Let the disgust pour through me. Let it seethe. Let it sink in and settle. I wasn’t capable of doing anything more than lying on the sofa, stewing in bitterness and resentment. One likes to think that one’s work will be well-received by these commercial...
Publication In The Age of Negation, Part III
Publication In The Age of Negation, Part II Pillorying the Pillars
Four weeks passed. I was about to resign myself to not hearing from Charles Wersing, a top New York literary agent, when I checked my inbox one afternoon. “Good to hear from you,” he wrote, and apologized for taking a month to get back to me. He complimented me on my...
Publication In The Age of Negation, Part I Humility and Humiliation
Perhaps you remember me… No, that wasn’t right. It was senseless to open a letter of entreaty by suggesting that I was forgettable, especially when I knew only too well that the party in question would remember me. Hello Charlie, it’s your old friend here… No, that...
Poems "Silicon Valley" by Rhiannon McGavin; "Vanity in Vain" by John Tottenham
Silicon Valley A cloud is the earth displaced for tracks of cable underground, underwater A stream is the friction between content and a beckoning hand To kindle is to adjust the climate dial in a server farm An antenna is the arc of pesticide as it is sprayed...
Poems "Kiefer Lights a Big Cigar" by Klipschutz; "The Poet’s Garden" by John Tottenham
Kiefer Lights a Big Cigar & waves the heavy machinery into place He rearranges the rubble speaking whichever language suits the occasion He & Tony saunter through a tunnel in the South of France “It’s my gesture” is what he says about his art His use of...
THE FRUGAL MEAL Ethereal Sandwiches and the Demand for Less
I’m not in the habit of writing restaurant reviews but I was so moved by a recent dining experience that I simply had to share it. I needed to get something to eat in a hurry and decided to check out a local lunch counter that has been doing spectacular business for a...
Poems "The Mind Wanders" By Daniel Crook; "Courtesy of the Artist" By John Tottenham
The Mind Wanders We pass 6th street at eight o’clock. This is not remarkable but sometimes one can do something countless times and remain enchanted. The colors aren’t the same. Once blue, now purple, then red. No two things are alike an hour later but they...
THE TRUTH ABOUT MINIMALISM A Conversation with William Minor
“No one achieves frivolity straight off. It is a privilege and an art; it is the pursuit of the superficial by those who, having discerned the impossibility of any certitude, have conceived a disgust for such things; it is the escape far from one abyss or another...
Poems "March 2nd, 2021" By Steve Anwyll; "The Great Wall" By John Tottenham
March 2nd, 2021 I step off but don’t move. The bus pulls away in a roar. I remove my mask. The air I breathe feels like bliss. I stand on the muddy sidewalk looking up at the sky. If I were a man of faith now would be the time to start speaking in tongues....
Poems "Dostoevsky Takes a Selfie" By Clint Margrave; "Take It Easy" By John Tottenham
Dostoevsky Takes a Selfie By Clint Margrave I’m not surprised to find him in the underground, but I am surprised to find him in L.A. He sits across from me on the metro in shorts and tennis shoes, taking a selfie. I want to ask him what he’s doing here. Too...
GONE TO THE DOGS
“Ride on the street, man.” With difficulty, I attempted to maneuver my way around a young couple who, with their three dogs, were hogging the entire sidewalk. “I beg your pardon,” I said, as I cleared these five figures, who had only made the most minimal effort to...
EVERYBODY WANTS SOME By John Tottenham
Tinnitus hissed through the music, the laughter, the static. It wasn’t crowded in there, but it was loud. Two women at the bar, a few feet away, were engaged in a conversation that consisted of whooping and screeching at the top of their lungs in response to every...
Poems
I Could Have Written That By John Tottenham Like you, I am tired of my own voice, these incessant I’s and me’s. But what’s the alternative? I don’t have the audacity to employ another he or she or We. Nothing could be worse, psycholinguistically, than that sententious...
Poems "All the Paper in My Life" by Eve Wood; "Holding Pattern" by John Tottenham
All the Paper in My Life By Eve Wood We are born into paper— Our lives bookended in signatures, A certificate To prove you exist And another to prove you Do not, each day teeming With permits, credentials For entry and forms to depart, Passports, agendas, Records of...
Poems "Imagine That" by klipschutz; "The Poet’s Garden" by John Tottenham
Imagine That for YC By klipschutz Rachel Cusk flies first class and drives a hybrid. Waiting at the bus stop I raise my hand. If I change the names is it fiction? What if I keep the names and make up lies? Or is that like saying it’s a poem if it...
Poems
The Mountain If a man should ask to meet me at the summit of a mountain to discuss the great questions of life, I would have to turn him down. Talking Woman A woman with a coarse voice can be very sexy, especially if she only says the most negative things. Table In...
POEMS "The Swan Motel" By Alan Yuch; "Say You Love Me" By John Tottenham
The Swan Motel By Alan Yuch The hot nights, the swelter, even the walls would sweat. Sweet Marcy in the same cotton dress, patterned with red, white and blue balloons. The windowless room, matching walls, the air-flooded neon. This room was meant for sleeping,...
POEMS "Gomorrah" by Eddi Saladoe; "Iron Anniversary" by John Tottenham
Gomorrah by Eddi Saladoe Right when I believed that I was finally free from the angry longing and a need to hear your voice just one more time you come to me in dreams like smoke sneaking under a bedroom door the innocent sleepers unaware that the civilization...