Through a crack in the wall,
I see nothing.
I hear a faint swirl of mutters and creaks and nothing.
I sense a fear,
From me or the crack in the wall?
From me.
Eye to the hole,
I stare and stare,
But nothing is nothing is nothing.
I see nothing,
I hear nothing,
I sense nothing.
Yet when I am far from the crack in the wall,
I see it,
I hear it,
I sense it.
The crack in the wall is made up of nothing,
Yet it makes me feel the most of everything.
I am it.
Which makes me nothing.
Before I Was Born
the night before I was born
cloudy night sent me
tons of muse n' caged me on sit
the night before I was born
my life became the only
image my eyelid pledged patriotism
the night before I was born
nightmare became my company
while I'm paranoid by unknown guilt
the night before I was born
I became friend to my future
while my past shallowed tunnel of memory
the night before I was born
I had this writing as prophecy
and for I couldn't wait to write
it's end, I'm here to attest the living.
the floor still wet
with mourning…
oh Abiku —
with pain & suffering
death returns her again
weeding
holy the field
ardor in every breath
delivers
deliverance
sunlight —
her eyes piercing
through …
underwater
swim
winter's
a true relief
from heat
while birds overwinter
in the tropics
yawning —
idle on the bed's edge
to and fro of army ant
contemplating
what to do
Christina Chin / Uchechukwu Onyedikam
Maniacal Drama
Extremism to its extreme
The iliad twice over
Yet missing more than
A hundred thousand soldiers
There's a killer on the loose
The new pennywise
The curtains haven't closed yet
This story isn’t near its end
Quiet panic
Tension is high
Cross your fingers and
Pray there's no encore
No more-
Chekhov's gun is on the wall
“La forza del destino”
Graffitied on the bathroom stall
The spotlight’s gone dark
The lead is dead
We pity the poor soul
Who found the queen’s head
The show must go on
Sanity is hanging on by just a thread
Everything’s gone wrong
And the stage is half set
We’re only in act three
Nobody knows where the prop manager went
Iago is carrying the head of Marie Antoinette
Exit stage left
Keep your eye on the apron-
The hit list is too long
Suspicion is high
Biases are burning
Don’t blink
It’s all a lie
Romeo is dead now
So is Snow White
Mufasa has fallen
Spock said goodbye
And Rose couldn’t save
Her poor young lover’s life
The audience is cheering
It all looked so authentic
News reports nineteen civilians have gone missing
Socrates
You -- god of something we want & we lack –
Sacrificed to a life of questioning
& Generations before the Lord took
His own Life for some odd strange answers. Look:
What the hell do you see now, looking back?
Thousands of academics answering
Counter-arguments at symposiums,
A talk . . . on an essay . . . about a book.
The Forgiving God deals with all those Hymns
Sung by all those armed, those willing to fight.
But you deal with people equally right:
Know-it-alls all full of propositions.
People like you have started Religions.
Not you. You just died to ask us questions.
Snakes & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails
Ignorance is not knowing anything & being attracted to the good.
Innocence is knowing everything & still being attracted to the good.
– Clarissa Pinkola-Estes.
All this reminds me of innocent things
made up of the pure
Then
of memory . . .
a fish with a hook stuck in its gullet
& frogs tied up to a bicycled string,
a dog wanting, & waiting for a sign
of the bone in my behind-the-back hand,
only long enough for a feigned toss,
& that dog chasing empty expectancy.
“I was a little world made cunningly.”
I feel younger, not un-knowing again,
but the pain in the heart of attraction.
Like innocent desire compels it.
These thoughts are caught in a throat that is mine.
& I recall that fish flopping madly.
Siton the barstool next to mine
2 seats down she removes the clams from their shells,
1 at a time, then tosses the clicking casings into the bowl.
You watch her suck the linguine into her jowls.
What breaks you down so much these days?
It’s not the relentless February storms,
dark mornings or icy nights,
or 28 days that seem to go on
relentlessly longer than May’s 31.
What drains you so much these days
is not persistent fatigue, insomnia or illness;
it is not 4 sweating hours each night,
the cigarettes, the beers, or sinusitis.
It isn’t depression, your diet, or exercise,
although your body never lies
except when collapsing limply late at night.
What drains it all from you these days
is not the labor law autopsy photo,
proving more than the other attorney’s drone
as you listen to her on the speaker phone,
& ponder the relatives of the anonymous one
who fell head first into the wood chipper,
now one-half biped, without chest or head.
No. It’s much more simple, more right
than any of these basic, tragic recurrences.
It is something once rare, now become common.
Hard working friends, like love alone did, are dying.
2 seats down she removes the clams from their shells,
then tosses the clicking casings into the bowl.
You watch her suck the linguine into her jowls, jealous.
She is beautiful, you are alone, & you want to say:
Please sit on the barstool next to mine . . .
I want to see living . . .
Available Space
9 planets – & not an Eros
or Cupid among them.
But we’ve still found
2 homes for Mars.
Acquisitions
The red-faced neo-conservative political pundit,
a total hog, a local celebrity from public tv,
walked into the liquor store, my liquor store,
where I worked, & he asked for “good Scotch.”
“I don’t know Scotch,” I said . . . honestly.
“It’s an acquired taste,” he said . . . with a smile.
I said nothing, but I certainly thought
about acquired tastes. I thought a taste for love
must be acquired, since one must acquire a lover.
One can read the works of love, I thought, read
special guides from the East, or one can
simply listen . . . to one’s lover . . . & then act.
One can acquire an equally inexpensive
taste for books, for knowledge, using the library,
& one can acquire a taste for poetry, or prose,
learning the greats, or just learning the adequate,
even, without ever dropping a taxable dime,
or spending one’s Scotch-drinking time, learning,
or even listening to the words of some other.
One can love & love words. Is this acquired?
Can one acquire a taste for generosity?
I wondered, say, float some money to a friend,
but later give one’s time to the holiday soup line,
having grown into it? Is that . . . acquired ?
Later, I imagined my customer, the fat-faced hog
he is, with money, hating taxes, drinking Scotch.
I imagined him finishing his bottle of top-shelf
liquor, as I finish my own cheap beer, given my
acquired taste for cheap beer. I imagined him
later, red-faced, kneeling before the toilet bowl,
throwing up a soul, tasting like top-shelf Scotch,
unlike language, or love, but still, an acquired taste.
This Beauty
My Heart
Could see the No
Hope
With fears thrown on
the fire to keep
us warm
tonight
I'm fearing absentia
missed and
Lost on pure
fruit-filled Faith
A Basket
always empty
Before Love
Can Stand
Knowing
our Love
not ours alone
And my Palm
is Visible to me
Raised to Care
in the Empty
Light
filled on Broth
& stirred
emotions
to soothe
the already
Soothing
turn a Day
from light to dusk
& Rest Knowing
by John Edward Culp
The Dreams
that never Die
& will never be the
Same again
for Now has no plural
form
And Time is A Name in
Passing
the Half Full Cup
that's alway finding
the new
Completion
to Reach for
without bending, just
Standing Here
Sleep finds me,
Baggage at the Door,
fallen to pillow
where confusion
loosens its weave
Drawn to the fragrance
of things to be
Yes, I say yes, in my Dreams!
The Dreams that
never Die & will never
be the same again.
Written the morning of
Monday, October 10, 2022
by John Edward Culp
