From the poetic series entitled: “The Human Fundamentals Anthology”

Gravity.
The ultimate courtesy.

In the strange quiet that hangs over city streets

in early morning, we hold hands and run across

wrinkled sidewalk, hollering at bakers, leaping over

stacks of newspapers left for sleeping store owners.

Poem by Jake Parisi
Critique by John Kropa
.
“The Oak”
.
Of a danky, concealed base,
There are only gnarls illumined,
As the shadows of my other selves
Glimmer through projected lines.
.
Now at this base of more or less,
The sun-pulse throbs and grows its stress,
And a single, stoic trunk of tree
Belies my wanted unity.
.
Then there’s, “Suddenly!” as Bely knows,
So a twisted linearity explodes
From out of mind,
And out of time,
Leaves ephemeral and overlapping,
Tethered like a mental clapping
Of ropes to moments, to the last,
All mystically gone slipping past.
.
Here comes a knot! Some funny business,
Particular, yet quite ambiguous:
A feeling that …

Jeremiah Bingham and Cole Orasmus are sitting in a darkened room, lit only by the fireplace between them.  They both sit like statues, Bingham with his hands crossed over his chest and Orasmus staring listlessly at the dust jacket of The Art of War.
Bingham(Gets up walks toward the window, back turned to Orasmus): What do you think is going to happen?
Orasmus (Looking away from the book): It all depends on if she does anything or not.
Bingham(Turning to face Orasmus): She has nothing to gain.  Nothing at all.
Orasmus: What about the …

The DRAMA Column
Sunrises through the yellow bus window.  I hear the high pitched shrieks of children all around me.  I’m so confused, where the hell am I this time? I follow them as they exit the bus, running around with no concern what so ever.  I end up with them in a class room, why did I walk with them, I don’t belong.  I sit down in a worn wooden desk looking on a busted dusty black board.  A woman with wool for hair and a hooked nose starts calling …

You would not hold me
Nor kiss me
Nor caress me
Attentively—
You nursed the whispers of your entrails
And neglected the loving curves
Sitting beside you—
Her thoughts wandered quickly
To Singapore,
Your future nest
And hiding hole.
I am less than a memory to you
Now.
Your wild, Irish curls
Vacillated,
Protruded,
Projected,
Connected,
Intertwined,
[Spoke]
[Conversed]
With my tamed,
Romanced strands—
Then the film strips
Danced
Behind my back,
Behind our backs,
Behind the shadowed movement
Of tongues,
Of hands,
Of long, novice fingers,
Of arched backs,
And of blinded,
Inexperienced eyes.

I live my life as it comes to me—instantaneously.

We debauch upon a newer, mightier world where the only thing unlikely
to change too quickly is the inflational price of hotdogs and bottled
water. Obesity flows like oil, black gold seeping through cracks in
the cobblestones.

X I can X
X do anything— X

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.”

~Nathaniel Hawthorne