(with thanks to Berenice Abbott, photographer)
I look back over the thousand and thousand negatives,
assembling from them one monster montage, myriad-
faceted, combining squalor, elegance, such curiosities,
monuments, faces serene, sad, never ordinary, pug-
ugly too often even in triumph: here is power to capture.
Why? some ask, and, considering, I can be no clearer:
for that instant I stopped time – a star in her heyday,
never to age on the negative any more than her beau,
and that bustling market with the fishmonger long dead.
Reliquery of strength, irony, vivacity, decay – a city live.
C.J. Heyworth, Sunday 4th. October 2009
From Snap to Clink
The distance from snap to clink is not very far
You could walk there from here
Snap woke me up about 11 o’clock
To wrench my cell phone away and chuck it to the weeds
Clink showed up later to tell me how it is . . .
Thank the gods my kids are still sleeping
Snap told her story while I sat on my hands
And the bruises from the kicks still pained me
Clink walked me out to his used paddy wagon
Then cuffed me in front of my neighbor’s house
Snap went to sleep on the California King
With a leather, sleigh-bed frame
Clink drove me down on a two-minute ride
To my one room windowless apartment
The distance from snap to clink is not very far
You could walk there from here
John D Wilkinson II from Breakfast Ketchup with Hot Sauce Too
A Little Red Wine
A little red wine can sure make a difference
In just how you look at the world.
It puts on a veil of rose colored glasses
So sweet, as your head starts to swirl.
It won’t change your life
Or heal all your troubles,
But the feeling can be so divine.
So, open the bottle, sit down beside me,
And let’s share a little red wine.
The weight of the world is there on your shoulders,
As sure as the night turns to day.
You could use someone to share all your demons,
And help you to chase them away.
I’ll see you through without even asking,
You don’t need to give me a sign.
We’ll face it together, if it takes all night
With the help of a little red wine.
Traces of life, traces of anger,
Images lost and forgot.
Dreams that came true and dreams that were shattered,
Lessons unlearned and untaught.
Loved ones we’ve known, or wished we knew better,
Friends that were left far behind.
We’ll share it all and make it seem better
With the help of a little red wine.
Dennis S Martin
Website: www.iwritesome.com
Blog: www.iwritesome.blogspot.com
Storefront: www.lulu.com/dsmartin
Other Life Out There
I’m trying to settle down to sleep;
Some motel on some road.
Other rooms are stacked - high, wide, and deep.
I know I’m not alone.
Doors to here. Doors to there.
Doors to rooms are everywhere.
I hear a voice; and then a laugh.
Oops, there’s a sneeze; then it’s a cough.
Suppose this place is the universe,
And my room is our earth.
Then suppose we start to hear some sounds,
From other far-off worlds.
Beeps from here; blips from there.
Other brains are everywhere.
Catch a signal; check an image.
Send a broadcast; text a message.
I should be drifting off, but now I’m wide awake.
Thinking of those others in places out in space.
Someone starts a shower; down a hall, up a stair.
And now I fall asleep; I know there’s life out there!
Jan Bossing©2010, Joelton, TN
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