Author: johnbrandall

John Randall is a writer living in Missouri. His interests include camping, running, walking, cutting and burning wood, messing around with magnets, foraging, and listening to podcasts, many of them about baseball.

Tijuana Exodus & Old Tricks in San Diego

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

13:04. I'm in my room, 1415, at the Westin San Diego. This is two hours in the room I didn't think I'd have. Because check-in isn't until three o'clock. I'm grateful.

I've looked at myself in the mirror. I look rough! My cheeks are approaching brick red, or burgundy. I stink!

First order of business is a full-on shower. Then some walkin' around, looking perhaps for a notebook store. Then I'm going to that burrito place I went to a year ago. I'm-a get two burritos, one for this afternoon, one for dinner...


Continue with this short travel essay...

Hacienda Camp

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

I gave praise
to steel you confidence.
You gave welcome
to feel me love.
Rooster sang crow
to share us morning.
Eugene broke fast
so we'd build house.
Water washed clean
so we felt ourselves.
Earth sprang mountain
to keepsafe sun.
Wood took flame
so we'd have fire.
Wind gave owl wing
and we had night.

Tijuana Mission Trip 2.0

~ johnbrandall ~ 2 Comments

We're between mountains, like in Colorado, or Utah. Wall! Border wall. To our left, to the north. Contiguous. Iron? A rusty red. Eight feet high? It cuts into the hillside.

Suddenly it's a little greener. Wind in the palms. Some flattening out. By the looks of it, the playa at camp will be windy. Stones, boulders on the hillsides. I've lost sight of the wall as we've tended south.

This is a smooth road. Turning to the south. Large round boulders. Accesso planta dart. Windmill. This is the back way into camp. It has a rural feel but there's actually quite a few plants or factories back in here. The road has gotten very rocky. A metal structure manufacturer. Galvanization. A burned area. Car carcasse. Lots of old tires. A guy in a chair under the shade of a tree just looking out at the road. Railroad.

We take a right onto a much smoother, paved road. There are lots of cars stopped on the side of this road. There are canopies set up. Lots of them. Is it a market? We're close to camp. Turning right, I know this road. There's the old, snub-nosed flatbed lorry. The silo-like red cylinder lying on its side. Dust! At 14:42 we are at the Amor Hacienda Camp...


Continue with this Tijuana 2019 travelogue...

Sunlight In the Studio With Wide Eyes

~ johnbrandall

Every new phone is going to be the best. Sleek, dark, touchless, smart. I look at my phone now, an older model, practically obsolete. My fingerprints are dirty smudges on its protective film.

It took me fifteen minutes to write that paragraph. In those fifteen minutes, I could instead have saved fifteen minutes on car insurance. I didn't. I made a mistake, I missed the boat.

I bought a blood pressure cuff recently, at the recommendation of my doctor. My first home-read was just a moment ago. It wasn't as high as the ones in the office, but it was still too high. Ice cores, volcanic ash, a barleywine that's been recast as an Imperial Red IPA. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!

Earlier today I saw something I would describe as not quite a miracle but something approaching a miracle—a stupendous oddity. I saw a gal struggle against the side of her car in the parking lot at the grocery store. I don't think she was drunk. She just got hit with some strange sort of gravity. All of a sudden. It was a kind of gravity we haven't explained because we can't even detect it. I'm not sure anyone else knows it's even here....

Continue with this short story...

Sink, Swim, or Fly

~ johnbrandall

1.

There is a lone goose on a vanishing dock.  The lakewater is up. The floating dock’s platform is gone from sight but a railing moored to the dock is still above the surface, barely.  Like the railing, the goose appears to be standing on water. As the dock dips further the goose has three options: sink, swim, or fly.

2.

Rattle across the water, washboard blues and white streak through the air.  Look out minnows! It’s the kingfisher, flying from weeping willow to vanishing dock. It finds purchase on the railing, stuck there like a feathered magnet.

3.

Saturday morning, more rain overnight, the dock is further submerged but inches below the surface the platform still remains.  The heron knew it was there, trust in its water landing. In the fog, the heron keeps watch o’er the lake.  


To continue with this short prose poem...

For The One Who Wouldn’t Come Out of His Shell

~ johnbrandall

She noticed a stack of books by the door.  One she picked up, showed the cover to him.

“Were you getting rid of this?”

“I was planning on getting rid of most of them.  You can have it if you want it.”

“Maybe, I’ve never read him.  Would you say he’s good with relationships?”

“Oh, yeah.  He does a ton with relationships.  He’s the relationship master.”

“Interesting.  I think of Beattie as the relationship master.  Recycled love, mother stuff. But she could also leave me feeling worse about relationships.”

“What do you mean?”

“She can make you paranoid because a lot of relationships don’t make it through her stories.  Her characters have a tendency to leave their spouses.”

“Oh.”

“What about him, though?   Better or worse after reading?”

“Not better.  He’s not therapeutic in that way.  I’d say I feel weirder after reading him.  Fanciful, if that’s possible?”

“Probably not.  But it’s better than feeling worse.  Say, while we’re on this subject—have you been doing any disco art?”

“I’ll show you what I’ve got.”

Creepy jazz music defected from the attic.  An old gramophone was playing new tunes. He was scrobbling to last.fm.  They went up there.

“What are all these pieces?” she asked...  


Continue with this short story...

The Opposite of a Black Hole is a Big Bang

~ johnbrandall

The beginning of the end of
The last history. This side
Of a black hole, a big bang, the
Epicenter, the mother lode, the lode star.
A star that leads, especially the
Polestar, the North Star of the Universe,
What is always in the center, 'lode' meaning
'The way,' the journey, the journey star.
From here to there, back from
Where we used to exist, via intergalactic canal,
Rowing upstream, rowing home,
Going back in time, into the place we
Go when we dream, time there
Suspended, fact there garbled and twisted.
It is all very real but also
Very far away, as if
It never even happened.

The Splits

~ johnbrandall

Mine was a young silence
Hers was an old knock on the door

We had a neon floor
The roof was made of islands

An old stink bug lay on the mantle
Innocuous as risotto,
A thank you note
Time-stamped in the mail

With three green birds
She welcomed me back
To where we were going

Next song, seven flowers
Best seat, eight whales

Why did I even care
About the risotto,
The order of things,
Whether the rice was al dente?

I'd love to get that angst back
I'd love to begin again in an empty dish

As if I could blow into my hand
To remove the nothing
That was already there

Moby Dick Prequel, Take One

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

"Ahab, why don't you answer the seventh question on the sheet?"

"Mum?"

"You have the sheet in front of you, Ahab.  All of the students got one."

"Yes, mum."

"The seventh question.  Read it aloud please."

He picked up the sheet, pressed his feet together below the desk and cleared his throat.

"What is the purpose of white blood cells within the human body?"

They were waiting.  He looked out the window.  It was a hard, cold winter's day.  Wind blew snow into drifts.

"Snow is white," he said.

"Ahab," insisted his teacher.  "Let's focus on today's lesson.  Did you do your assigned reading last night?"

"No'm, I," he started.  "My father's ship did not come in last night.  He was going to tell me about what he found in the sea."

"Ahab, I'm sorry, but—"

"Clouds are white," he said, still looking out.  The sea, normally visible from their small schoolhouse near the coast, today was not. He continued, "Clouds are supposed to be white..."


Continue with Li'l Ahab

The Quiet Politics of Love

~ johnbrandall

Moments preceding the Randall-Paz wedding, 6.1.2019

I.

Shoehorn, suspenders, aftershave
Wedding in a warehouse
Down Ashland in hermano's Honda
Bumping past taquerías,
Body shops and hair salons
None of which
Dad fails to point out.

II.

The candles yet unlit
While the hail outside
Sounds like the clink
Of clean glasses
At the levee bar. Early
To a wedding, it's
Never been done before.

III.

A pair of headphones
In the street
In the rain

But in the bridal suite
DJ Flowerz is blooming
Like green ivy
Finding
Foothold on the height
Of an unknown building.

IV.

Both
Of our parents
Walk her down the aisle.
They do,
Making it official.

V.

She's walking away.
He's dancing after her. No,
Wait—she's still dancing. Soft,
Sly steps. That's
Her move.

VI.

The macarena: fadded
Hated
Brought back
Tonight
Hey, it's underrated
Hey, macarena

VII.

Take a cab, take a Lyft, take the bus.
You've taken the world
And arranged the perfect salsa.

The late-nite
Snack table
Is now open. Congratulations.
Thank you for everything.

I'm-a let
The slickness
Of the dance floor
Show me which way
Home.