the Hot Box
I can’t remember who either party was, but there was this
one guy who always commented on another gentleman’s photos of abstract deranged
maniacal artworks captured in their native environment amidst chaotic,
extravagant, conspicuous squalor, and the interrogator always asked him, ‘hey man how are you doing?’ or
something to that effect, ‘are
you okay?’ and every time I read it somehow was struck like a
closed fist backhand, by how inappropriate that continued to be, made me deeply
uncomfortable and him surely much more so, because what’s the possible
answer, I’m not,
he even more assuredly, nor clearly the inquisitor is compassionate or sane,
and certainly such querying could without difficulty be conducted discretely
and non-confrontationally if removed from public exhibition or forum, confined
to the appropriate privacy of their dm’s.
running gag order
Collaborations
trust issues
resetting passwords
logging out other sign-ins
password doesn’t match
please try again
Jerome Berglund
& Christina Chin
service revolver
purple heart
pinhole
leak
Jerome Berglund
& Shane Coppage
urban sidewalk
first orioles compete
for warm trees
eavesdropping on smarter
people at the museum
Christina Chin
& Jerome Berglund
The Old Pond
To align yourself with a golden idol of Conotocarious
rather than the descendants of persons whose teeth he ordered yanked to make
his dentures with?
in my book st. peter’s warts
*
NOTE: A nickname given to George Washington by the Iroquois people in 1753. It
translates to “Town Destroyer” in English. The name can also be translated as
“Town Taker”, “Burner of Towns”, “Devourer of Villages”, or “he destroys the
town”.
William Keith absent-minded
Dreamt we traveled back to revisit our old
neighborhood together, caught up. Even in my wildest fantasies I had not before
been able to imagine conversing with you again unabashed – with straight back
and head held high, finally unsullied by those stains of stagnation,
inferiority, shame and doubt – even platonically, without any expectations,
until this morning. Such rare visits during slumber might be enough,
sustain me. What were the decisive factors precipitating this anomaly,
could I recreate conditions, replicate results?
first day weather
is accommodating –
smoke two cigarettes
Jerome Berglund has
worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler
of heart valves. Many haiku, haiga and haibun he’s written have been
exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle
rockets, Frogpond, Kingfisher, and Presence. His
first full-length collections of poetry were released by Setu, Meat
For Tea, M┼Нtus Aud─Бx press, and a mixed media chapbook
showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Fevers of the
Mind.
Shane Coppage is a
poet and artist. His poetry has been published in Prune Juice, Whiptail, Humana
Obscura, dadakuku, Trash Panda, The Heron’s
Nest, Modern Haiku, Wales Haiku Journal, The
Wee Sparrow Press, and Cold Moon Journal, among others. Coppage
lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his growing family.
Christina Chin is a
painter and haiku poet from Malaysia. She is a four-time recipient of the top
100 in the mDAC Summit Contests, exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center,
California. 1st prize winner of the 34th Annual Cherry Blossom Sakura Festival
2020 Haiku Contest. 1st prize winner in the 8th Setouchi Matsuyama 2019
Photo-haiku Contest. She has been published in numerous journals, multilingual
journals, and anthologies, including Japan’s prestigious monthly Haikukai
Magazine.
