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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Glass Zodiac, 1996
There’s a reason the astronomy prof said we don’t as we don’t remember our birth remember the first eye we look into or else it remembers us all Remember he went on Galileo’s tragedies they will be on your final disbelief failure punishment disgrace naming names almost turning the self in but what do we… More
Outing
She stared at the sky in the seat beside him as they lapped the miles on cruise, then woke from her fugue at a stop sign in Bliss to see just where they were and how much gas was left, to turn from the blue and give him a kiss. Back from their drive, he… More
Psychic Reading
he still paints that rockabilly archtop baby blue Megan Denese Mealor has been featured in numerous journals, most recently The Opiate, Maudlin House, and The Metaworker. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and serves as a reader for E&GJ Press. Her debut poetry collection, Bipolar Lexicon, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press. She lives in… More
This Disquiet
A premier of the title track off Detroit bassist Betsy Soukup’s forthcoming album, This Disquiet. Betsy Soukup is a bassist active in the Detroit jazz community. She sometimes plays with drummer Cory Tripathy and bassist Ben Willis as The Betsy Soukup Trio. More