The Nymphet Sequence

A trilogy of sonnets/double sonnets in the Miscellaneous section of Something Solid, meant to convey a sense of mystery around beauty, the body, and innocence. 

The & Now Awards: The Best Innovative Writing ('09), library-available on IA

 

 On IA, in its entirety and available to be borrowed, The & Now Awards Anth.

from Something Solid: Miscellaneous Sonnets: Nymphet

 

How far can she take it, her body, her looks,
how steep will the dare be? I watch the nymphet,
idling behind her mother in the supermarket
line, and wonder, do an appraisal, just as she
must be doing a self-appraisal of her own. My
mind moves out, runs into the brain of Yeats,
hovering somewhere in distant space. The sage
answer he gives is simple: it depends, in any
context or situation to befall her, whether she
means it or not; whether she is in earnest. What
beauty buys is nothing if not hitched to a set heart
and brain. She looks to me, here, as though
she means it, alright; tying her shirt in a knot to
reveal her midriff, caressing herself restlessly
 
with her hands. What’s at stake is not merely
her body & face but her life; what it means, where
it may go. I have to look away, but when I look
back she’s gone. She’s left an imprint on my
imagination about youth, possibility, eternity
(even), worlds while they are in the process of
opening up, which the soul can see “forever” in.
May outside, first heat, & the revelation of what
ricochets, here, into the ethereal. She is, I’m sure,
in the car by now, weighed down by groceries,
mind already past her solitary passion. My own
solitary passion, as I walk down Butler Pike, is
merely to register having seen something someone
else saw (Yeats), the heaven and the hell of it, & in earnest, myself.  
 

Monday Journal #1

 

Thanks again to Vlad Pogorelov and the rest of the Monday Journal crew, for all the hard work they've put into Monday Journal #2. In the interest of literary completism, here is Monday Journal #1 (2019) on Amazon.

Preface

 

With the new Monday Journal out with a vengeance (online & print), worth noting that Vlad has something else coming out of note: a second print edition of his late Nineties chapbook Derelict. When Derelict was released, Vlad still lived in Philly, and much of the action in the chap takes place in Philly. Vlad asked me to write a preface for this second edition, and I did.

Treasure Trove Part 2

Trove, subsidiary of the National Library of Australia, in Canberra, Australia, has continued to re-publish the pdfs of entire Otoliths issues which began in 2017, and which I mentioned here in 2018.  

Here now, are issues 57, 61, and 65, featuring Wayfaring Angel, The Witches of South Philadelphia, and Perfect, respectively.