Good Lemon: Notes from the Shrine, 4.12.2026

~ johnbrandall

We are in the Dammert assisted-eating dining room. Marilyn is here, and Bob, and Anna, and others. Marilyn has taken up something of a supervisory role among her fellow residents. "What's she doing?" she asks Bob, who is seated across from her today, not his usual spot. "Who?" he says. Of course he can't see anything. "The woman at the table behind you," says Marilyn, "with what looks like a skinny chicken with no fur." I am not sure what Marilyn is looking at. I could not see who she was seeing. Maybe it was Donna with the baby doll. A CNA brings another resident in. Anna tries to get her attention. "Will you come over here?" asks Anna. "You're so biiiig." "You know what I want?" asks Bob, in his general way. "How about a, how about a...." He trails off; never finishes the sentence. He takes a drink from an empty cup. Sister Caroline is at the table with Anna. Sister Caroline's mouth is always moving, testing the shape or the sounds of words she rarely says out loud. Anna warbles on in her fey way, wren-like: bubbly, chipper, persistent. "Hey. She gave up all that stuff. I don't know what," says Bob. At the table with me and my dad are Lillian and Jackie. OGs all around. "And it's not necessarily good," says Lillian, "but it't better than nothing." A CNA comes along to put Bob's clothing protector on him. "Doctor?" he says to the CNA. "Oh no. You're not the doctor. You got your hands on me. Oh yeah. You put your hands on me. Talkin' water." The CNA goes out to get another resident to bring in. Bob is still talking to them, to anyone. "Need some water," says Bob. "Water. Shit." It seems Marilyn found her way out of Dammert this morning. She wheeled herself all the way over to the main entrance. I saw a CNA wheeling her through the main dining room, from the direction of the main entrance. I thought maybe Marilyn had been getting her hair done. Now I'm starting to put it together. Lillian is looking at me. "You want me to read or do you want to read?" she asks. I don't say anything. "We'll let it through, OK," she continues. "Are you in any of the services?" I shake my head. "I'm in the military," she says. "The ones after me, buying them up. I'm Lillian. Whisham. My husband's in the Navy..."
This is just an excerpt. For the full post, click here or click on that photo of Bob in the dining room above...

New Orleans 2026

~ johnbrandall

1.17.2026, 8:06

My eyes are big bags hanging off the side of my face...

A few expenses. $3, accordion player on Royal. $5, skeleton guitar guy. $20, Oyster Man. $219, round of snacks and drinks at Patula. $2, club soda. $30, St. Roch oysters.

List for the next visit to Rouse's. Vodka (handle), mixer, six-pack of amber beer, chips, juice (?), kombucha (?)

I am remembering images and moments from last night. The walk back from St. Roch in the dark. A longer walk. Dane talking to the pool player. The Calico cat. A frenetic, loud, tight Frenchman St.

Missing: Hugo, my dad. There is still a heaviness. I enjoyed standing and smoking outside of Fritzel's. Then hiding in plain sight in the Bourbon Orleans lobby.

Only two or three items left on the must-do list. Muffuletta. Po Boy. Audubon Park. Tanker on the Mississippi.

8:40. Wrapping up breakfast. Get outta here, stop by Rouse's. Coffee water, goodbye. I'm still nursing a cut on the side of my mouth caused by catching the edge of an oyster shell. I keep irritating the cut, opening it back up. I've gotten some balm from B but this is a Vaseline job and we don't have any. Time to pay, via hand-held kiosk, the way things are done these days...


This is just an excerpt. For the full post, click here or click above on the Tree of Life...

The Egg of Time

~ johnbrandall

It still comes down to
the chicken and the egg,
everything does.  How 
did we get here?  How does
something come from nothing?  
And yet, here we are.  We are
here: if someone or something
put us here, where did They or It 
come from?  If no one put us here, then 
what the heck are we made of?  Even if it’s 
all a facade, there still has to be some energy,
some spirit animating all of this, making us
believe.  Where did that energy get its start?
It doesn’t make any sense!  Maybe I’m crazy,
making all of this up from my perch in some
solipsistic bubble, but I am here having these
ridiculous thoughts—why, how, for what!?

Time is the opposite of everyone, every step 
fueled by time, running on time, life and time
burning one another efficiently, leaving no 
trace but the past.  In the future, maybe 
there’s life there, and if there is, it must 
be met with an equal dose of time.  
When that life ends, so does
time. I’d say time goes on, 
time can live without us, 
but what sense does that 
make?  If a clock ticks 
in the future, but no 
one’s there to hear it?  
Time runs out for
all of us eventually, 
and in that event,
even time runs 
out of time.

Brinktown Proper

~ johnbrandall

Curving road.  Rust green of cedar,
red-brown leaves of oak still on their trees.
Pasture fences, their posts sometimes wood
sometimes metal but always run with wire.
Cow ponds frozen over, geese in the sky.
Firewood for sale, side of the road,
forty dollars will fill your empty truck.

Cattle in the fields, a few horses.
Silage wrapped and ready, greenhouse
vacant. Bright blue plastic bag snagged
on long grass in a ditch.  A cardinal, a
brand new brick house under construction. 
Pasture grass grazed down to the nub. 
Donkey, pony, a pile of loose hay,
somewhat eaten.

Chickens.  Mounds of cinder.  The turn to
Brinktown on Route N.  Last time I took it
glib, the water cooler capsized.  Stopped
in the first available driveway, I scrambled
to right it.  Their trash day, black bags 
stuffed and set out for the hauler, which 
was coming my way, two weeks ago today.

Shotgun shack.  No doubt there’s a shotgun
or two inside.  Along these roads stand
newly minted signs touting picks for the
Senate seat going empty; banners for
the guy in The City with the big house
who stood out in front with an assault rifle
aimed at protesters marching on the mayor.

Debris pile, bulldozed trees, gangly roots.
A bonfire I would have sparked by now. 
Atop a sycamore tall on the banks of the
Maries, a bald eagle.  Dog on the road.  Big
beagle, small lab.  Brown coat, orange collar. 
Hay bales arranged neatly in rows.  Uphill,
I lose my speed, a nod to Brinktown proper.

*This is an old(er) poem about driving through a small town in Maries County Missouri on the way to Farm. The predominant route recently was closed along Hwy 42 for months, sending a lot of traffic through Brinktown. The construction on Hwy 42 appears to be complete, returning Brinktown (at least for now) to what it was.

Entering Brinktown, May 2026 -or- Brinktown: A Town on the Brink

San Diego, Before and After

~ johnbrandall

Click on the photo or the post’s title to access the full updated post. What’s below is just an excerpt…

3 The San Diego Arch

I have a craving for; I crave hush puppies. What’s that about? Mitch’s is visible from the balcony. It’s nice out there. I’m on the fifth floor. The view is of the peninsula as it stretches south h before sloping into the sea.

There is some sort of sculpture out there. Mid-peninsula. Halfway down, halfway across. Higher up, along a ridge. It’s an arch…a three-pronged arch. A monument, must be. I’ll look it up.

The Shipboard Antenna Model Range (back left)

The Arch is some sort of antenna used by the Navy to study shipboard antennas? Something like that. Here’s an article about the place (link).

The arch/antenna is nonmetallic. Underneath is a flat disc meant to simulate the ocean’s electric current. On this disc are brass replicas of every ship in the fleet.

It sounds like I’m making this up but I’m not. I’m not that creative or inventive, not in that way. This is why I can’t write what looks like fiction.

Did you simulate the program or did you stimulate it? Is this a nice pace or a nice place? Maybe both…

For the entire post please click on the updated photo above or on the title for this post, “San Diego: Before and After.”

The Originals: Notes from the Shrine, 5.9.2026

~ johnbrandall

Tom wheels his wife Anna in. I'm on the other end of the assisted-eating lunchroom with my dad. Tom has an apartment over in the Independent Living wing of the community. He might eat other meals with Anna but he doesn't eat lunch with her. I've never actually talked to Tom, never said a word to him even though he's been here since the beginning. He has taken a seat next to Anna, who warbles in her fey way. Bubbly, playful, somewhat intelligible. I thought I heard her say, "Shiny."

After a few minutes pass, Tom gets up.

"Enjoy your lunch," he says to his wife, and he leaves. He has a shirt on that looks a lot like one my dad used to wear, and which I have since appropriated. It's a dark blue plaid with yellow and orange accents. I wear it here sometimes and I wonder if Tom sees me wearing it and thinks to himself, "Hey, I've got a shirt like that."

I am deep in this world. To leave it will be like a reincarnation but some part of me will always be here—will be left behind. Am I depressed, or am I just sad and refusing to fake being in any other mindset or state? There is an answer. If I live long enough I will find it out.

I look out into the hall to see Lillian being wheeled along by someone who must be one of her sons. She's shoeless. Her shoes, it appears, were left here as a result of breakfast.

At 12:05 it's just me, my dad, and Anna in here. Oh—speak of the devil, here comes Bob being wheeled in.

"I just about...."

"Just about what?" asks the CNA who has brought him in.

"I just about stepped in a hole!" he says.

The CNA shakes her head and leaves to get someone else to bring to lunch. Bob's voice is rough, gravelly, garbled. Sister Shiny walks in, leaves something in the sink.

I used to write a lot more about this place but it's gotten hard to see the point. Anna OG, Bob OG, Sr Shiny OG. Nurse Cheryl Ragsdale is working today. She is here only part-time. I don't know if she's an OG but she's been a nurse a long time and has the stories to prove it. She worked the VA at Jefferson Barracks way back when, and those vets were known to throw punches around, even at their nurses.

Bob is slurring.

"Huh?" he says. "Talk to me."

He sounds like he's been to the dentist, like his mouth is numb. But he's still talking! Earlier my brother was telling my dad goodbye and my dad didn't say anything, he didn't even look my brother's way.

"Tomorrow, huh?" asks Bob, picking up on a conversation from the hall, thinking that the words are being directed to him.

This is why I'm in the lunch room. Panning for gold, looking for an end to this story. Except it isn't my story to write. Keep back, hold vigil, write it down...


Find the rest of the post here...

Recent Work at Advanced Leisure Magazine

~ johnbrandall

I have recently had some of my writing published by Advanced Leisure, an online arts magazine. Some of my recent work—three poems—were published in their dedicated literary journal, Divagations. Below, I will include links to these pieces.

This is the link to the general Advanced Leisure site (link)

I have a short prose poem called RI that is still currently headlining the site. I wrote that poem while in Rhode Island with Brook and Hugo in 2023. Link here.

Then there are three poems in the most recent issue of Divagations, link here. The poems are called "I've Never Seen So Many Sunflowers," "Two Mountains," and "Three Haibun."

There is also a way to download a PDF of the issue. (link here).

A little further back, they posted my wasp essay, "A Holdover in Wasp Country." (link here)

There is also a page at their site that has everything of mine posted on Advanced Leisure. (link here)

Thanks to Emily and Jamie for posting all of this writing over the last few years.

Clasping at Stems

~ johnbrandall

They were the plants of abandoned fields.  If you stopped to look you’d notice they populated roadsides.  Freight as it swept the country swayed them in numbers where they stood thick along railroad tracks.  These plants were not picky.  Any pasture would do.  They were at home in idle fields, they could make camp along the mouths of woods.  Some were capable of forming impenetrable thickets from the root sprouts of mother plants.  These plants had funny names from older times.  Goatweed, ragweed, hogweed, horse nettle, mare’s tail, snakeroot, burnweed, sow’s thistle, buckbrush, ironweed, Spanish needles, dogbane, henbit, bindweed, nightshade, lambsquarters, fountaingrass, ladysthumb, foxtail, dogfennel, knotweed, morning glory, butterweed, meadow garlic, panic grass, coralberry, farkleberry.  They could be happy in a dry ditch, a farmyard, overgrazed pasture, wasteplaces, rights of way, fencerows, orchards, river banks, glades, bluffs, rocky woods.  If not arrested, patches of these plants would overtake any available area.  They had allelopathic properties, which is a nice way of saying they waged war on other plants, on each other.  They were considered undesirable.  To those desperate enough to taste them, they proved bitter and toxic.  They dropped burs, brandished thorns, refused to release from the ground.  When handled they bristled with dense stellate hairs that irritated one’s eyes.  They were unpalatable even to cattle.  They made their way into our milk, they killed a president’s mother.  They rooted at the node, they toothed at the margin, they had lobes that clasped at the stem.


One Road

~ johnbrandall

Mark of leaving, memory contusion discolored by time.  Experimental car door mutters yesterday’s weather.  The wide thumb of a Saturday afternoon eclipsed by eventide even when sobriquet sojourns unspool from undropped acorns.  Where will I go to tire myself, to sweat myself pounds lighter?  Borne of sunscreen under floppy hat, searching the breeze for mint.  I don’t want to unwire myself but every hair on my body is magnified.  That’s when the phlebotomist leveled with me and said, “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but most of the good writers don’t become famous until they’re dead.”  Among the dust and the dry fields, surrounded again by engines.  That was twenty years ago.  I am in the blue hollows, I am in the cold van.  Makeshift huts and lean-tos, living on the sidewalk.  There is only one road in and one road out, one road.  Moonlight wades into spent grass, and keeping books is wrong.

*This poem was originally published in Michigan by Dunes Review in 2024. They cut the last half of what appears above as the last line.