the INLAID EAR

A canopy ravels from gray nacre, the mountain’s verdant newborn filigree. As dark and light flashes, blessings accrue unfurling in fern-tip complexities ushering the one space of the sacred. Heaven is a gateless sanctuary where my heart can run itself rabbit quick sublimated in the nature of me, the gospel rhythms of my walking stick, gut and breath, unbounded as an orchid. Such hallowing glory requires a break: that’s when we go to church, temple or mall. Under a roof only humans would make, we collect into our scale and recall the transports of sequoia and fungi. But for prayer in the present, there’s one hall: the unroofed architecture of the all. By Shiori Shimomura

     "I'm a wearer of the dark, yeah, yeah, yeah: I have a dark suit."          —Dave Thomas Despite the bolt-rattling oscillation of our heads, some of us punks were able to half-wonder what would become of us once the guitar’s itch was scratched. “No Future,” begs certain questions in the aftershocks. Crocus Behemoth blew our minds often, mad head warbling like a climaxing teen; but better than those sound-scrapes, his bitter perspective conveyed diagonally how frankly fucking smart we were as punks.   Bands break, though. A car crash stopped D. Boon’s jam. Pop culture punks bit the dust on drugs (yawn) while aging bassists coupled and had kids, went to sew the sutures of middle age… Crocus took up the accordion, whined   about his old self, wheezed through his dark art and the girlfriends that came and went with it. By the one and only Lauren Ari. And look who's got a ne...

The dynamic duo, Joyce Shon and James B. Wheeler, collaborated on this pair of illustration versions. I don't know which to prefer, so am posting both. If you have an inkling toward one or the other, please comment and let me know. Enjoy!    *** Partly paved Where the road stopped, an old train track, half-lost, crossed my trail's T. One way pointed into town. It struck me that I'd noticed the brown steel paved into 3rd Street, the lot at Jack’s, and many spots where the railway ran before the brambles of town grew on it. The opposite ray of vanishing track bent around an overgrown, unbuilt hillock. I went that way. Threadbare green gowns, dappled silences, and old-time ponderings filled the afternoon until evening. Until the ties stopped their ladder steps where I'd strayed. What color were the northern skies those days when coffee cost a dime?   By Joyce Shon and James B. Wheeler Li...

For the fuzz Now that it’s refused me, I’ll refuse hair. That’s how I decided twelve years ago to strip my head razor-clear and take air, snow and sight without the diplomacy of coiffure. Know my mind, world. It is here. Since the divorce, my do has kept a low profile, though I spot it on the fringes at times. It has never regained the glow it had when my follicles were engines, the sex machines of our honeymoon years. Now, Fine Gray Fuzz, I sometimes get twinges when I see some full-headed guy, recall you at Burning Man, my shock of orange. At 22, we pulled a ponytail. How could I ever have cursed you, Jewfro? I was young and could complain my gall out without recognizing there’d be fall out. By Free Radical , David Fleischmann