“Hey, it’s me again,” you say. And you bring me a bouquet. But I don’t wanna talk to you today. ‘Cause I don’t got nothing to say.
But you don’t care, do you?
You were always telling me to stay away. From your path, you forced me to stray. I had to smile and pretend I was okay. But you come back around when you wanna play.
You think it’s a game, don’t you?
You haven’t replied to my text since last May. And now you tell me you’re here to stay. But lemme tell you something, it’s not okay. To abruptly start acting like I’m your bae.
You already know that, don’t you?
You wanna talk you say. And I’m like “Okay sure. You may.” But make it quick and be on your way. ‘Cause life’s got no buttons for replay.
You must be wishing that it did, aren’t you?
But here’s the fact that you can’t gainsay. Our love’s dead and starting to decay. And you know I like nothing less than a gourmet. So you better leave without further delay.
You would’ve done the same to me, wouldn’t you?
I don’t wanna dance no more ballet. For you in the back alley. Is it sad? Well, hell yeah. But what can I say?
Darling, it’s doomsday.
Surakshya Kiju, a.k.a. Coco, is a 23-years-old girl who is passionate about writing. She is a blogger at Poems From Heart, where she pours her heart out, laying bare her emotions as she portrays the world through her eyes. Her poems—which range from rhymes to sonnets—have been published in literary magazines like Cambridge Hall Poetry Journal. Each day, she strives for self-improvement, even as she inspires others through her own poetry. Please check out her blog at : www.poemsfromheartcom.wordpress.com
Back in the early 2000s, I was publishing lots of poetry… for several years, I tried to write and submit 3 poems a day, five days a week… I would send these compositions to different literary journals all over the world… the print journals were just being supplanted by the on line journals in those days, so I was still collecting boxes of contributors’ copies… one journal that liked my work was published in Louisiana and edited by a professor of English there…
a literary conference scheduled by an organization that I knew nothing about was held very year… this conference was scheduled for various institutions in the USA and Canada and was a place where professors of English could meet and present their papers on subjects like, “symbolism in Wordsworth from a post feminist prospective,” or “new French cinema as an heir of DADA…” I had a MA degree, but had never been a real academic, so did not know anything about these conferences… this conference decided to add some poetry from non academic sources and the editor from Louisiana had some say in that, and invited me to be one of the non academic poets participating… instead of presenting a paper, the poets would read some of their published poetry… I had always said that I would gladly read my poetry in public if anybody ever asked me to, so I agreed to do this and was pretty pumped about it in fact… my wife was working at the airline, so, I could travel on employee passes and so cheaply get to whatever city the conference was being held in… I learned that most of the participants, including most of the poets, were academics, i.e. professors of English and/or creative writing, and had money from their department to pay for the travel to these conventions… but, having no such resource, I was on my own…
I attended four or five of these conferences… I would fly to the city, check in with all the professors and then show up at the room to read my poems to a few of the professors who had chosen to attend the session that I was part of… seldom was the audience more than ten and on one occasion, I remember, I think it was in St. Louis, nobody showed up except the poets who were reading so we read for each other, kind of a pointless activity I guess, but that is how the poetry world swings…
anyway, one year, sorry I do not remember which year exactly, the conference was in Toronto… I got my name tag and made it to my session… I was surprised to find that some of the people in attendance were people who’s names I recognized from journals we had been published together in… among them was Gerald Locklin… I introduced myself to Locklin and he introduced me to several other well known small press poets and publishers… as usual, I was very nervous about reading my poetry in public, but, they all seemed to like my very dramatic reading style and so the whole thing was, I thought, pretty successful… I had brought some drawings and paintings to set up on stage as a backdrop to my reading… after the reading, Locklin, his wife, and the others were planning on going to the Natural History Museum… they invited me to join them… I don’t remember how much the admission to the museum was, but I remember that it seemed to me to be more than I wanted to spend, so I told them that and declined… but Locklin offered to pay for me, so I joined them and went to the museum…
then, after listening to some of the others read at a later session, I left to head back to Minnesota… in thanks for Locklin paying my way to the museum and for the kindness he showed including me, a relatively unknown poet/artist with the group of well known poets, I gave him a drawing… I never really had any other contact with Locklin after that, and I came to regret giving him the drawing because, I came to believe that it was one of my very best works… oh well, done is done…
Locklin’s poetry was not like mine at all and his reading was very different from mine as well… where my reading was dramatic and serious, his was conversational and light hearted… he said he like to do a song and dance at those readings so he could say it was the same old song and dance… and in fact, he did sing something and did a strange kind of shuffling dance… I never had been a huge fan of his poetry, but after meeting him, I realized that his poetry was like his personality, surprisingly sophisticated filled with wit and willingness to not take the world too seriously…
I just read today on Facebook, that Gerald Locklin died January 17, 2021, from Covid 19 complications… I was very sorry to hear about that… I’m sure he was a wonderful professor because he seemed such a basically decent human being and the interest he took in me and my work certainly felt genuine… he was successful in a way that few from the poetry world are and even if we never became close, I always liked the idea that he was out there at California State University Long Beach and USC keeping it real… RIP Mr. Locklin you were a fine poet and a kind, unpretentious and helpful person…
the 2020 election
so over seventy million
people voted for racism
for fascism, for the thought
that money is more important
than people
most of these ignorant fucks
are from families lincoln
should have slaughtered
after the civil war
instead, the losers got to tell
the story of that war and you
get what we have here
generation after generation
of stupid fucks breeding
even more stupid fucks
ignorance is a disease
and no one in this country
seems to like the cure
they are more than proud
to be stupid and dress
themselves in the flag
and think that makes
them patriotic
and if they are willing to
die for their racist leader
let them
thin that fucking herd
forever
-------------------------------------------------------------------
raven haired beauty
she was a woman
straight out of a
springsteen song
a raven-haired beauty
full of desire with eyes
that could burn through
your soul
as much as i longed
for a kiss
i was hoping that she
would be what would
kill me
take me from this world
once and for all
---------------------------------------------------------------------
some kind of loss or relief
i suppose i was supposed
to feel like some kind
of loss or relief when
my father died
it was neither
it had been over twenty
years since i had seen
or spoken to him
it was like being told a
ghost had finally been
captured and killed
i thought of it as a
tuesday and i must
have stumbled onto
some television station
i barely watch anymore
--------------------------------------------------------------------
unless provoked
all my friends
have moved on
i sadly never
got the chance
to do so
i'm never good
at burning bridges,
unless provoked
yet another joy
of apathy
-------------------------------------------------------------------
a difference of opinion
i never thought
of myself as
an addict
apparently
the authorities
have a different
standard
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know where the bodies are buried. He’s been widely published over the last quarter century, most recently at Dumpster Fire Press, The Rye Whiskey Review, The Black Shamrock Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy and Terror House Magazine. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
water to say when
an open file for your thoughts
is that a real dream to make it a market face?
a robot for the world
see it glisten in the sunlight?
gestures of the clown
clean ship with a chip machine
willow pane
we have a shriveled grape ready to go
celery king says to watch the show with a bowl of celery
a new earth buggy with wings
air elke fixture
the clouds are eating the earth
the head says to let the light in
I am the earth’s greatest detective
that tattered ghost is a serious mover
earth is the outpost for the better machines
mask head is a new enlightened being
what happens when we rearrange the head
we convince the earth to eat a salad
all possible nouns in the lost creature bath
the paper brain to be used
a cold face in that shoe
earth gets wet again
with a new hammer
parallel raisins
earth is a triceratops ghost model
to understand the miller hog
wet-naps in the sink
cool brute the trumpet player
miracle claus the humming shrimp
I wanted to do this for a penny
as numb as a sport fork
for the carbon it takes
at the outpost of the inner world
going for a walk inside of the red sun
the pushing machine is ready to run
that good looking gold was a bird on the perch
canopy burger not showing the head
a new earth pretzel
I was a photocopy machine
I was a belonging machine
the sparkle is a tangible name of the world
pie cooling now on the windowsill
action sound is a news bulletin
the garish head of the power
I spent the nickel that the machine spit out at me
pancake flap earthly
to build a beige bridge too
last semester was the child of the sun
that cornmeal platform from the beginning
the color of the currency was changed to red
the cheap leather to make a couch
earth had the key
that old bread head
there is a learning banquet for those who pass the test at the learning mountain
yeah, a smart card
all the way from the red zone
the nocturnal nesting of the hands ready to scratch
we don’t have the change in the jar to hold us over
after that incident with the bad trees coming in and demanding all of our money
x on the x ort
captain cookie’s cape
the crunch is the night of the bat
we hear the hem of the egg
this is the shape of the flea
the bright wound of the flowers
on this truck is the doctor
the flea of the centered laugh
the salad of the front fork
the serious world of the clamor
the wall of the pirate yuck
on the planet of keys and butter
the last of the dolphins
bio/graf
J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words in his subterranean laboratory. His poetry has appeared in many small press publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Cinderella City (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). His work has recently appeared in E·ratio, Maintenant, Otoliths, BlazeVOX, and X-Peri. Visit www.MadVerse.com for more information and links to his published work. Nelson lives in Colorado.
Detours
Couple bottles of Boone’s Farm that Belinda’s
older brother got for us at A & C Beverage
when we met up with him around the corner
and of course the peyote buttons and we were off
cruising country backroads in my mom’s ’63 Impala
convertible that last summer night after graduation
when we found a moist valley of fireflies that
swallowed us like the sparkling, star-filled sky
as if we entered a Kusama Infinity Mirror
when time was giving us a second chance
to lose ourselves before maturity showed up
with handcuffs and magicked the key away.
Midnight phantom footfall inside the bedroom
ceiling and the scene dissolves out of focus
and then into focus again
landing me in that prickly flip of past,
not to repair history in order to save
a Joan of Arc or Soulika sister,
but to squirm into my middle school locker
so that this time Ruth White won’t find me
with her punches when I take the last
chocolate pudding cup in the cafeteria
before she can get her spoon-ringed
fingers around it.
A jet stream snares me, squeezes me
through jalousie window slats
to territory of bigger/faster/more/more/more
instead of snailing through sweaty lines
of government cheese and unemployment.
How to make doppelgänger sense of it,
these roundabout visits that send me rewinding
to never meet up with Gus who stained me
with a mickey he claimed was the size of a whale’s.
How can I be my best ingredient,
in glory to each birthday’s butter cream?
To follow the next trail of twine
through hallways where Easter eggs
are painted zygotes and that if I swallow one,
I could clear my throat of trouble.
Clothes Horse
You like wearing a soup of polka dots
with rascally pockets
and that hat of ostrich-egg-over-easy.
You’re a landscape
seen through pinhole, born for knowing how
to keep your clothes
dancing. Passersby nod through clouds around you,
gardenia with a bit of ginger on top.
Sometimes you’re in the habit
of spandex, buttery soft camel toe
whispering for guests.
Sometimes you’re all in for the dissenting swag
of a judge’s collar.
But always you’re hungry for the click & collect,
or thrifting
in the hunt for your next highlight reel.
Closets never enough,
scarves and gloves and bracelets color-sorted
in the pantry.
You tell us it was the shapeshifting of adolescence
that got you here,
the scripture of accessory,
the rebel arithmetic of your
outsiderness + your outside-ness
= bondage trousers, chain mail nose
ring, neon spikes for hair.
Now it’s martingale back and designer
pouch with teacup pooch.
You say you always wear your soul on
your sleeve, your style slippery or stonewashed.
And there you go again, chiffon creature
preening in limelight, combat boots prancing
for romantic notions like sprezzatura
and je ne sais quoi. Rod Serling Takes a Stab at Stand Up
Before he says anything he draws deep
on a fresh Chesterfield and turns his head
to profile so he can better think sideways.
Swish pan / swish pan / swish pan / ah,
there’s the ringmaster, hot light, hot mic
and he’s rapier thin cool in a black mohair
3 roll 2 sack suit and crispy white oxford
spread collar. Glad you all could make it tonight becauseyou’re traveling now with the best dressed man in any dimension. Rod straightens
his Brooks Brothers double stripe and clenches
his jaw for the baritone glide. I just flew intotown an hour ago and boy, are my gremlinstired. Rod straddles a stool. You know, some people call me the Arthur Miller of science fiction TV, but my wife calls me television’s Groucho Marx of eyebrows…Yeah, I’m aJewish kid born on December 25, that one Christmas Day my parents had something elsedelivered besides Chinese take out. He grips
the mic and a beam of light launches off his
silver military bracelet. You might haveheard I was a paratrooper during WW2,but hell, that wasn’t half as harrowing as battling with TV sponsors…I’m no dummybut we all know what it is to look into the faceof the Twilight Zone—you have to have toiletpaper with you at all times for the doo-doo- doo-doo… But seriously, I do hold the record for winning 6 Emmys in outstanding writing for a drama series but what the hell do those two aliensin the front row care. They’ve probably got betterjokes on their planet, like “an Earthling and a Martianwalk into a diner”… A mound of ash has been softly
growing near his Florsheims. My daughters keep telling me that I smoke too many cigarettes, but then I remind them of our digs in Pacific Palisades andCayuga Lake, and they stop nagging me. Oh yeah, Sometimes I like playing the“ In Rod We Trust” card.
Rod drops his cigarette butt to the floor and rubs it
out with his shoe. So that’s my time, folks. I’m headingback home now to the hacienda and when I get there, I’ll walk into my study, sit down, put paper in the typewriter, fix the margins, turn the paper up, and bleed. Consider
When you consider a pitch to end all pitches, a pitch for
angels some say, for what materializes in the dusty corners
of your apartment, a pitch as delicate as Shantung Silk carried across ocean in satchels underneath the ruby throats of birds, then your perfumed scarf will touch
down upon a vestibule’s tapestry rug and proclaim
the final exit. How euphemisms spiral into themselves
as our pendulums slow, and cantankerous static clings
to our nose hairs. How we want to chew the date off
our ticket to the Imperial Lounge and just keep rolling
around a lush field, olly olly oxen free. How we yearn
to get drunk on cocktails of instant smiles and
cellular serums, our pinkies tapping our lips.
How we limit, to a parakeet mirror, our scavenger hunts
for wrinkles and dearly pay to have done what alchemists
do with plastic. Death will launch the trajectory
of our accumulating selfies and leave us with our
monkey minds godsmacked like undigested bits of beef.
So wag your tongue all you want at that grandfather clock
and swath your phone in a crochet shawl to muffle calls
from the grave. Branch shadows will play upon your
sleeping face and your scarab ring, too loose now
for your fingers, will twang to the floor.
No such place as exactly what happened.
Poetry Accessories
after Rod Serling’s “The Bard”
spurs of moment + tertiary motivation
+ worn copy of Ye Book of Ye Dark Arts
that flies off top shelf + riddle for riddling
+ doodle for doodling + fecund uncertainty
+ that crazy moon + blacks, whites & grays
spring-loaded + quill pen at attention
+ title/act/scene/cup-inside-cup-inside-cup
mash-ups from Brother Will + sand conjured
from your loafers + first picture book cherished
+ porcelain tureen with footnotes brimming
+ six-foot hot dog bun for napping under stars
+ dust motes whirling in sunbeam
+ pixel by pixel hearing + gaze unmediated & gliding
+ cockles squirming your heart
+ Harpo’s harp in barbed wire
+ Méliès’s flash, dazzle & poof
+ world too small to be satisfying
+ horsepower via headstone + va va voom+ipsy dispsy+za za zoom
