You, my friend
are a concept map
yet, I can’t quite
connect the dots
disparate thoughts
the bubbles
struggle
as do you, drowning
and no one
noticed
because you didn’t flail.
Each aspect of you
your being (and then not)
its own unique
microcosm
universes expanding
as spokes like sunbeams
radiate.
Boy-howdy, this guy is something else.
We Say…
Hailing from Pennsylvania-via-Baltimore, Anthony St. James is a songwriter who has been performing since back in 2008, touring across North America and Europe despite not even having an album to his name. That all changed in October last year when Anthony teamed up with Crotalus Records (US) and Aldora-Britain Records (UK), to release his debut collection, Songs of Anthony St. James.
Anthony’s music falls into the classic story-telling tradition of folk music, nodding to the likes of Justin Townes Earl or Sturgill Simpson, with his ability to take minimal instrumentation and sketch it into vivid images of lives being lived on the edges of the mainstream. Discussing his inspiration, Anthony describes his music as a celebration of, “the lonely, desperate, and the down-but-not-quite-out”. Recorded in his makeshift basement studio with what he describes as the essentials; guitars, bourbon, and a declined invitation to his twenty-year high-school reunion…
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like swords to plowshares,
we no longer use these words
to cut.
our wits, sharpened
to peel back
layers
of self-harm.
onions making me tear up
without knowing why.
Amid these sandy seaside columns
I remove my hand
and with a look back
throw my lot in
as the land
furrows behind me
the saltiness
peppering my past
losing its flavor
working this potter’s field.
I could not tell you the amount of time
the sun
shone on that spot
each day, hidden away
this hidey-hole
the thoughts and fears
of squirrelly ten-year-olds
whose only misgivings
are for the rain
washing
away
that which we did not expect
as we speak of such sins
never knowing
the words to utter
but let the rain
just fall
McGuffin’s got nothin’
but to propel
this darn
campfire yarn
done spun
from
a deserted
ice cream party
at the Just A-OK Corral.
Thumb and finger
circling back around.
Your release
to the great halfpipe
in the sky
consequently coincides
with the remastered
Tony Hawk Pro Skater.
Games we used to
play
at being adults
someday, having to grow up
yet
let
it languish
for twenty-some
odd years.
360°
circles back around.
Hanging back, you
duck out early
as was your habit.
No need to be the center of attention:
that was Bob’s job.
Puff, puff, pass.
It’ll circle back around.
Longing
to pick it back up again
where we left off
nostalgia
welcoming
with open arms
carrying me
drunkenly
to sober up
in the pokey.
The missing windows
of last night’s
bar fight,
whites
in my beard
stragglers no more
reflected in
the boarded up plate glass
you escaped from.
Rowdy crowd
circling around back.
Awake
and baked,
the hardpan
blazing already
at this time of day.
Feet of clay
I didn’t think
I’d have been caught
in this time-sink
drink tank
quicksand
of a calamity
I’d never prepared for,
dusting off these
trailing
wailings
dry gulch parched
and perched
a vulture
waiting
for my demise
circling back around.
Circling the Wagons first appeared in Daily Drunk Mag’s “Nostalgic AF: A Video Game Anthology”
edited by Nick Olson
You can read the rest of the poems here
Or you can support the poets by buying it here
Some food for thought. Twitter (and all other social media) has made this very difficult.
stacks of notebooks
like cordwood
fending
off the cold
paltry fire
barely big enough
to keep my fingers warm
so i can write
and count the pages
as they flutter
into the fire.
The admin of the poetry newsletter
posts his name
and address
in the email signature
dry
droll
“Daring”
Dave Bonta
Podunk, Penna.
An invitation
beating down his cabin door
but much gentler
these poets
oh, they know it
they just don’t yet know
how to learn
at the foot
of this towering
mountain
hermit.
Pilgrimage
for his presence
and the wit
unsure
what to make of it.
the muse and I
are having yet another
state of the union
addressing
affairs of the heart.
she has spread out before me
love letters
my chest so full of pride
the intoxicating scents
waft, slipped into
envelopes
moistened with her tongue.
no longer do we speak the same language
which threatens
an already uneasy alliance
backroom negotiations
the players
have changed
but this cold war
has never ended
temperature
kept well below freezing
pen, hovering above the page.
the oracular beard 