I remember some theatrical
films of newspaper leadership
calling out,
"Stop the presses!"
Why?
Well, because a great new
headline was surfacing.
I think the awestruck tribe
of Earth Humanity is having
such a moment.
I guess my interest is,
What is that New Headline
that the Presses are being
Stopped for?
What's the Story
in the Silent Room?
When I Read in front
of a Group, I like the
attention that Silence cultivates
in the tribal convergence of
individual Attentions. We as
individuals each have freedom
to listen or not. Interest
is a choice.
Right now I sense
a quiet and await
the integral voices. I don't mind
Good News or Bad News that leads to
Greater Successes in the future.
Amongst the General commotion
I await that Sort of Voice which
I feel integral to Better
decisions & Better choices.
I like that.
by John Edward Culp
January 24, 2023
the eiger sanka
thinking tonight
I am not this brain
in the darling garden
eating cowboy bread
in this underlined winter
I am the burrowing owl
scrabble tile: alpha
a noise now nothing
---
plum (understood)
combo
shampoo your skull
I use the same salt as the funneling crow
I am that old gold senator from the moon
combo
--
the promise of a new marvel team-up
the absolute reality
we were
went worm
para
keet
the moss inside
I went through the wrong door
--
crabapple could-be
& yes
I know
bio/graf
J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words in his subterranean laboratory. His poems have appeared in many small press publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of ten chapbooks and e-books of poetry, including *Cinderella City* (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). Nelson’s first full-length collection is *in ghostly onehead* (Post-Asemic Press, 2022). Visit MadVerse.com for more information and links to his published work. His haiku blog is at JDNelson.net. Nelson lives in Colorado, USA.
[surrea(list)]
what if telepathic rain filled boiling cold cedar streams of dancing ash that rolled upward in incandescent tides to sweet fragrant sloughs of blood-black ammonia rimmed by deer sitting in beach chairs discussing ones-and-zeros in unpatterned rhythms with venomous violets in ancient Aramaic as ticks stalked great hawks mid pyroclastic flows while boldly grinning ferns with Marilyn Monroe hair hummed derisively in tangerine shade beneath turquoise gums dropping warm lavender snow during any season when snakes reproduced into laurel bushes bearing giant red acorns sprouting thorned orchids that softened the forest floor with pearls of conscience while being serenaded by schizophrenic gnats to the meter of pine bombs whispering in the silence of a chaos so loud that the sky deafens the leaves and betrayal was the norm until the belligerent sun separated into vapid sonnet-spewing starlets cheered on by the dumb and the thunderous applause of the handless as the world became a single-celled virus on the tip of a needle plunged into nothingness and infecting the void and what is real is surreal and surreal is so real that everything is relative and relational in an amalgam of disturbing perspective in perception subsumed in a line of poetry born on the wings of a great moment written between hell and whatever describing life and death and death becomes the purgatory of unfinished business and life reveals how stupid it all is and confirms that the poet is the prophet that will become one with the universe
****************************************************
[poetry]
singing in the silence of beats
while words
spin
on
trapezes
deliciously catching
thoughtsinmidair
above uncertainties
highwiring
without nets
miraculously
afloat
until the roof
blows
off
and the fog
lifts
*****************************************************
[poetry]
finding lyricism in chaos
listening to the speech of color
seeing the shades of wind
feeling the tingle of time
kissing the memory of was
touching the excitement of is
sensing the truth of now
tasting the world of wow
I said goodbye to her, The cinnamon-skinned girl with eyes As black as coal, As brown as the earth beneath the earth. She said goodbye and she was gone
While here I stand, Drinking from an empty glass, My tears falling into this endless fountain that spouts Up into the nothing-at-all; Looking into eyes as black as coal, as brown as the earth Beneath the earth That do not look back at me And are not really here. I rest beside the cinnamon-colored skin, I feel the coolness and calmness for just a moment – Knowing fully that what I feel is phantom.
I remember the kiss that sealed us. The kiss that told me that we were us forever: Just us. The kiss was a lie but I can still close my eyes And feel the shape of her lips surrounding my mouth, So passionate, exquisite:
I still see the eyes as brown and black as brown and black can be.
I can taste her tongue and feel the shape of her lips; Soft, dangerous, incongruous.
I still feel the skin that bound me to her and, now, A lifetime of not her.
The skin that bound me to nothing.
CROSS
The memories of us cling to my back like the old rugged cross. The splinter of your lonely figure at the bus stop, the heaviness of the words I left lying on the bedroom floor, the downcast doom of that day dragging us up to Golgotha, to the inevitability of our death, the uncertainty of our resurrection.
The memories of us nailed up above my bed like that little wooden cross I had when I was five years old. I pray to it at night and nothing happens except a small drunken warmth in my belly as my eyes leaden and time keeps going forward anyway, the bastard.
Driving past the church I spent so many hours in as a boy, in the choir, as an acolyte, holding that chalice that the pastor bent to the lips of the liars and the skullduggers and the gossips and the philanderers, Philistines all. The cross at the top of the church so fascinating, not ornate but so beautiful, regal, like a still bird, snow falling whiter than white around it like a feather crown. I think of the time before I knew you and how happy I was because I didn’t know then what little I had like I know what little I have now. THE LAUGHTER IN THE RAIN
I could hear the laughter in the rain As it fell to my houseless head
The rivulets as tears falling down my face The pools of water ever forming at shivering feet
Listening for a single gasp of sympathy But hearing not a sound in the wind
Except the rain, the laughter in the rain, The run on complaints of the street
The crackling of the moon And the silence of the stones:
Wet, shining, waiting for my stumble and my blood
Their faces as impassive as dead hands And stilled hearts
Their hardness, their uncaring To be my final bed
PERSON OF INTEREST
Tonight I am of interest to you. Tomorrow I might die alone. It’s been like this for me for a long time – Long before the night not long ago That I met you. It’s funny how important someone seems On a Monday afternoon: How you can’t wait to get home and call them, Find out about their day – And that same person is not even a thought Just 10 or 20 Monday afternoons later. I think of all the people I’ve mostly forgotten And I know that even more have forgotten me. I remember eating cheesburgers together, Tucked into that corner of the restaurant; I remember it now and wonder if she remembers it Or even remembers my name. We were together off and on for a year or maybe more – As time ticks on the measurements get hazier. She’s living with some guy the last I heard, Her divorce finally final for a while. I was just trying to remember what it was like to have sex with her, How many of my proclivities I exhibited, How much nonsense I admitted, What we talked about in the honesty of the dark. I remember a little but not much. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It sounds like a portent of doom But it’s on my mind. There have been so many Monday afternoons already With different people waiting for my call Or perhaps at the point where they were dreading it, Ready to avoid it. The Monday afternoons to come are less and less. Hell, it could happen to us in just a few months – I haven’t heard from you in a while And I’ve forgotten you Or, maybe, You’ve forgotten me and I’m still waiting for your call.
THE POEMS ARE LIES
Life is nothing like An early frost upon the grapes Or Even The life cycle of The honeybee drone.
No. It’s eating pretzels alone At midnight While listening to Enrico Caruso And knowing that soon, Too soon, You will die. Poetry lies. You’ll be dead Someday And it will always be Too soon.
The poems are lies.
Life is just like death – Essentially one on one. You contemplate and love And hate and battle with Yourself.
What you’ll regret most Is all the lies you told And the lies Told To you That you Believed Were true. Nothing about honeybees Or grapes.
John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.
Taylor Dibbert is a widely published writer, journalist, and poet. He’s author of the Peace Corps memoir “Fiesta of Sunset,” and the forthcoming poetry collection “Home Again.”
