Monday, August 24, 2009

Dear Mr. Logan,

My name is Rex Sexton and I am submitting the five poems below for your consideration for publication in "(A Brilliant) Record Magazine."

The following is my publishing history and statement about inspiration for my work.

I am an award winning artist exhibiting in Chicago and Philadelphia and my writing has that immediate and visual aspect. My novel “Desert Flower” was called “ … innovative and original …” by Large Print Review and “…so skillfully devious it could have been written by Heinrich von Kleist two centuries ago in Germany.” by Kirkus Discoveries. My short story “Holy Night” received the Critic’s Choice Award in the Eric Hoffer Award competition and was published in Best New Writing 2007. My poems have been published in reviews such as Mobius, Willow Review, Waterways and Edge, and my recent collection “The Time Hotel” was described by another Kirkus review as “… a deeply thought-provoking …compelling reading experience.” I paint and write expressions of humanity with the hope that I capture its dreams in the midst of adversity.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Rex Sexton

NIGHT WITHOUT STARS

Listening to it in the darkness,

the lullaby of hopelessness,

played by staccato rain

across the Chi-town tenements,

gunfire and sirens tossed in

to make the rhythms of the night

even more disturbing,

I dream colors,

paint prayers,

across the blackboard of oblivion,

where all lessons of the street are learned,

without degrees,

and tattooed in the heart and mind

with graffiti signs.


SHADOW WORK

We jumble. The cops turn up.

They bumble. Whosh! Whosh!

I catch the El train – rooftops

interrupted by flashes of lightening.

Cold. Alone. Endless rain.

JUNKYARD DREAMS

all piled in a heap

and rusting amidst

the acid rains and the

tangled weeds of poverty,

where butterflies and sunny

skies and star-lit nights

seldom come to anyone.


PAPER MOON

The world dropped into night

as I flew my kite up and down

the school’s playground.

Lightening flared, thunder rumbled,

but I held on tight, spellbound as it

danced, fluttered with the black winds

in the stormy sky, until the rains came

and it tumbled.


STARCHED NAPKINS

Tea for two on the table,

she stands combing her tangled hair

in the room without a rocking chair.

“I am so glad that you are here.”

She says to the full length mirror.

All the doors are locked.

All the clocks have stopped.

But tea will be served with care

in fine China with silver ware.

Helpless I do not know if good intentions prevail among the elected, among the appointed, leaving me apprehensive that the fate ...