Hope all is well, since we've moved on to the BLM protests and the Boogaloos while still being subjected to the continuous whining & blathering of a senile old dotard who insists that anyone who disagrees with his antiquated racist views is a traitor since the last time i wrote.

The murder hornets and locusts have been a huge letdown so far, but the Sahara dust storms are pretty nifty.

And I assume there are still immigrant children locked in cages down in the southwest, so that's always a tourist hotspot......

man, i'm depressing myself.

be safe,

sweet

slowly going insane

 

another morning

in a waiting room

 

eavesdropping in

on three or four

conversations at

the same time

 

knowing i am

slowly going

insane

 

the trick i suppose

is enjoying the

ride

------------------------------------------------------------------

until the last star fades away

 

whispers under a

strawberry moon

 

forever possible

until the last star

fades away

 

sharing a bottle

of wine with all

the ghosts that

visit you every

night in your

sleep

 

the old lovers

 

the dead friends

 

the lost encounters

along the way

 

and soon, the first

bottle becomes the

third

 

and you'll wake

up on the floor

 

and no matter how

much you hope for

it

 

there won't be any

chalk lines around

the body

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

the end of this flat circle

 

i'm hoping to get

high enough that

i no longer can tell

where the beginning

and the end of this

flat circle actually

starts

 

where the colors

float in and out of

my third eye and

all sense of purpose

is lost in an ocean

of neon blue sharks

and dolphins that

speak spanish like

an old lover that

actually says

 

significas todo

el mundo para

mi

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

kissing someone else

 

she had the coldest

eyes i had ever

fallen for

 

her kisses always

felt like she was

kissing someone

else

 

i would always ask

and she would play

it off that i was the

one with problems

 

eventually, she

moved on without

any explanations

 

i'm pretty sure i

didn't need any

 

in the end, it was

simply a month

of my life i will

never have the

need for again

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

a desperate angel

 

a few lines on

the coffee table

 

you remember

these types of

parties from

your teenage

days

 

at least the cocaine

should be better now

 

a few thirsty fools

get in line for the

drugs

 

i'll stick to the liquor

and taking up space

here in the corner

 

it's not that i don't

want to have fun

 

these occasions are

better spent for me

observing

 

drinking away the

blues into some

oblivion where a

desperate angel will

seek a confession

in these arms

 

it's always someone

broken from some

shitty childhood and

we can both see that

brokenness shine in

the smoke of confusion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

written under a freeway in texas

 

never fall in

love with a

female mandolin

player with evil

eyes

 

she will break

your soul

 

take what little

money you have

 

fuck your best

friend and give

you the disease

 

of course, you'll

never learn this

until you have

to live it

 

you're welcome

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

J.J. Campbell

Absurdity of Understanding a City (Lafayette Square, Buffalo, NY)

Seeking the heart of a city

may be a false quest:

is not each human heart,

each structure

in the built environment,

each shape and flow

of the natural world

suffused with

the peace and chaos of urban life

irreducible constituents of

the heart of a city,

pulsating in balance

the life and death of everything,

unable to be localized

to any one place?

How foolish the human spirit is

to seek something

which cannot be found.

How foolish I was to find myself

at the Civil War monument

beneath the gaze of the Union

and her soldiers and sailors,

seeking understanding

in the interlocutions,

the laughter,

the sparrows,

the comings and goings,

the flags and music

moving on the wind

to the play of children.

Connor Orrico

The World with an Address (West Side Bazaar, Buffalo, NY)

Traveling to the City of Buffalo on the New York State Thruway

from the east there is a green rectangular sign with white letters:

Buffalo, underneath which reads An All America City.

I have seen and have been puzzled by this sign since a child,

not knowing the National Civic League that awards the title,

not knowing America, much less how all its composite elements

could be embodied by one place, earning the adjective all.

Decades later I still do not know, but some days I gain insight,

fitting one more piece into a puzzle of unknown (in)finitude.

One piece – perhaps a corner piece, so significant in strength – is

the West Side Bazaar, microcosm of Buffalo’s immigrant and refugee milieu.

Since its March 3, 2011 opening in the Upper West Side neighborhood,

this retail and food shop collective have welcomed all,

immigrant, refugee, and native Buffalonians, into cordial, spirited space.

Here the world is experienced – as much as can fit at 25 Grant Street --

and after meandering the mosaic of Burmese, Puerto Rican, Ethiopian,

Pakistani, and Chinese conversation and cuisine, I like to sit down

to enjoy an American city with Thai beef salad and the company of my mother.

Connor Orrico

Enduring the Entropy

Indifferent to my plans,
entropy seeks my
disintegration.

Life is heavy,

less as cliché
than as conscious

moments of hidden

eternities.

.
Close your eyes;
heed your chest
rising,

beating.

Keep trying,

tired one,

to keep trying,

living,

enduring.

Connor Orrico

Hebetude

There exists a heaviness,
a headache from existing
whose harsh monotony
holds me in a morass.

Here Without Hearing

We
are actual
and always,
we
call
courageously
with
belief here,

but

our
answers are
absent among
our
complex
calculations
of
being human.

Connor Orrico