Archives

Nobody’s Bored

Because, shit, it’s too dry to snow but it’s cold and the crocus is cold under the wind, wind the cat contemplates through the screen, geese out on the river now terrorized by swans . . . But nobody’s bored with this; it’s elegant just being alive in an age of advertising, not seeing any… More

Rite II

The Committal Another small death. My stepfather slips on his boots and jacket, retrieves a shovel from the shed. Christmas morning and the sun honeys over the field, glazing each frosted blade white-gold. Does this look alright, he says, gesturing at the grass, and I say it does, so he pushes the lip of the… More

Stop!

Life has never once taken a cigarette break. My father used to smoke when he drank. He drank when he wasn’t sure. His father did this, and his too. Heredity sounds like a supervillain. I imagine it rides around in a fast car, with big guns, spreading vice. When I tell this to my therapist… More

Hieratic Madonna

I had one of those sinking spells—she was no more than an infant, blue eyes . . . I thought I could smell some reel-to-reel tape So I bought a pill halver . . . Most of the furniture sat fading in the sunshine— The child moved her tiny hand . . . My blood… More

David Ramirez

The Austin songwriter discusses finding freedom in between playing his songs “Twins” and “Stone Age”. More

Adaptations

Josie Morway’s hyper-realistic flora and fauna explode from the canvas in these paintings infused with geometric linework, thoughtful paint drips, and enigmatic Latin text. More

Sam Rosenfeld

The Colgate University Political Science professor and author of The Polarizers: “Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era” discusses the 2018 midterm elections, Bernie Sanders, and the media’s inability to save us in an exclusive discussion. TRANSCRIPTION Ben Evans: I’m Ben Evans and you’re listening to Fogged Clarity. This morning I’m pleased to be joined by… More

Alone in the Big City

ARTIST STATEMENT These photographs are connected by the pervasive yet concealed juxtaposition that one may feel while lonely in a crowd, no better exemplified than by day-to-day interactions experienced on the street. The use of double-exposure allows me to create intimate relationships between strangers who will never meet despite operating in the same social domain,… More

Michael McGriff

The poet discusses Denis Johnson, Larry Levis, Coos Bay, and the obsessions behind his latest collection of poems, Early Hour. TRANSCRIPTION Ben Evans: I’m Ben Evans and you’re listening to Fogged Clarity. This morning I’m pleased to be speaking to one of my favorite poets working today, Michael McGriff is the author of four books… More

Filling the Dresser

When Alison arrived, her mom was sitting on the curb in handcuffs. Alison sat down on the curb next to her. She kept her elbows on her knees, her wrists dangling freely – she didn’t want people thinking she’d been arrested too. Sitting on a curb in the flashing blue and red lights made her… More

Wick Effect

In music but there is no music on acreage but no land remains in history but no past will do in the landscape but the orchards are dead the deeds handed over only the rotted sidewall of memory which can bear no weight where we salted the hay where the barn became char to its… More

Cash4droid

Nothing has changed. Somewhere to the right of the living they still mistake independence for a virtue, a defensive indifference, an Eden of last resort, and now that the War of 8:15 has broken out in the terminal we can see dreamcatcher earrings for what they are: dangerous excess. All the while, vehicles sleeker than… More

In a Waiting Room

1. Here I am—the annual physical, these days euphemized as a “well-check,” a ruse of language I like in some happy way, much better than “get on board” for “obey.” Still, in settings like this one, I confess I sometimes find myself thinking of Larkin, almost wanting to make conversation with the Larkin-id I try… More

Wound Care

Not even the Mexican saints can see how you unbutton your shirt tonight to show me the ghost of a zipper the sawbones left, taking back their staples. All your summer the taking out, sherd by sherd, a kind of dig, the slug he left you with, the rent-a-cop gunning for his baby mama, who… More

How the Landlord Taught Me

He faced my mother at the front door with the heat turned off. She wanted heat, like wanting water. The metals in the cellar didn’t clatter. We lived those years in borrowed rooms: his. The grates whispered when the warmth blew. I sided against my own because my body was wrought by her— heatless, stranger… More

5 poems from “Born”

We begin with this Rorschach of blood on thigh: first, a gravedigger shoveling earth into our bed, then the rotting barn we once undressed in. Beneath this wet duress, we beg in unison to be born.   *** What’s the word for the soft white belly after the harpoon, but before the hooks? Last month,… More

Teacher of Grass

Those who sleep, doubt, fall on their faces from lying positions while the dross of street lamps and chatter of night-shift life run on the darkness. Sleep is the ordination of senses. Let the lonely bureau preach it, confident in its bowl of change. Let the options of interpretation remain throughout the morning until in… More

Women

These recent oil paintings by German artist Aplay Efe linger in the interstices between candor and mystique. Alpay Efe is a painter living and working in Germany. Further work can be found here. More

Toward the Soul’s Abstraction

These recent portraits by Cape Town artist Ryan Hewett are intended as abstracted representations of figures who have, for better or worse, shaped the world in which we live. Ryan Hewett is an artist based in Cape Town. Further work can be found at RyanHewett.com More