kingsoftrain

Instead of saying arm, my son bites my leg while daydreaming. My body is a skintight sickness. Saint meaning angel, angel meaning saint. A bruise moves through a fish. Silence a glitch. Absence the tooth fairy of absence. 

Sorry but if your kids are dying, time exists. God sucks at revenge. I can’t dream during a thunderstorm nor sleep with my mouth closed. All art is about the bomb. When I was sick, I wasn’t. My food was going to hell. It is always too soon to be the angel that appears to Franz Wright. A whale can’t imagine swallowing but here in the anecdotal remoteness of my other stomach is the fat baby made of clothes. Create slowly. Don’t go to heaven. You’re just one person.  

toothfall
season
on moons 
of disrepair

Light’s
egglike
silence
Rock
paper
infant
Infant
omen
hair

I listen to my son’s heart 

Peel an orange

Sleep
empty

no hours
on this poster
the museum 
of not 
being found
no anything
but friend
it’s the hours

touch
in a sunless
microwave

where burns
the ghost 
of both

The mirror’s been up all night.

The I think I can't speak for everyone here reading series will have its first event on Sunday April 21st, at 4pm EST and will be held over Zoom. Featured writers are NC Smock and Benjamin Niespodziany.  Lovely writers, both. Please email bluejawedsnake@gmail.com for the Zoom link, and/or to sign up for the open mic that will be held after the featured readings. 

Benjamin Niespodziany is a Chicago-based writer whose work has appeared in the Wigleaf Top 50, Booth, Conduit, Indiana Review, and others. His debut poetry collection was released in 2022 through Okay Donkey and his novella of connected stage plays is out now with X-R-A-Y. You can find more at neonpajamas.com.

NC Smock lives and works in the community sector in Baltimore, Maryland. His creative writing efforts are mostly channeled into grants for community organizations. He is currently working on a written and spoken word project, No Arrival, which is anchored by his sketches and paintings. This project will soon be available in video and audio snippets, as well as a flip book where segments can be rearranged and read in any order. The project will be published under the name Wyeth Mann.

~
Please look out for other events, scheduled so far as such:
Sunday April 28th, 3pm EST, featured: Tom Snarsky and Darren C Demaree
Saturday May 18th, 4pm EST, featured: Nadia Arioli and Jay Besemer
Sunday May 19th, 3pm EST, featured: Pamela Kesling and Bee Morris  
Sunday May 26th, 3pm EST, featured: Dylan Krieger and Alina Stefanescu 
(no events will be held in June)

Long
were we
awayed