LIFE ON/IN THE PHONE Con/Jur/d, 12/30/2024 The meditation app, bells ring, pre-recorded it’s unusually warm three apparitions dressed in white, come down the street laugh, giggle, make mouth noises without glasses assume the bright light one carries is from a phone no one carries flashlights anymore why (night has sunk) do they need it? The sun remains behind grey drizzle we have just gotten back here, thoughts filigrees, like vines, the external we are unsure who would need even in this dim illumination their phone to interpret footing sound young, nighttime driving still approximates daytime, yet, we've all forgotten, breath, sex, walking, dancing our DRAMA happens off-screen, now they have passed, we are left (WHERE HAVE THEY GONE?) with the chiding of crows caws flesh out the mist rich and resonant, replete with freshly defrosted loam, later in the morning will miss the feel of a newspaper, over coffee cutting commentary on the local scene, the ability to ignore ads unless you needed something turning to the BACK PAGES museum wall of classifieds a visual scan of obituaries a cogent, but dumb, user interface clear demonstration, no matter your opinion or your ability to post collection of facts we’ll all still get there in the end. (PLUS COMICS!)
A poem for submission to the New Yorker Con/Jur/d, 12/30/2024 A Roshi of our acquaintance derides the poetry editor of the New Yorker a teisho on over complication, obscurity in word and deed We're to blame having sought out Zen believing there was a back way out of death this is the kind of thought (FULL) obtuseness he points out, preferring directness as we're reminded, when cutting through this cemetery on the way to get coffee: Man with barking dog shows us This is all there is Leashed, they walk past the tombstones
Lamp Chops Con/Jur/d, 12/30/2024 A simple editing error, suggesting not circular disks of light countless Suns on a plane or the meaty delusions of shepherds, starved for acknowledgment a better answer than bleats to the question, Is this all there is? rather, shadows as autobiography between the erasure of bright the solid thickness of DARK, DARK night.
MUCH LOVE,
Con/Jur/D, 12/30/2024