Flower

Beach Sloth, 5 drawings

I was remiss in not posting about this weird and good review of 5 drawings of the maryland sky by the weird and good Beach Sloth. Thanks, B-Sloth!

.

Biographies, at Industry Night

My series of biography stories appears at the Baltimore literary magazine Industry Night. Thanks to editors Anthony, Mychael, Ian, and Ann Marie!

Klein

5 drawings of the maryland sky

New microfiction chapbook from Ink Press.

Photographers

Finally moved some old files off my old computer. This appeared at SmokeLong several years ago.

.

The Novelist Rests

I met Eudora Welty on the corner; she was taking a photograph. "Eudora," I said, "I didn't know." "Why yes," she answered, "I've been interested a goodly while. What a pleasure to catch time, suspend it in emulsion. It's right hard being god of the clock." I left her there with a man in a beautiful white shirt. I walked down the street, the horses nosing their reflections in the trough.

.

The Model

Lee Miller said, "The lens is a fulcrum. As much beauty at the eye, so at the subject." We laughed, she was drunk, her vanity a charm against the bombs that fell on the London night. Two years later though, we would find a bar in the forest near Dachau. "I saw a German guard murdered," she said, "Drowned. I took his picture." We drank our coffee and agreed, even that was circled with a certain terrible light.

.

Aesthete at Breakfast

Stephen Shore took a picture of his pancakes. He took a picture of the busboy and of the swinging yellow door to the kitchen. Then he smoked a cigarette. "I could take a picture of you," I said, "with the smoke in your hair." "No, no," he answered, "too much mystique." He composed his eyes, mouth, nose, ears as quietly as possible. The waitress in her pink smock looked at the both of us and smiled.

--click--

Achievement

They put their heads back, so the sky was cleared. Not shots, voices, the violent stars. Oh give me, the city yelled. We’ll be yours.

Cold

I heard the men with rifles shuffle the alley this morning. They wear white coats and have blue eyes. Let him out, one of them said. He leveled his gun at my chest. Let him out, another one said. His wrists were chapped pink.

The Property Commute

The outdoor churns in traffic and rain, bells. Get over here, she says, the mother in something red. The kids with their eager knees, bungled, imperial more than even the crows.

.

Will the members stand

.

If you were a woman and threw your leaves to the ground, then the trees. Roofs and skies some silver change. Oh lord, she says, something red.

.

Members stand

.

Sirens no emergency but the calling of sleep. Sidewalk take the knees, the silver walking down. Come here, she says.

.

Stand

.

Ars-P

You begin, begin

haha

--

Ekphr

Hey, Rembrandt

--

Meto__my

Bibs making bibs

Of Building A Fire

The snow’s wind puts waves across the lake, these black-torn crimps. Down their throats the snow, lashes wild. You cold? he says, waiting on her. I think we’ll die, she answers. Her mitten hangs from the sleeve, her eyes the color of some much better place. But he does touch her shoulder once, the leaves do gutter in the tree.

--

Winter Predicate

Inward come geese the flatted lake. Out the smoke the shell of reeds.

We thought the crow was wire and snow.

The day-white blood. The heart-stroke air.

--

The Kinder Child

The room grays in light, gray cat, gray music, gray buddha, gray god, the fallen starlight, the fallen man, gray window, gray wind, the risen starlight, rising light, gray sun, gray light.

Some January

7

The apricot sky, she lifts her head, the whole of it pierced in steeples.

1

Too early for wine, she sits on the floor. The room clear-full of ordinary day.

6

As pearl and mussel the dark comes down. She puts near hand to eye.

The James Varieties

Three X

He waited far in the adult wing for news. The cases called out blond and red. The letters there would shimmer, Oh wait for me. His eyes were the holy feast.

The Follow

The shell had burst across the capillaries, a muskrat bloom. The dog in its honey coat nosed the wind for more. She bent, here her knees seeking evening light.

John

They felt they needed to cross the dirty river, the slick of moss and broken concrete. Wrists and eyes ached for the effort—half way in half an hour. Why here? they said, Why now? Why any? The slick of paper and foam, the eager, golden vision.

The Pantheon

Sissy

The sunlight was red and puddled on the soil. She would take her shovel to it once by once, wiping forever the proverbial mud. She looked as well toward an eastern shore, there as some sun did draw. A new poison of ants crossed her hands.

Penelope

As the antelope might, he cast back, the nose and shoulder, the blue eyes of coal. Six months underground and still no spring.

A Coming of Men

They drew the ring upon the snow, clapping in the cold. With stones they made patterns random only to the eye. What do you think? he said. Her white shoulders told it all in return.

Doctor

The dry slap of his subsequent dream, the 14th child.

West

Open publication - Free publishing - More fiction

Gods, Men and Howard Cosell

In the summer of 1962, Howard Cosell found himself lying on his back at the side of the road, the joe-pye weed squaring off in the sun above him as he woke from his stupor. “That’s when I knew I had to make changes,” Cosell says, “those weeds bending over me like God’s many heads. It was my high, purple clarion call.”

Cosell rushed home then—a place he spent precious little time in—kissed his four children on the head as they sat on the floor watching TV, and went straight up to the bathroom. Taped to the underside of the sink was his stash, 6 brown cubes of the sweetest chat Eritrea had to offer.

The rest.

The Instrument

This nice fellow, Roberto, asked to publish my story The Instrument in his magazine, Letras Caseras. Thanks, Roberto.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Open publication - Free publishing - More illyich

Ape set

Cinquain

The Paintings of Forrest Bess

Open publication - Free publishing - More bess

Week 17 of the 17 Tips Project.

"Love is so hard, and it’s all we came to do." --Chris Toll

Jupiter Letters

Present me hope at every morn

Week 16 of the 17 Tips Project.

Drugs

Week 15 of the 17 Tips Project.

paintings (alphabets)

new paintings

A Room of One's Own

Little Boxes

Week 14 of the 17 Tips Project.

The Member of the Wedding

Heart of Darkness

Moby-Dick

Collision / Star / Pipe

Week 13 of the 17 Tips Project.

Instructions for the evening show

Week 12 of the 17 Tips Project.

feathered Glory, the Legitimate beak

Silver stars and spray paint on book page [because metallic of stars wouldn't scan, I made them gold for e-use.]

Booklets V

Angle, 6 pp, letraset on book pages (front cover and spread)

Art, 4 pp, marker on book pages (front cover and spread)

Trip, 8 pp, letraset on vintage typing paper (front cover)

Moby-Dick

Week 11 of the 17 Tips Project.

Open publication - Free publishing - More chapbook

Also a Chapbook Genius.

The Power Vertical

Sorrows

The Player

Week 10 of the 17 Tips Project.

A Full and Empty House

For several years I have wanted to place my stories on the walls of an empty Baltimore row house. These stories would tell the larger story of some now removed family's life, the events they experienced while they lived there. Each room would tell of one event, so that bathrooms would tell the stories of bathrooms and hallways about the passaging of time. I always imagined that the row house would also be occupied by a few objects some family might have left behind, an abandoned dresser, some forgotten papers, a broken coffee pot, a hair brush, a small table.

After thinking about this project for a few years, I am now interested in finding a spot--an empty row house--where I could make it happen, a place in which I could put this temporary installation. Any help in this effort would be greatly appreciated, youngjoseph21@gmail.com.

Pictured here is an example of a story that might be placed in such a row house, which I installed in the spare room in my own house using the wintergreen oil transfer method.

Thanks in advance for your help and support!

About a minute thinking about what I did last night

Week 9 of the 17 Tips Project.

The 44th

Week 8 of the 17 Tips Project.

Practice

Week 7 of the 17 Tips Project.