[beat-sutra]

[kwjackson]

Bad Idols at the Front Row in Roanoke, VA

[beat-sutra]

Collapsible shoulder

[kwjackson]

Clink of fork and glass is heavy lift it high and hold it steady say some words, my voice is thready water wet, just eat already.

[kwjackson]

Rainy Spring Sketch

Just right & just wrong and all the words are just here and just gone. --- Tomorrow I'll fill this in

[kwjackson]

Spring Sketch

Your fan swirled warm air through your room, and for one silent moment in eternity, I was with you, and I was also silent, and happy.

[beat-sutra]

[kwjackson]

Jack is the Beanstalk

I sit in the dirt, and you in your throne. I grow to your window, and see you aren’t home.

I grow past his ceiling, and call out your name. I scream and I shout, and you do the same.

I grow and I grow, and I grow to the sky, a castle is here, an ogre nearby.

You look up at me, and you let out a groan, “Jack you’re a beanstalk, and you're all alone!”

[kwjackson]

Nobunny at the Front Row in Roanoke, Virginia

[kwjackson]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkY0iVfVJbA)

[kwjackson]

Bombardier at Speakertree in Lynchburg, Virginia on January 27, 2017.

Photographs by Jackson Kim.

This was an amazing show at an amazing venue. These guys are doing really cool things in a really cool style that’s worth a listen.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BombardierVa/

Bandcamp: https://bombardier.bandcamp.com

[kwjackson]

I am tired of writing about my body parts and my emotions. My poetry is not sad, I am. I want to write about eternity, as it was when I remembered it. Eat the universe from the dirt, hell yeah, that’ll be the day.

[kwjackson]

Moloch must have been a better sight these closed windows and empty walls demand nothing but silence, a light flickers the blinds move I want to watch.

A voyeur to the emptiness, my head and heart rush and the room echoes with sound, Yet, I do not know if I am welcome here any more than anything else, it does not matter.

I sink myself into the mirror and poke and prod and analyze I wonder if anyone can see, or if they would watch I lift my head from my body and leave it to be.

It yells back to me, “where are you going!” I laugh, from my stomach and leave.

Headless, I shout at the walls and to the windows. They do not respond. The window raises and a lone eyeball pokes through and politely and firmly asks me to stop.

What a sight this must be, I think to myself, and throw myself from the window.

[kwjackson]

Restaurant Sketch

Elderly women meet at an old country restaurant, family owned and operated since 1925, weekly gatherings, hobbling in on walkers and canes lugging life behind on wheels clinking creaking bones, wheezing wisdom reeking of death’s putrid perfume. Mortality hangs down their faces, sickened skin sliding from skull. Their beautiful faces forgotten like names. Trembling hands clink forks and knives against plates. I am jealous.

[kwjackson]

God or Love, It is the Same

Like sound your music echoes through my ears playing out scenes where people are nice to one another. Flowers are laid on graves and coffins lower as the sun dries their eyes.

Like water you wear down rocks and shape mountains turning stone to sand and filling streams, and rivers, and oceans giving refuge and life, crashing. Like water reborn your tides shift with the moon.

Like space you collide into mine. Boundless bounding stars condensed to galaxies. Gravitational pull moving purpose, giving weight falling force.

Children ride their bikes in the street and old women rock in chairs on porches.

Your love is bigger than me.

[kwjackson]

My Father’s Ears

You were there when I was born. Younger, your hair was like mine now, and your ears like mine always, sticking out a little too far.

I wonder what you said, if you said anything, if you looked at your wife and smiled. 

I think of your office and you, late nights over a dimly lit desk where you slept most nights instead of in your bed.

I do not pity you, but I understand.

You gave me a lot, the tremors in my hands, red ears when I drink, and a roof over my head.

When I was a child I used to hide from you, I do not know why. I pressed myself down underneath the bed and held my breath as I watched you search. 

I am sorry and I am grateful. Yet I touch my ears some days, they are not my father’s ears.

[kwjackson]

Still Life (Poem)

“It’s like memento mori, do you know what that means?” I stare at the painting for a moment “I don’t remember” I respond. The lemon peel sits mostly unwound, dangling off the edge of the table, the utensils and cups wandering from their natural place.

She takes a deep breath, “sure you do” I imagine her leaving the room, I take a deep breath, and she is there.

I imagine myself a part of the painting, not to restore order, but to be a fruit left unwound, and she will say that I am like memento mori.