I try to be holistic in my thinking, but it is impossible not to feel that I have a poet brain and a prose brain. There is a lot of counterpoint between them. When I am writing fiction my own poetry seems alien. I either don’t like it, or don’t know how I wrote it. [...]
put down your fiddles
and pick up your guns
for the emperor’s clothes are burning
The Sycamore Tree
Not to the sycamore tree
grave of republicans
or the communist party
not to the stones and bricks
or these buildings
or the tangle of ivy
the daffodils or the April
rain that brings them, no white
in the mirror’s face nor black
not to fortune
nor to any state
no flags no familiars
in interstellar spaces
no faceless friend
or beguiling interiors
the moss doesn’t call
the ferns [...]
I don’t remember writing this, except for a line here and there. And it wasn’t some late night production. I wrote it in my head on the way to work, scribbled it out on paper and then put it on the computer at my desk. But it went into a folder on october 23rd and [...]
Frail mosaics
of wooded hillsides
crumbling tiles
Autumnal clowns
in precarious quilts
Like shivering coins
of copper and vermilion
the crude drain in a pair of pants
snow squalls at the window
women dressed like children
indignant courting of filthy thoughts
A Question for Dreams
why do you bring the dead
and write yourself
in love’s light
why her still and
empty face
the blue eyes and
tangled nylon hair
she doesn’t cry ouch
at the knots
dad wants to know
where he is
i didn’t tell him we threw
the videos out
Holidays in the Sun
Mind and heart in revolt
I trade this rain for feedback
these branches are broken guitars
and the lavender mist
smoke drifting in
from battlefields
the smell of mowed grass
covers sulfur and formaldehyde
Holidays in the Sun
–the bombs haven’t gone away
and I’m still waiting
the call is loud
I can’t breathe
sitting in this chair
a plucked academic chicken
swords and words confused
Idea takes [...]
The Girl in the White T Shirt
Jack Spicer drank himself to death
Olson drank himself to death, Lowell and Bishop,
Berryman and Thomas drank themselves to death
It was fashionable to drink and poetry
Was not fashionable and so they drank
To be famous and because the pain of alienation
Was too great they drank but now
It is fashionable to be [...]
contact: jon@lastbender.com