I’m 60 years old school teacher, and have been writing for a long time. Never had anything published. I have about 35 poems and would like to have a published book of my poems someday. But for now to have any of my poems read would be great. I have 3 complete books in my head, but writing them down on paper is my problem. I have sent you my poems, hope you like them. Thanks,

Jack Bellis

Myself

Here I am within myself
Wondering if this is I or that was me
Thinking of questions so hard to answer
Why is the sky blue
And why is the depth of my soul so dark
How could I Have done the things I did
Where is the inner soul I knew so well
Why did it leave me so soon
Has moments in time stripped off
A layer of my soul
have I lost a part of my compassion
Have hardships of others
I’ve loved caused callous to engulf my heart
Has misfortunes damaged the fragile barrier
Surrounding my heart
Look at me what do you see
Is this that boy
Smiles, loving, caring and learning.
Absorbing each passing day
Perhaps I have learned that
Too much may be no good
And trying too hard
Sometimes doesn’t work
Is love for others
Slowing slipping away
Have I learned from my pain
Or just avoiding it
Inside I grow more confused
Moments alone seem more like hours
Thoughts and memories are
Draining my life fluid from my soul
Love drips away

Come back, please come back
I liked who I was
Please come back
For I miss the softness and compassion
I now lack
Please return to me myself
I know to be that person called Jack

Where Are You

Where is my power
Where did it go
I thought I was someone special
A mere mortal?
Cuts me to my soul
I thought he loved me
Perhaps he does
But not in the way I imagined
It cuts me to my soul
This feels like a dream
Not real at all
Do I pray to something
Or to nothing at all
Where are you really
Why can’ t I say for sure
Your existence is so very important
Yet your never there when
I open the door
Confused is my logic
I can tell all you exist
Doubts are deep
That it hurts so bad
It confuses me
And makes me feel sad
Why does it have to be this way
Can’t a few know you’re here
If you can’t do it yourself
Let me be the one
I’m already here

Teacher

What is it that drives us?
Is it the concept
That motivates us all?
Or is it something you sense
While walking through these halls
Our job is to teach a simple concept
You would think
It’s a good one at best
Would we not all agree
Yet there are those who shiver
At the thought to learn?
To be taught?
To expand my mind?
You must be crazy I have
Better things to do with my time
O yes to prove the Concept
To those who resist
The battle line is drawn
So roll up your selves
And dare not make a fist
For it’s us to do battle and always persist
Our Opponent have allies
We capture them from their ears
Game Boys are also seized
With the opponent sometimes in tears
This War is more important
Than the one in Iraq
For the future of
Our country is placed
Squarely on our back

Looking

As I look what do I see
I see a young boy in front of me
His smile was bright and so was his life
Who is that boy I do see?

As I look through my eyes
I can see the makings of a kind young being
He was smart and funny and good to be around
He was the type of boy I wish I knew now

Bright was his life for his potential was grand
Nothing could stop him well at least nothing at hand
As I look very hard through my eyes I don’t see
In the distance the coming of a great tragedy

As I look I can see the boy didn’t think
That wouldn’t happen to me
For I can see his hope and great possibility
Never did he think that could happen to me

Here I look and still see the glimmer
As his push for a better life that starts to shimmer
Death his about as he wonders why
This can’t be real as he often cries
It is I and this can’t be
For doesn’t he recognize it is me

As I dare to look again more pain do I see?
For the young man still trying oh yes so
Desperately wishing for a break from tragedy
I can see his puzzled face as again he asks
Why is this happening to me?

It’s getting harder to look for the wear and tear
Is showing quite clear
I feel sorry for the young man though I can’t do a thing
For I only can see and absolutely do nothing

As I squint I can see the hardship and agony
Sometimes I wish my own eyes would fail me
But as I look and I must
The pain in his face is now painted on an
Older man with no glimmer of hope
And the age was drawn by an artist of
Despair rather than that of one with the Almighty’s flare

As I look with a heavy heart
I have seen all I can bare
For his life has taught me all is certainly not fair
Potential is great and brightness as well
But I can’t do a thing I can’t even yell
For the boy to man I have seen through my eyes
I now know what he lacked but way to late to act
Simply put I am looking through the eyes of
The shell of an old man named Jack


10-22-09
Jack Bellis


Mirror

When I look in the mirror
What do I see
Is it me or him
So I ask who are you and I say you are real and I am the
dream
I am who you wish to be and you are you the one you have to be
I am the one who hit the home run I am the winner you
dream to be
You are the one who works those simple jobs I am the
One that travels the world
I am the one that mingles with the stars you are the one
That mingles too long
You are the one that has all the responsibilities
You are the one with all the obligations I am the one who gets you through when
you are weaken by all you have to do
I am the one that holds you up
when the problems mount
I am the one that takes you where
you have to go to rest your mind and feel
the peace that helps you through
I am the one you wish to be
I am the one you dream was me

Everyday Life: Social Smackdown at the Supermarket

The weekend after Veterans' Day, I went shopping at my local Giant to purchase some raspberries and yogurt that were on sale. The one tucked away in a currently bucolic area of Alexandria, formerly and aptly known as the Hamlets, which the City and its partners are now turning into a construction zone and is soon to become a concrete cookie cutter copy of everywhere else. As I checked out, there was suddenly a commotion in the adjoining aisle. Apparently perturbed at waiting too long behind a woman whose payment was government subsidized, a middle aged man "lost it." Her lengthy tinkering with the contents of her cart to come within a certain dollar amount pushed him over the edge and he loudly let loose on how his tax dollars were partially paying her tab anyway, so "here's the difference, let's move the line."
And with that this sleepy little community store erupted into a microcosm of what's troubling America today. Too many handouts - to the rich and to the poor, squeezing those stuck in the middle to, well, class warfare and a social smackdown at the supermarket. Rapacious residential landlords, in subprime hock themselves, seeing only visions of dollar signs in their tenants eyes, exacting a hidden human toll. Well ahead of schedule, Mark Center is losing its neighborly neighborhood feel. Which is why I, and many others, are leaving. Bah, humbug and Ho, Ho, Ho.

Karen Ann DeLuca

Mr. Logan, I am submitting the following three poems for possible inclusion in A Brilliant Record magazine. Please let me know if you need any additional information or if I can answer any questions for you. Thank you, Justin P Lambert
http://justinplambert.net

The Wake

Forced conversations in a hushed tone
Awkward laughter, guilty cheer.

“She looks so natural.”
No, she doesn't. Did you know her?
Doesn't this bother anyone else?
We stand around this artificially
darkened room, trying not to
acknowledge why we're here.
“She went peacefully.”
Is that supposed to make me feel
better about her not being here?
She should have fought, tooth and nail!
Why is she there, lying still,
while I'm here, comforting strangers?
“It was her time.”
How dare you? How dare you say
that she deserved this? Or that God
deserves her more than I do!
What kind of God do you believe in?
Not the God I know. Not the God she knew.

Forced conversations in a hushed tone
Whispered questions, shamed ignorance.

Us

I want to believe.
I need to imagine
I can do what you need,
I can be what you want.
Tell me what's right.
Tell me who to be.
We work on these revolving doors
until we're dizzy and sick.
I know there is more.
I know you have wished-
I lost that once.
I never want to lose it again.
Forget about the past.
Forget what I have forgotten.
We ramble in and out of confusion
until we've forgotten everything
except us.

Memory

Mind thinning--
Gray and fuzzy flights of recall
dapple harder-won concrete memories
creating shadows from no substance
smoothing sharp contours and carving
tiny holes in what I thought
was my life.

Dear Godfrey Logan:

Please find below four poems for _(A Brilliant) Record Magazine: "Confession #12", "Inventor's Glee", "On Being Human" and "Your Odds".
My work has been featured or is upcoming in Two Review, decomp, Poesia, Ouroboros Review, MiPoesias and Existere, among others. My chapbook Micropleasure was published by Leadfoot Press in 2008. I reside in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I assist in editing the eclectic literary journal Third Wednesday.

Janann Dawkins

Confession #12


There is no speaking.
She talks to herself
even though she has

a roommate who won't
talk to her. The roommate
stalks through the house,

stirs the widening doorframes,
retreats to the bedroom
behind her head, riffle

shuffles for a game of solitaire.
On the other hand she has
a jukebox full of atonal music,

enough to speak to the damned.
She talks to the music, plays her hand
and demonstrates the mania

of listening everywhere:
she closes her eyes
and stares.


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

Inventor’s Glee
(in the wake of a successful poem)


My entire
tarpaulin skin
shimmers like a
licked clitoris
tottering
on orgasm,

my ears whine with the charge
of camera-flash,

my shadow
becomes my secret admirer

and my neurons anticipate
the synapses of others.

I'm thus afflicted for hours.


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

On Being Human


Eat, sleep, and excrete.
With luck, you fuck.


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

Your Odds


You can’t elude it. Were it
a fire you’d trance

as your pantslegs
dazzle with heat.

It’s red; it’s black.
No matter your turn, it’s there

to greet you, the beggar
trawling for change: you,

upended, surrender
your last bit.

Dear Mr. Logan,

Please consider my poem, "Eleven,"
for publication in (A Brilliant) Record Magazine.
Thanks for your time.

Matt Caliri

Eleven

O Father Of Mercy
Wash out this grief you shower
Over me and the land,

Ring out the spirit
And Saturday our love's weeks
Like light through locked twigs,

Beyond the puddled boy
Crying in vain for solace
Sung all about him

With worried weather,
Arise in your emptiness
Head-high like the sun.

Stars are for darkness.
May each night blanket blessings
Down Heart's corridor

And the floors of joy
Shift shapelessly through lives
Like mud on apples

In a woven dreamland,
Floating as God's single thought,
Making rich your harmony

As the cross flies off
And the Bible loads squirt guns
And "grace" replaces "debt"

Replaces tongue and
Speech in swirling compassion
Viewed from your own chair

You made from pictures
And lightbulbs and fake noses
And dusty open cheer

Up! The baby smiles
Your world of grief has shattered.
Light has pierced the dark.

Well Godfrey, ask and ye shall receive! Sorry if I have been awol. Glad to see that Record still rolls along. I think James D. Ardis shows some good promise. Anyways, the last couple of months have been busy with re-orienting my life around and working at summer camp. Nevertheless, here are some poems for your enjoyment and consideration. Hope all is well, - Ben

In the End is the Word Our passion sets up apart
With a light that goes on and off
In its own way and pace,
We recognize ourselves as we rise,
Touch the floor with our feet
And head off into the day,
Each made whole by a destination
That does not overlap with any other,
Though the paths might collide.

God is another name for our desire,
And the idol reflects back to us,
We celebrate it and pray to no other,
In time we leave all churches
Close all the holy books
In order to turn the world our own way
Upside down with us on top,
And as each of us takes to such cycles,
We have loves, no enemies,
The idols are real and all else is an illusion,
There are only obstacles in holding each other,
Our passion sets us apart.


Runaway Horses

I became used to the new shapes
That she made in the bed quite easily,
Even when they changed with breathing.

Now the sheets are flat and seem
To go on forever, I remember
The way she would block the moonlight

And the moonlight now flows
All over me and I am drowning,
That feeling was never there before.

Her perfume never smothered,
Never filled my throat or lungs,
It reached my heart and mind first

Before taking time to travel and circulate,
It gave me clouds that I alone
Could sense on otherwise clear days.

Now I roll up towards her again,
Can she hear my breathing?
Has she been remembering my arms at night?

I have been her perfect tourist,
Making a souvenir of everything given,
Even the bites and cuts.

One certainty, I have been missing her,
The question is in other bosom,
Will she ever miss not seeing me?

Empty Squares

The floor was too hard,
Perhaps under it was better,
Sleeping with the pipes and rats,
But I had a sponge put out
And slept on the division bar,
Thinking of myself as a remainder.

The sponge was hard too,
It was trying to flatter the floor,
I tried to make a field of sheets,
Where I would be held up
On a small patch of thin ice.

Of course it was too cold
And I felt like I had slipped,
I imagined my pillow was a cloud
Raining on everything below me,
It drew the lids down well
And laced the lashes shut.

The Age Demands It

If this is a iron age, so be it,
A golden age shines,
But bends too easily for descendents,
It never breaks and is rubbed thin,
A silver age stretches time
Into a lake to sit and glitter,
But it tarnishes and causes insanity,
Carrying lead under its skin,
A bronze age is a stronger imitation
Of the golden, but an iron age
Will give us something heavy,
Something useful for swords and ploughs.

Index of First Lines

A cold coming we had of it,
After the torchlight, red on sweaty faces,
Although I do not hope to turn again
Among the smoke and fog
Of a December afternoon.

Midwinter spring is its own season.
Here the crow starves
The songsters of the air repair,
The winter evening settles down.

The eagle soars in the summit of heaven,
There are those who would build the temple,
Let us go then, you and I
We are the hollow men.

A More Perfect Union

The earth is not perfect,
Not as a flat circle making
Euclid and Pythagoras giddy,
Or a sphere that spins,
It bulges at the middle
Like us in old age,
And why should it not,
It’s got billions of candles
Still left to blow from so many birthdays,
Attended by a family of planets
Growing distant every year.

It does not even travel
In perfect circles, it does not move
As Ptolemy and Aristotle
Tried to choreograph it,
It does not stay still, silent
Firmly grounded, because
It is the ground itself, it had nothing
To reach out and hold onto,
The thing comes back to where it started,
But wobbles in an oval, drunk
On the gravity of the sun.

Everyday perfection is a dull joy,
Bright for a moment, colors
And shapes too well defined
Begin to melt us, break us down,
We feel apart from the earth,
And disgusted with ourselves,
We cannot have such white teeth,
Happy families, clean bathrooms,
The world we make was imperfect,
Off-center, poorly defined, the edges
Blending into one another, the horizon
The only straight line to worry about.

Dreams are now our approachable reality,
The waking life is a mirror,
Reversed, imperfect, a shadow
Of a Platonic realm, the veil
Has fallen, with curtains not far behind,
What was always present, always real,
The stench and the grind,
Is now the treasured thing, the exotic,
The vanguard and the avant-garde
Lead us back to the cave.

The perfect things I store
In a menagerie between my ears,
On a shelf with the straightest lines
I’ve ever seen, I take them out
When the day is rough, when
The wobble is too much,
Or the spin too fast, when
I want the oval to drag us into Mars,
Then will be the time for perfect things.

A Narrative Maybe

Let your envy perfect you,
That flame inside, make it
Brighter, and burn away
Those impurities, that heaviness
That kept you down.

They spend too much time
Waiting for chemicals,
Elements are slow to react
With words placed on tables,
There is antidote, because
There is no poison, all life
Is non-toxic.

When I sit and admire you
Across the room, don’t
Take that as a compliment,
You had nothing to do
With that nose, those lips,
(I look around the piercings,
My eyes are not magnets.)

I don’t understand, we’re right,
We made love, I think,
And I tried to sell what came out,
Don’t look ashamed, you asked
For ten percent, but the merchants
Were picky, their dollars smell
Like vinegar, they want to keep
Digits constant as their fingers shake.

Sorry it’s blue,
My chemical companions,
Do not mourn the loss
Of synchronicity,
Remember someone
Is always finishing your sentences
Somewhere else,
No one writes alone.

Stalk-Her

The Poetess

Oh, Jesus Christ,
another message light blinking
What is this man thinking?

Night after night,
taking such delight in flooding my aura,
my hearing, my sight with lewd, lascivious
desires to own me, touch me,
undress and possess me--

a woman he’s never met

I suppose that will teach me
to try to be kind to a clearly lonely,
warped and unloved mind
his soul aching for resurrection,
so desperate for connection
in a world deliberately passing him by
unwanted, ignored

Now I see why

Godammit ,
It’s still ringing!
Can't he just leave me alone?
I want to be able to pick up my phone
without hearing the heavy broken voice
of celibate desires, unquenched fires
saturating my senses with his wanting

I’m being victimized, terrorized,
dissected and vandalized,
my thoughts and words stolen,
looted, manipulated and diluted
by a strangers idea of love perverted
and diverted my way

Is there no disguise in which to hide
From these probing, voyeuristic eyes?

~~

The Reader

Oh, look at her words gloriously heard
solely in my mind as I read them convinced
she cries out in a night echoing with pain
from love torn wounds only I can hear and heal

How I long to feel her skin
shimmering white, trembling in delight,
bathed in love starved, lingering kisses
laid upon a body unknown,
yet hungered for

Desires inspired by this verbal siren,
I can close my eyes, almost feeling her presence
breathing deeply of her essence
unknowingly consumed by the fires
she’s ignited with her words

No one understands her like I--
Perhaps I should pick up my pen,
remind her yet again

I must open her eyes,
make her see she belongs to me,
destined to be mine …

… forever

awh @March 2009


The Rumor Game

Ah, he said, she said,
it’s the hottest game in town!
Cock that verbal gun, take aim and fire!
Let’s see who can cause the most dissension,
get the most attention, with their
worded blood lust desire?

Load up those bullets
and shoot ‘em kids,
let’s fire at the weak and downhearted
Aim for the jugular, we’ll all take turns
and it doesn’t matter who started

‘Cuz it’s a vicious world,
gotta learn to play that game
Who can we chew up and spit out today?
It doesn’t matter where we aim that pain,
as long as you know how to play

The rules will apply,
as rumors run rampant,
in the game of, ‘what can we start?
Now load your guns, and check your ammo,
we’ll blow those bastards apart!

And we have no shame,
we just mow ‘em down,
we’ll take no prisoners and run
We can step over their bodies,
while trashing their names

But of course, it’s all done in fun!

So come one, come all
take your aim and best shot,
let’s see your talent for wounding a soul
Come on, come on, let’s see what you’ve got
let’s see who you run with and know!

Yes, it’s a vicious world,
and a damned rough game
It’s dog eat dog as they say,
But if you want to survive,
to stay on top…

Then you’d better
learn how to play

awh @ 2007

Amerika Idolizes

Across the nation
Worshipers on
Bended knees
Heads bowed
In adoration before
32” Flat screen
Shrines
Glowing
Neon bright a
Shining light
In the dark
Illuminating
Reverent
Marbleized eyes
Zealously
Blazing from
Cherubic
Faces split by
KFC slick smiles
As a new
Messiah is
Manufactured
Commercialized
And created
Specifically to
Please and
Appease the
Demands
of the masses

On your knees Amerika!
A new Idol is born.

Awh @ may 2009


Wind Up Doll

Pull me from
That dusty shelf
Wind me up
And watch me go

A song and dance
For your pleasure
Your own little
Distraction
In action

Yes sir! That’s Me!
Your own personal pocket pal!

Occupying you
For the moment
Killing a little time
In your life

But don’t wind too hard
My batteries aren’t charged
And I can be worn down
If I’m over-wound ….

And you'll no longer have
Your wind up doll~

Awh @2008

Cat 5 Alicia

There’s a storm blowing thru
my ravenous soul tonight
relentlessly whipping the winds
of my personal war around me
with the velocity, the ferocity
of a category five hurricane

Harsh furies agitate my sober atmosphere
with the momentum of a bullet train;
menacing to the fragile sanities
being torn from me and ferried out of reach

In righteous wrath and fear,
I raise my fist violently against this turbulent chaos
funneling, channeling the vicious dark spirits
seeking refuge in my core,
the eye of my storm--
this angry ocean of impurity pulling me out to sea,
leaving me washed away lost
in the waves of madness and despair

Battle weary with my rationale threatened,
my voice a howling fury indignant against
the forces ripping away the last precious
threads of my sanity,
the violence wreaking havoc on the wastelands
of my sorrowful, desperate excesses,
I capitulate, swallowing my demons down

Hurricane Alicia abated, my spirit sedated,
I lie hypnotic and calm,
flat lining in the seas of tranquility

Patiently waiting for the next tempest,
I lie dormant and calm in the eye of my storm

©awh july 2007

Confessional

I lie quietly watching you slowly advance
to your place of worship, driven by
your vocation, your quest for meditation,
zealous redemption of your faith

With no hesitation, reservation
or doubt, you kneel at my alter,
head bowed, sipping of my warm wine

Taste my consecrated flesh,
Oh, sweet sacrament

Slip into my feminine sanctum,
we’ll meet in blessed communion,
professing our sins in beatified union

Reach with me our heavenly rapture,
your lips divine, warm and sweet on mine

We will lie spent, completed,
contented, languid, liquid salvation,
in our confessional

awh @ 2008

I am pleased to Alicia Winski has been named the Featured Writer for the Winter Issue of Record Magazine. Please check out her work on the site and in the upcoming print issue. She has a great future ahead of her as a poet and a writer!

Godfrey Logan
Creator/Editor Record Magazine

Hi. I found you in the Poets Market. Took a look at the blogspot thing but didn't really see any kind of reference to a magazine. Are you still taking submissions? If so, I'd love to submit. I liked quite a bit of what I read on the blog.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks.

Alicia Winski

Hourglass


Old lace

Fine wine

Brushed silk

The world mine

Life simply sweet

No cares or

Tribulations

No deeper meanings

Unpleasant revelations

A time of few trials

Little discontent

When I dreamt my

Girlish dreams

And I knew

What love meant...


Now with dreams

Shattered

My hourglass lay

Scattered

In shards

Around my feet

Blended

With the

Dissipating

Sands of time

While the

Soft ashes

Of my lost

Loves

Swirl gently

Around me

Like feathers

Dancing

In the wind...


Little Red Riding Hood

I can see your eyes

Watching me

Where ever I go

Hungry

Wanting

Piercing

Haunting

Covetous and

Oh…

…so frightening…



I can feel the heat

From your fingers

Aching to

Touch me

Break me

Teeth sharpened

Read to devour

And take me

Swallowing me

…whole…



Your Lips licked in

Lusty satisfaction

Gorged and plumped

With the extraction

Of the last vestige

Of privacy and

Innocence I

Held onto

Brutally ripped

From me

The fragile emotional

Virginity

I had retained

Remained

Deliberately

Untouched now

Sullied

Soiled by the

Impurity of

Avaricious

Desires...



My blood runs cold feeling

Your lustful need

The avaricious greed

To feed on me

Radiating

Vibrating

In the air around me

The main dish for your

Solitary table….


Will you eat me whole

Or slice me up into

Bite sized pieces

Tender morsels

Sinfully flavored to

Savor at your leisure?



With nowhere to hide

I crawl inside myself

A frightened little girl

Hoping not to be seen

A Little Red Riding Hood

Trembling in fear

From the big bad wolf

Knowing that he’s

Not just near but

Arrived and

Here knocking…


…at my door…

Mr. Wilson was BORN IN 1941 IN Ithaca, New York and was raised in the Finger Lakes
Region of upstate New York. He was employed by the Traveler’s Insurance Company for 27 years from 1967 to 1994.He retired in 1994 and became disabled with his diabetes and heart conditions. He continues to live in Vernon, CT .In 1989 to 1991 he had 65 poems published in various publications. His poems are drawn from his own life’s experiences. He presents rich images through the strong and interesting use of his poetic vocabulary and language. He has continued his poetry
to the present and is proud to be a poet of two centuries. He encourages others to keep poetry alive. In 2009 Mr. Wilson has had poems accepted for publication by:
Westward Quarterly, Cloud Appreciation Society, Nomad’s Choir, The Poet’s Art
Star*Line , Write On.!!, She-mom (A Brilliant) Record. Ceremony and Fullosia,
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION.

James Webb Wilson


The Film Ran in Reverse

The film ran in reverse

We saw the combine put wheat in the field

We saw the old barn falling together

We saw the cat jump up on a large post

We saw the catcher pitch the ball to the pitcher

We saw a log sawed and chopped

Reassemble itself back on the wood pile

We saw the end throw the football

Over his shoulder to the quarterback

We saw jet planes in weird retrograde

A diver came out of the water arcing

Up to land feet first on the spring board

Rabbits and squirrels in reverse

Going where they’ve always been

Then when my Dad backed up the car

It looked oddly normal

Two reversals made it right



In Their Own time Defined

We walk along a time line with fashions and fads

Of common products and commercial ads

Novels of the nineties can now refer

To Nintendo, Walkman, CD’s and fake fur

Word processors, lasers and microwave dishes

To cable –HBO, Sports Channels

Query languages – relational data bases

We see the trail of life littered

With the signs of the times

Recycling bins in purposeful hues

Crash diets, the Heimlich maneuvers

Closet doors with slots and louvers

We shall remember these littered time

The fast pace of change

Technology builds in obsolescence

Resale’s, upgrades, to better

Their quota, the market share

We talk the time line

Anachronisms nonverbally defined

James D. Ardis is a poet currently attending the University of Arkansas for Creative Writing. At nineteen years old, he’s already been published over 30 times by journals such as Word Riot, Teen Ink and Subtle Tea. Until the journal’s demise in April of 2008, James D. Ardis had a column in Zine 5 magazine entitled Idle Lines for the Misinformed. He’s currently wrapping up work on his first book of poetry: Letters on Sunspots. James is also helping to establish the first ever literary journal in the history of the University of Arkansas. As an active Buddhist, James’s work includes many references to Buddhist philosophy. Popular culture and the motif of self discovery also pop up constantly in his work.

What is matter? Does it dance?

I challenge every teacher to come up with one question
for every test that goes beyond
notes taken during a lecture…
bolded terms on the sides of textbooks…
a question that goes beyond…
An answer.

What is Matter? Does it Dance?
Do swing sets miss you when you get older?

English Major Woman

Her feet cry out to me for salvation
from the shoes that demand five toes
to converge in a single point.
The proverbial “toe-cleavage” throbbing red
As she mangles her textbooks with bookmarks and ear tags.

She plays Sudoku in the newspaper during Medieval Lit.
fingers bound around a pencil with a brand new eraser
for all the mistakes she's bound to make
as a professor in her late eighties
strings together her final thoughts
before the end of class like an epitaph,
spoken in perfect Iambic Pentameter.

Ferris Wheels In Pripyat

Discontented bumper cars wade in melting snow
thin wires cling to the decimated ceiling,
The grovel gathers along electronic pathways
a steering wheel rests beside the passenger's seat.

The classroom seats are firmly planted on the ground
dirt gathering on the floor like pencil shavings,
A light panel collapses between the aisles
like a student slapped for insubordination

A Ferris wheel plagued with rust, arms bent in exhaustion
letting its fingers,the gondolas, dangle low,
wonders to itself if it could even rotate
if it cared to try.

The 4th of July on November 22nd

A 12-year-old Asian child smokes a cigarette
touching the smuggled fireworks like a holy shrine
the stench of 7-11 Taquitos dances around his friend,
his protruding gut and the sweltering hive of acne sprinkled across his face tell the story of many late night Slurpee binges.

The cold November air, the ying
contrasted by the lit match, yang
collide at the core of the firework's fuse,
the first flints spark like magnets
their tango as passionate as a Latino mamba.

Flying in the air reluctantly on its kamikaze mission,
the crackle like popcorn as the rocket releases its cascade of color,
the calm November evening shattered in calamity
by the rocket's pure, impressive light.

An entire town collectively, leave the warm embrace of blankets
and crave a hot dog drizzled in ketchup.


Lauren

While her friends pay to get their fingernails painted at stores,
she stays at home and sinks her hand into bowls of red paint
hurling it at the canvas, bombarding the tranquil plain
with sheer passion so it won’t take bottles of Tequila
to see those strawberry fields forever like her idols.