Backward to Zero On the unclutter levelness of a tabletop, A still life performs stillness. One falls Into language. One fails at language. One feels one’s way by way of words. Thought’s structure branches, and like roots Confronted by obstacles, contorts. The tension, contained, is called nightfall. To keep from levitating, one lies down In […]
Two Poems
https://fenceportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Danos.Fence_.Empathy.Spectators.m4a EMPATHY Cattle herd, rattled, rumbled the pale gravel roads Rushed through orchards, trampled shriveled apples A spectacular view Where I was looking I saw a cow’s brown eyes—an exchange of glances flooded with panic & choice Then, she strutted right up to me I swallowed hard a short lifetime When […]
Primordia Study
https://fenceportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Primordia-Study-by-Kaitlyn-Airy.m4a with end words by Jean Valentine Concerning vibrations & pitch a stone is never silent. Consider the walls they spackled around me, singing as all stones do. It is not easy being your anchoress but someone must listen. The body is a window upon which the world presses little showings. […]
RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION
https://fenceportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Tommy-ORourke-Received-Pronunciation.m4a I am sorry I knocked over your Waterford ice bucket. I get so nervous when you make me sing. What with the wasp nest swelling on the ceiling. What with the hatchet whispering on the wall. I know these things because I’m hungry: dawn comes in like a bow pulled across the strings of […]
Oracle Portraits
Reading Note: My frequent re-reads, to remember the strange, wonderful animal and artist you are: Animal Joy by Nuar Alsadir How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee
Ode to Mud Season – A Vispo Journal
Outside the Children’s & Maternity Thrift Shop Outside the children’s & maternity thrift shop stood the little girl with her dog looking down at the wet sidewalk. The worms are dying, she said, dragging each syllable through sad honey, which startled me— I was not expecting to be addressed, having forgotten the gift of perception […]
