Fogged Clarity » Poetry

A Child’s Sidewalk Topography

Ben — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:46 +0000

John Sandoval (…is the cup equal to the broth or is the broth forever poison to whatever pretends to contain it…) at twilight, the play of children is heard their voices soon to fade then to bed and dream, to scheme and construct the scratched logic of prayer in the dark of fingers by instinct [...]

Heart Trouble

Ben — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:46 +0000

Howie Good 1 Pilots called them Flying Coffins. He scanned the dingy sky. The war had just started. Tourists listened in a daze to a cunning old woman who had outlived all her children. 2 His heart started going like an antiaircraft gun, a spy caught leaving coded messages. Dusk seemed to fall by 2 [...]

Ways of Mourning

Ben — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:46 +0000

Leonard Gontarek My father takes me out of school early. I’m 9. Mother is dead. He lets me drive. Leonard Gontarek is the author of St. Genevieve Watching Over Paris,Van Morrison Can’t Find His Feet, Zen For Beginners, and Déjà Vu Diner.His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Fence, Field, Pool, Volt, Verse, The [...]

Interior With George Harrison Song

Ben — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:46 +0000

Leonard Gontarek Mouthing the wind that falls into the trees and behind the trees. So good to be home. Clouds break up like small planes. The cardinals and bluebirds at home. My feet up on God’s coffee table, setting down my drink without a cocktail napkin. What Gontarek would do. Grandmother in her wedding gown, [...]

Experimental Mission in the Void

Ben — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:46 +0000

KJ Hays The man on the moon used the 9-12 seconds of oxygen nestled in his blood for dancing after the lifeline that kept him tethered to our precious capsule dissolved in the void. With the pulse melody ceasing in the man’s body, we gazed out into the dark atmospheric hush to watch his convulsions [...]

August 2010

Ryan — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:46 +0000

This month we are pleased to feature an interview with the masterful Mr. James Lasdun. Portland quintet Loch Lomond’s album, Night Bats streams all month, we debut a beautiful new piece of fiction from author Dan Forward, poems from Richard Foerster and Mark Vogel, beautiful [...]

Howie Good

Ben — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:46 +0000

The Fogged Clarity Interview The poet reads and discusses his process and aesthetic. Howie Good is the author of a full-length poetry collection, Lovesick, as well as 21 print and digital poetry chapbooks, including most recently, Hello, Darkness, available from Deadly Chaps.

The Debris Field

Ben — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:45 +0000

Scott Hightower The figure standing and raising a sword between Babylon and the return to Jerusalem was St. Michael, protector of Abraham’s people; Justice; Michael, field commander of the army of “the one true God.” * In 1909, New York City commissioned Frederick MacMonnies, one of America’s most prominent sculptors, to design a fountain for [...]

Noble Chart, A Radiance–1794

Ben — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:45 +0000

Scott Hightower (“Monsieur Lavoisier and his Wife,” Jacques-Louis David, 1788; The Metropolitan Museum of Art) It is the morning of May 8th; Madame Lavoisier has just been orphaned. Within a few more minutes she, likewise, will be widowed; the guillotine, oddly taking the name of a man who did not invent it. May 8th, [...]

Identity Redux

Ben — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:28:45 +0000

Scott Hightower (Paved Paradise, John Kelly, 2009) The first television program put into re-runs was “The Lone Ranger.” -a Snapple bottle top A frame. Two keyboards, a bass, a dulcimer, and five guitars set the stage for “Dagmar Onassis.” Kiss. Kiss. What? Has it been sixteen years? What does it matter that the roses upstage [...]

My Mother’s Hands