estragon’s own suspense while awaiting Godot. 

(Image of two people in black coats and black hats and collared shirts surrounding a man in a striped shirt, pants, and a vest, one on each side).

Further Reading

Biography of Beckett and Conception of Godot, Reviews of Godot in text and in production, Beckett’s friends, pp. 8-23, The friendship of Didi and Gogo in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for The friendship of Didi and Gogo in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Student Work 8-1-1994, University of Nebraska at Omaha, University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNODigitalCommons@UNO 

Waiting for Godot through the lens of Christian Existentialism, Master’s Theses and Doctoral Dissertations and Graduate Capstone Projects 2007, Eastern Michigan University DigitalCommons@EMUDigitalCommons@EMU pp. 1-107