Thursday, December 11, 2025: Colin James's " Disappearance Of An Impractical Nature"

By

 




Disappearance Of An Impractical Nature


The Dingle was the kind of place

you would stop to take a leak,

or disrespectfully throw a used mattress

into its narrow, uneven ravine.

The dog walkers gave it a wide birth.

A green chain linked fence

and whatever the season, wet dirt road

was its more interesting southern border.

Most chose the disappointing interstate.

People tend to look twice at a meandering, naked old lady.

Confirmation peaked with the number of calls.

She was heading south intent on some purpose,

feet black or bloody, muddied, yet still a dusty rose.

Randle's farm was displaced somewhere near here.

Apple orchards, trees with gnarley branches never boringly straight

but contorted, personalized by their lack of constraint.

Two Police cars, three youngish officers serious in the heat

searched for an hour in this equals place.

No wanderer found no mother, daughter,

sister, no one even to compensate.


© Colin James

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Call For Submissions: Poetry, Essays, Fiction, and Art

By
Image
Good morning! I hope your 2022 is going better than your 2021, 2020, etc. After two years of what feels like a standstill, the world is moving forward, and in many cases, taking the opportunity to travel to places and countries never before visited, or imagined. Dashboard Horus wants to showcase your best travel poetry, fiction, essays, and art. It can be a photo of the Eiffel Tower, a story about traveling to Mars, or a poem about a train ride to Kyoto. Real, or imagined. We accept submissions on a rolling basis and will nominate for Pushcart, and Best of The Net. Guidelines Note: historically, travel writing comes with social commentary (think Joseph Campbell, or Jonathan Swift). However, any writing that contains racist tropes, hate speech, or a whiff of totalitarian leanings will NOT be considered for publication.  Send your submissions to: marielecrivainpd@gmail.com. Poetry: Two poems, no more than 100 lines combined. We accept all poetry forms, and experimental forms are alw...
Read more

Monday, December 1, 2025: Dashboard Horus Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Press Nominees (2025)

By
Image
  The Dashboard Horus Pushcart Prize nominees are: Lynne Bronstein “ Getting Off That Train ”(prose) Luis Cuahtemoc Berriozabel's "Tiny Houses " (poem) Colin James's "Green Eyes" (poem)  Strider Marcus Jones's " Fading Sphinx" (poem) Cynthia Linville's "Joshua Tree National Park" (poem) Florence Weinberger's "The Journey From Scratch" (poem) Good luck to all the nominees, and congratulations!
Read more

Wednesday, April 10, 2024: Rick Lupert's "At Night With Pizza" and "Paris is the Dream"

By
Image
Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created Poetry Super Highway ( poetrysuperhighway.com ) and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly reading for almost 21 years which has lived on as a Zoom series since 2020. He’s authored 28 collections of poetry, most recently It’s Spritz O’Clock Somewhere, and God Wrestler: a Poem for Every Torah Portion , and edited the anthologies A Poet’s Siddur , Ekphrastia Gone Wild , A Poet’s Haggadah , and The Night Goes on All Night . He writes a Jewish Poetry column for www.JewishJournal.com , and the daily web comic “ Cat and Banana ” with Brendan Constantine. He reads his poetry wherever they let him. At Night With Pizza Waiting for a table at the place where Margherita pizza was invented. A Meloncello Spritz is in my veins and we will dine-in unlike the citizens in the takeout line which goes up the street to where the city is divided in half. This could take a while so I may need wine to continue the magic and fall in love with whoever brings it to us. A platonic ...
Read more