Volume V in the ongoing series “PORTALS” ~ a portfolio of altered photographs that explores doors, windows, alleyways and other openings as passages to other times, places and dimensions.
Basquiat
Long Time Gone
Transformation
Used To Be
Upstairs Window
Surrendering August
early evening, late summer
walking down the lake road with the dogs
the sound of a tractor mowing the field above
grinding and clanking
tall grasses pulsate with cricket song
the water, placid and serene
opalescent pink and turquoise
a fish surfaces and dives
leaving ripples in concentric rings
on the far shore, in the vineyards
timed charges explode like the sun catching on fire
it scares crows away from the grapes
warm sunny afternoons and chilly evenings
sumac leaves, blood crimson
splashed across the blue forever
mornings laden with fog banks and soaking dew
migrating flocks wheel across the sky
air still warm from the day, but soon changing
into the fecund smell of damp coolness
black walnut trees already starting to turn
shedding golden leaves that flutter
like tears onto green grass
last to arrive and the first to go
a little girl rides her bike, training wheels still on
stops at the foot of the steep hill
she’ll be climbing before long
but not for a while
kids going back to school
pinching their noses shut
as they hurl themselves off the dock
into the cool blue water
already a memory
the season slipping away
away, like this day
like youth gobbled up
by the unremitting passage of time
it feels over too soon
already ending when it seems
it’s only just begun
the pale rider draws closer
with each trip around the sun
I stand at the edge of the shoreline
the edge of the season
surrendering August
Red Canoe
Hummingbird
sitting on the porch
late August
the thrum of crickets
in high summer
I watch the miracle
of a hummingbird
feeding off nectar
from scarlet salvia flowers
painted with God’s
blood-tipped brush
wings moving so fast
nearly invisible
appear to be
standing still
the hummingbird floats
in front of a flower
then moves on to the next
before stopping to rest
on the branch
of a locust tree
Same As It Ever Was
Angry voices
the strident chant of protesters
bricks thrown
a plate glass window shatters
a million tiny pieces, glittering
under yellow street lights.
Muffled voices through bullhorns
unrelenting advance,
helmets, gas masks, shields and batons
Pop! Pop! Pop!
clouds of tear gas, acrid, stinging
rolling down the street like a fog bank.
Panic ignites like a flame
ripples through the crowd
like a contagion
the sudden surge
everyone breaks and runs
down side streets and alleyways,
only to regroup
and do it all again
on another street.
The whole pattern
repeats itself
over and over.
From Northern Ireland to Tiananmen Square,
race riots in the burning cities of America,
the Antiwar Movement, Arab Spring
and Occupy Wall Street.
Same old wine, different bottle,
different players, same old game.
I’m very pleased to have my poem “Factory” in Ibbetson Street Review #35. I am humbled my work is included with brilliant poems from so many fine artists, including Marge Piercy, Kathleen Spivack, Timothy Gager, Teisha Dawn Twomey, Marie Elizabeth-Mali and Lawrence Kessenich, to name just a few. Kessenich’s radiant poem “Afterlife” is worth the price of admission all by itself. Special thanks to publisher Doug Holder for making this all happen. Ibbetson Street review is available as a print journal from Lulu and Amazon for 9 dollars.
“Long Gone And Never Coming Back” is published in the current issue of Literary Orphans.
I am thrilled to have my piece “Long Gone And Never Coming Back” published in the current issue of Literary Orphans. Thank you Editor Mike Joyce and everyone else who works so diligently behind the scenes to make this happen. I’m especially knocked out by the brilliant pairing of visual art with writing. The brilliant photography of Charles Simms turned my piece into a movie! This issue is full of fascinating interviews, book reviews, essays and compelling fiction, poetry and art!
http://www.literaryorphans.org/playdb/long-gone-never-coming-back-michael-gillan-maxwell/
STREET ART, GRAFFITI & SIGNS Volume IV
Volume IV in an ongoing series of images made from altered photographs of street art, graffiti and signs.
Chairman Mao’s Little Red Lips ~ Chelsea, New York City
Corner ~ Shibuya District ~ Tokyo, Japan
Condomania ~ Tokyo, Japan
Triptych ~ New York City
Voodoo Child ~ New York City
Relax And Unwind ~ Pike Place Market ~ Seattle Washington
Independence Day
Sitting outside on the 4th of July
in an Adirondack chair
by the little stone garden
with the scarecrow.
Its white shirt hangs slack
over crucifix arms
straw hat tattered and crumpled
by sun and heavy rains.
I watch clouds float
across the robin egg sky
like helium balloon animals
in a circus parade
pushed asunder by winds
blowing away the storms of yesterday.
I think, not so much, about
the Declaration of Independence,
which was initially published as the Dunlap broadside
and primarily signed on August 2nd,
but more about the fact
that this was the date when New York State
abolished slavery and Thoreau
moved into his shack on Walden Pond.
Whitman turned poetry on its head
when he self published Leaves of Grass
on this day, and Lewis Carroll
created Alice in Wonderland,
sending imaginations on a flight of fancy
on Independence Day.
Your Own Back Yard - Michael Gillan Maxwell 