by William Blackburn
saving face with grace, clipping coupons: manufactured cents-off sales, percentages played as gamblers dice whispered and cast aside hoping languid language tranquil resting after diatribe vibrato echoed sneaking on reverberations in slanting timbres across that daily distance from you to me, this chamber, home to homily or simply hominy— all harmonized minor keys grits on the griddle: a pancake puddle sizzling, tantalizing and romanticizing this breakfast of champions, foodstuff for the mind, morning paper read, set aside for more thoughtful aires and plumbing of those dreamy depths, headline surmounting problems of the day: what to wear, where to shop a shouted thrumming exhortation, and a balm-laden soothing of the brow, this accumulation of landed detritus someday to the sea washed and sunk
How Sweet Isn’t It
by Jeff Hersch
William T. Blackburn struggles still to find his car keys. He holds a degree in English:Writing/Teaching and Music Composition. His work appears in SCRAWL, Emerald Press, Route 7 Review, Edify Fiction, Weekly Degree, The Blue Mountain Review, fws:journal of literature & art, Paragon Press, The Anti-Languorous Project, Contemporary Expressions, Soliloquies Anthology, Please See Me, The Rainbow Poems(UK), AIPF Anthology, and Abstract Elephant. He contributed to Adirondack Center for Writing: PoemVillage-2019/20/21 & Response II. He is an Ageless Authors judge for 2020.
Jeff Hersch provides analog collages for the modern being. Like his thoughts, these pieces are often constructed in short, frantic spurts of energy, with bursts of self-doubt, though calm and subtle. Also like his thoughts, these pieces represent everyday observations and conclusions about the vast world that erratically suffocates us, with little time for a quick escape or chance to relax, as we are currently inhabiting an advanced state of infinite stimulus.
His works lend themselves to your own interpretation of meaning – if any – but should also serve as inspiration and demonstrate the simple notion that you too can and should create something/anything on a regular basis.
When he’s not hunched over his desk cutting and gluing clippings, Hersch finds the time to play in bands (Glazer, Civic Mimic, Postman Agitator) and volunteer as the executive director of Flemington DIY, a non-profit community arts space in the town he grew up in.
Ignatian Literary Magazine 