Southern Gothic

I miss the South. Such a bone-deep ache.

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Photographer unknown
Song by Jason Isbell

All Seeing Jack

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Poem in the Early Morning

The Sudden Light and the Trees

My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog

and wife beater.

In bad dreams I killed him

and once, in the consequential light of day,

I called the Humane Society

about Blue, his dog.

They took her away

and I readied myself, a baseball bat

inside my door.

That night I hear his wife scream

and I couldn't help it, that pathetic

relief; her again, not me.

It would be years before I'd understand

why victims cling and forgive.

I plugged in

the Sleep-Sound and it crashed

like the ocean all the way to sleep.

One afternoon I found him

on the stoop,

a pistol in his hand, waiting,

he said, for me.

A sparrow had gotten in

to our common basement.

Could he have permission

to shoot it? The bullets, he explained,

might go through the floor.

I said I'd catch it, wait, give me

a few minutes and, clear-eyed, brilliantly

afraid, I trapped it

with a pillow.

I remember how it felt

when I got my hand, and how it burst

that hand open

when I took it outside, a strength

that must have come out of hopelessness

and the sudden light

and the trees.

And I remember

the way he slapped the gun against

his open palm,

kept slapping it, and wouldn't speak. 



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Poem by Stephen Dunn
Photographer Pero Crepulja

Horror Notes

Click the picture for a beautiful ambient / horror-esque soundscape. Lots of hints of old school horror film notes combined with drone / dark ambient. Might serve well as a backdrop to a haunt. I recommend listening to it with headphones to hear its cavernous quality and subtle goings-ons.

Photographer unknown.

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Come Lay Your Weary Head, Love

Photographer Unknown
Song by Neel (click picture)

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Lynchian Knowledge

Photographer Unknown
Remix by Jon Hopkins (click picture)

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I Believe It's Magic

I saw Ghostbusters in the theater three times when it came out. And, of course, I had the cassette of the soundtrack. Mick Smiley's I Believe It's Magic was my favorite song. This subtle remix and video are so much fun.

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Jack and the Witch

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A Wee More Halloween

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Grin

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Corners

Corners

I've sought out corner bars, lived in corner houses;
like everyone else I've reserved
corner tables, thinking they'd be sufficient.
I've met at corners
perceived as crossroads, loved to find love
leaning against a lamp post
but have known the abruptness of corners too,
the pivot, the silence.
I've sat in corners at parties hoping for someone
who knew the virtue
of both distance and close quarters, someone with a
corner person's taste
for intimacy, hard won, rising out of shyness 
and desire.
I've turned corners there was no going back to,
corners
in the middle of a room that lead
to Spain or solitude.
And always the thin line between corner
and cornered,
the good corners of bodies and those severe bodies
that permit no repose,
the places we retreat to, the places we can't bear
to be found.

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Photographer unknown
Poem by Stephen Dunn

Skull and Flowers

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We Should Stay Home

Two hour mix of ambient music. Perfect for this rainy, chilly morning. (Click picture)
 

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Jacks-A-Plenty

Photo taken 10/31/14

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Solitude

Wherever this is, I need to be there.

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Autumn Waning

Photos taken 11/15

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Morning Music

Song by Rachel's (click picture)
Photo by Pumpkinrot

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Latest Poem

Drought

For the last year
I've eaten nothing
but cinders for breakfast.
Burnt words piled on plates,
not a lick of rain
to sooth my cracked tongue.

Outside,
creatures go on bleating 
and bleating
while the sun above
never ceases its staring.
It can't stop seeing
what it's seen.

My hands, a tattoo of ash,
fold and rise
as if to beg,
but my brittle heart 
has hardened
and I cut
the nearest throat,
desperate
for the quenching,
not caring 
that it's blood,
not caring
whose it is.

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Poem written 11/2014
Photographer unknown

October Kitty

He helped us get ready for Halloween. I also have photos of him helping Rot carve jack o'lanterns.

But I won't be posting them here. ;)

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Noir Jack

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Beautiful Ugly Beautiful

Die Antwoord - from South Africa. Been  a fan of these guys for quite some time. This latest video is absolutely stunning, and most definitely not work safe. I get this song stuck in my head alot. And you gotta respect the sampling of I Believe It's Magic by Mike Smiley.

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Poem

Untitled

She didn't last the night.
The blanket that held her
was standard hospital issue,
white, worn and frayed.
The orderly
took it down to the basement
where tomorrow it will be washed,
folded and stacked with the others—
these quiet ferrymen,
who circle in on themselves,
hold and wait with
infinitesimal patience
under the hum of lights
that never go dark,
never stop illuminating
what no one
wants to see.

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Poem written 2014

Backyard Jack

We're hoping this tough big guy dries out just right so we can keep him...

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Slept In

Lazy Morning.

Song by Clint Mansell (click picture)

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Somewhere In The Woods

From the series With the Lights On by photographer Neil DaCosta

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They Never Stop Watching

Cover for H.P. Lovecraft's The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, 1973
Artist Ian Miller


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Towering Jack

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Lost

The Letter

And in the end, all that is really left

Is a feeling—strong and unavoidable—

That somehow we deserved something better.   

That somewhere along the line things

Got fouled up. And that letter from whoever’s   

In charge, which certainly would have set   

Everything straight between us and the world,

Never reached us. Got lost somewhere.   

Possibly mislaid in some provincial station.   

Or sent by mistake to an old address   

Whose new tenant put it on her dresser   

With the curlers and the hairspray forgetting   

To give it to the landlord to forward.   

And we still wait like children who have sent   

Two weeks’ allowance far away   

To answer an enticing advertisement   

From a crumbling, yellow magazine,

Watching through years as long as a childhood summer,   

Checking the postbox with impatient faith   

Even on days when mail is never brought. 

 

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Poem by Dana Gioia

Photo taken 11/8/14

Be Happy

Song by Die Antwoord (click picture)
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Neon Underbelly

Photographer unknown
Song by Jon of the Shred (click picture)

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Old Poem

Catastrophe

The words they'll use to describe
what happened.

Believing to have articulated
what a tragedy that befell,
what horror was visited upon.

See how it deafened the morning?
Grass stopped growing,
weeping children
fell silent.

The words they'll use to describe
what happened
will leave us

with our hands 
cupped and waiting,
cupped and waiting,
in the 3 a.m. dark.

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Photographer unknown
Poem written 2011

Remnants

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The Unholy Trinity

One of my most favorite shots I took this year.

Creatures by Pumpkinrot, of course.

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