by R.L. Wisdom Dear(er) Melissa, It has been a while…I suppose some contact is necessary. (Ray opens the freezer door.) I haven't seen Tom in more than a few weeks. (From the freezer, Ray removes a bag.) I would assume the two of you are traveling on the weekends, no? (After closing the freezer door, … Continue reading The Sound That Water Makes
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.
Sky Market
It seemed a sky
free of commercials,
blue and cloudless.
But he could sense,
swimming in all directions,
waves of banded frequency,
like hungry carp
fighting for food pellets
in a tiny pool
at the Botanical Garden.
With his rifle raised,
Full poem here...
Ninety Percent of My Body is Water
I do not expect revelation. I do not expect dawn to make much sense.I look off at a temple and wonder— what religion; and, who is praying at this hour.East, a fire burns, the smoke visible; all that remains of an abandoned warehouse, leaving behind a hole in the old city center.The fire trucks sit cold in their silos, their hoses … Continue reading Ninety Percent of My Body is Water
The Beer Champion
There was a hop-hearted man,lived over the hills, rode a soberhorse, hung on by luck and dustystirrup—lived a life of drinkingevery kind of beer. Took shipsacross time-zones; received in mailfrom eager strangers; lickedfrozen cubes in the Yukon; toastedMayans in undiscovered pyramids;slurped out of naked Germannavels; mixed beer with politics in G8 capitals. Only death did … Continue reading The Beer Champion
Richter’s Folly
Cracks like these like those
in the earth’s crust. Take
time to heal, never heal
completely. Not wise to build
on but people do it anwyay.
Earthquakes the moments of
raw words and return.
Sunday Morning Talk Show
Goddam that’s a lotta noise, ya know?—
hear it cracklin like dry cereal
on a milk-wet morning?
Snap-crackle-and-pop: put the coffee on!
We’re gonna be watchin breakfast for awhile.
Ledge
I’m lying in bed with my legs open.
You perch your hand
inside my thigh.
Nothing sexual about it.
It’s just a good place to put your hand.
Part of Me Has Gone Rotten
Right now I’m trying to find out which part.
Somewhere lies a cankered sore,
as on the foot of a bum,
who’s been walking for days with no respite;
offered no help from my brain, my heart, my knees, or my eyes.
My stomach’s a landfill,
through which he rummages parts of last night’s meal,
worn down to bone by the thick, rich stink of unrequited bile.
Upon his surfeited burp, my white cells collapse inward with paranoia,
my lymph nodes hum ever so slightly.
I’m flesh-sick.
My eyes are last night’s cloud-covered moon;
memory beset by dusty moths hungry for old clothes;
heart bubbling up through my neck like a fountain of molten coins;
knees speak only to the weather, ignoring both nerve and vein.
Part of me has gone rotten.
I’m trying to carve out what’s dead without spilling the rest.
Cherry Trees
With steps across the field you stride,
despite the calf-deep snow.
What lies on the other side?
I ask but you don’t know.
What field, you say, what snow?
To it you bend and place your plow.
Upon bestowment of this kiss,
a cherry-bearing orchard puts to root.
Not a limb does the lucky sun miss,
nor does water overlook a tender foot.
A woodlet free of serpentine hiss
is your breast, and all its fruit.
Morning At End
I need morning as the dune does sand.
Everything smooth as a pond
tucked away thick in a woods
no one hikes through.
Until the neighbors,
high on coffee and grits,
take their cute little dog out to piss.
That tree it lifts its leg on
used to be morning.
Now it’s stinking-wet noon.
JBR.com 