The Devil Plays All His Own Records Backwards

just to see what all the fuss

is about

scratches the shit out of them

on this used turntable he picked up

at a yard sale seven months ago

and there are no hidden messages

that he can make out

not even a few of his own

and he looks at the album cover

then back to the record

before tossing it into the fire

and getting the next one

out of its sleeve.

Police Are Searching for a Doorbell Licker

I saw his picture on a black and white camera.

They say he walked up to this place at night

and licked the doorbell for over three hours.

Out in California.

Now that takes some serious dedication.

I’m guessing germs are not a large worry

for this chap.

His tongue raw with effort.

Dry as redwood kindle

If you see this man,

hide your palms in your pockets.

The doorbell was not so lucky.

Veggie Patches and the Mistress

The world is absurd.

People walk around acting like everything

is reasonable which makes things

more absurd.

I guess they need to pretend there is

some order to things,

some guiding principle behind

it all.

I know better.

I lock the door behind me.

Shut off all the lights.

You wouldn’t even know I am there.

Pulling at old skin tags.

Thinking about veggie patches

and the mistress.

Not mine, someone else’s.

I don’t have a mistress.

The whole idea of a mistress is absurd.

Like chewing on a pen cap for it’s obvious

nutritional value.

I don’t think I can hold out much longer.

My gnarled spine crawling up my back

and out my nose.

The freshly shaven face like a clean slate.

The mincemeat clarity of sound check

distortion pedals.

A knock at the door

and I am standing in the bathtub.

Sewing heart transplants onto old teddy bears

so the markets don’t crash like cars

in traffic.

Ugly Mug

I don’t think the poem is beautiful.

Everyone says it’s beautiful and everyone else

says it’s ugly and somewhere in the middle

is a fence you get sit on as long as the owners

aren’t home.

I don’t want the poem to be beautiful.

Ugly is okay, but never just for the sake of ugliness.

That fence could be torn down in no time,

but everyone seems to like it.

I don’t climb on poems

or write fences into yards.

Ugly is preferable.

The poem is not beautiful.

Crash Diets Should Not Involve Cars

You expect as much

in California

but the underground

parking spaces

sneak up on you

your truck

is not on a diet

the cameras

show your many attempts

at backing

a beluga whale

into a

shoebox.

Windy City Poem (for Alyssa Trivett)

You got that windy city

wind as well

and it’s really that

biting wind

that cuts through everything

and brings the cold

to the bone.

She tells me I have written a poem

without trying.

I decide that she is right

and that this one

is for her.

1% Burn

If you burn your genitals, it’s a 1% percent burn,

she says out of nowhere.

If you burn your genitals, it’s 1% of your body mass.

I suddenly wonder why she is telling me this.

If she thinks I will burn my genitals or am planning to

in the near future.

Maybe she is planning on burning them

and this is her way of telling me.

Her face down in the NCLEX nursing book.

Maybe she is just thinking out loud.

I don’t say anything.

Men seldom do when it comes

to burning genitals.

Her nursing exam is in a few weeks.

My genitals might be on it.

Untimely

They always say it is “untimely”

as though Death can be

anything but “untimely.”

Like there’s ever a good time

to die.  Even the oldies still feel

they have a little more left.

A few years of arthritis and old war stories

and beer.

But the obits always say “untimely.”

I have half a mind to put one in

that says such a Death was timely.

Like clockwork.

Couldn’t wait for that mean bastard

to kick it.

And just when the son of a bitch

looked as though he was panicking

and wanted to confess to anything – BOOM!

Don’t betray yourself now.

Go out just as you came in.

This nostalgia after the fact is nothing but guilt.

Manufactured or otherwise.

Seems death is always “untimely” unless you are

a hitman and paid for said death.

Still, the family will think it “untimely”

and say as much in the papers.

Barrie Anne Gardens

was the Compton

of the North

for poor families

just starting out

maybe it has changed now

they seem to be levelling everything

to the ground

and erecting condos

with extra fees

these days

but this was knife

fight central

back in the day

lots of wives with unexplained bruises

along the bus path

which was a selling point

as I screamed for milk

because I was still

a baby

my father in accounting

and my mother in damn near

everything else

as long as it paid

and we could make rent.

Front Loader

I stand over the toilet

and think of front loaders

in gravel pits

wiggling the thing around

when I’m done.

If I were a back loader

I would sit down.

Spread the cheeks

like spreading the love.

Fearful Symmetry

I could go right down the line. All of the bullshit. Start small, with those little pricks who are polite to your face but who you know call you a pig twenty seconds later. Probably because they think that the black kids do and that’s cool to them.  They’re not terrible, but they grind you down, not being able to call them out, because you know their parents would pitch a fit.

But that’s still kind of small time. Take the Black Lives Matter crap. I get it that their neighborhoods are tough. I’m called to them enough that I get it. But what are we supposed to do, not arrest any black people? I’d like to see them try to be a white cop. Good fucking luck. If you go easy, the people from the neighborhood will expect you to always back down, and your buddies are done trusting you. If you’re too much of a hardass, you could lose your job after a couple of people complain or you could be the target of some thug. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

And then, on top of all that, there’s that fucking tiger. They said it was supposed to be like a mascot or something. I don’t know why it would be a tiger. We’re in the middle of a fucking city. But they keep the tiger right where we all come in. Stupid, right? And I asked what the deal was. I asked Morris, “You going to just let this thing stay out here?” So what does the prick say? He doesn’t look at me, but he says, “Out of my hands.”

I tried asking him whose hands the tiger was in, but you know how it goes. By the end, he just said, “Look, as long as you don’t do anything to agitate the tiger, you have nothing to worry about.” Like it’s up to me not to rile up a god damned tiger. Like if something happens it’s my fault.

You’d think that everyone felt that way, but leave it to fucking Evans to take Morris’s side. A bunch of us were talking, and pretty much all of us agreed that this whole tiger thing was bullshit. But then Evans said, “It smells fear. You have to not be afraid.” Now think about that for a minute. There’s a deadly creature that you have to see every fucking day. You can’t not. And you’ve been told not to agitate it, and then you’re told that if you’re afraid, you’re agitating it. Makes a lot of sense, right?

And don’t tell me that nothing’ll happen. Just yesterday, Jameson got his face clawed. Yeah, Jameson was being stupid, trying to take a selfie with the tiger, but, come on. Bringing that thing in, we were just asking for trouble. It’s just common sense. But nobody knows what it’s like, and that’s why nobody gives a fuck, and that’s why it’s not going to get better. Go fucking figure.

Action Plan

Go through with it
the daily grind
until the great unwind.
Continue with
the gross overestimations,
the bad investments
of money or time
and keep on playing your chips
when it comes to love
or friendships
do it all with the artistry
of archery
even if it means
aiming for the bullseye
of a good cry
fake it
until you break it
and most of all
keep your journal
of to-dos
you did not
because this
French kiss of living
and vampire hickey
on the neck
of death
is all
that you’ve got

Over Complex

I know who
and what
you are
from your sequential
idiosyncrasies
and the polyrhythmic algorithms
of your speech patterns
and based on my graph
of your laugh
and the amount of
salt in your tears
and taking into account
your good and bad years
I deduce your use,
validity and relevance
in the current marketplace
of those who wish to be
in my space
and if you pass
this take home exam
then I am
willing to give you
the passcode to enter
my emotional wellbeing
now look into my iris
where you will see
your intentions reflected
good, no virus detected

The Last Match

There is somebody
out there for everyone
who is willing to strike
cinematic poses
in the rain
holding soaked roses
or who does not mind
the humiliation of
being the only one
in love
or who can flatter
at a moment’s notice
or pay for a fancy platter
and act like throwing down
one hundred bucks
for overcooked duck
really doesn’t matter
and you are guaranteed
to keep that
special one
if you can ignore
blatant off-white lies,
and distant distracted looks
in their hypnotic eyes
in exchange for
the hope that
they will be there
to light a candle
on that night
when the old cold wind
blows out the power
of your heart
and the light dies

Author, Author

I have been working
on a project
that involves
zero actual humans
and no tangible materials
the gist of this endeavor
is mostly me
and the alphabet
trying to be clever
the chance of it
being finished
any time soon are nil
but when it is done
like a comedian on fire
it is going to kill
this whole thing is
just an act of
cowardly heroism
egotism, as seen through
a self-involved prism
all that I can hope
is that when you read
my scrawlings on the
concave of your imagination
you will be
thoroughly shook
and you will then
tell everyone to
go read my book

—

Ivan Jenson is a fine artist, novelist and contemporary poet. His artwork was featured in Art in America, Art News, and Interview Magazine and has sold at auction at Christie’s. Ivan was commissioned by Absolut Vodka to make a painting titled Absolut Jenson for the brand’s national ad campaign. His Absolut paintings are in the collection of the Spiritmusuem, the museum of spirits in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenson’s painting of the “Marlboro Man” was collected by the Philip Morris corporation. Ivan was commissioned to paint the final portrait of the late Malcolm Forbes.  Ivan has written two novels, Dead Artist and Seeing Soriah, both of which illustrate the creative and often dramatic lives of artists. Jenson’s poetry is widely published (with over 600 poems published in the US, UK and Europe) in a variety of literary media. A book of Ivan Jenson’s poetry was recently published by Hen House Press titled Media Child and Other Poems, which can be acquired on Amazon. Two novels by Ivan Jenson entitled, Marketing Mia and Erotic Rights have been published hardcover. Ivan Jenson’s new novel, Gypsies of New Rochelle has been released by Michelkin Publishing. Ivan Jenson’s website is: www.IvanJenson.com

My name is Alejandra Garzon. I’m a storytelling fashion photographer from Ecuador but currently moved to New York.

                                         
 
Nexus   

What has passed shapes the part that remains:           
The sweep hand holds its breath, then clicks,
	and the clock breathes again.

At day’s end, the sun swells, then drops from its ledge                
waking fields of gems in the darkness overhead.      
And dreams return to bed to reprise         
the searching voices inside us—        
that elusive yet intimate presence  	  
which prickles our skin or sates it.  	    

Then morning comes—light ascends and floods, 
breaking the edges of windows and doors.
There is rust in our tracks from the day before.		 	     	

Each second holds the nub of the next:       
From spirit-sparked dust and cellular mix   
	life pulses through time, just to lose    
its grip on the moment—	            
before starting anew.


					


 
 
  

The Shore of Imagination        
          --Inspired by Richard
 
What’s imagined is true—
for as long as it lasts;
it confers with facts           
as needed.                           
 
Even when crayons          
master trees,                                  
clouds can still be green.  
And the sun can be blue—
seas empty, or full—         
or the sky still blank            
or the beach 
too red for feet.                 
                              
Facts serve to settle           
uncertain beliefs,                        
but the mind’s eye
knows what it sees. 
 
 
                                        
                    

Looking Through the Big End of the Telescope


In the mind, the frames of time are inversely sized:
 
Years are captured in snapshots and windows.
Entire summers hang on nimbus clouds
                         and clothesline rows.  
Days and weeks are fields of clover,
                 countless needles in a forest of pine.
 
While the present is a blur
       of collapsing moments, 
               the endless shaft of a shrinking mine.
 
 
                                                                                   

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.