Jackson Creek, 2019 by Jeff Corwin
Patience
it’s lost or it’s out of focus
not here but on the way
or I was just a little late and missed it
repeatedly
same time next week
in the heart’s peculiar time zone
realizing I haven’t exhaled for two flights of stairs
the blight of stairs, of other people’s masks
turned inward through their ears
is walking as much a bubble as driving
staying in the same place
as light and dust random around me
take a breath, hold, lose–it’s just air
mostly nitrogen that we don’t dance with
no bargains, on sale, coincidental two-fer, sudden inflation
getting less for more, down to two meals a day
incremental sleep
the rain could only stay for 15 minutes
sun stretching further than I can see
Signal to Noise
i’m mistaking gaia’s gravitic pulse for a bass line
every breath a drum beat, every collision cymballic,
i keep straining for melody but only get me
even if everyone wasn’t walking around with ear buds
who would hear me, like the stars who think they’re whispering
too far away for us to have a hint of their language
the night sky is social media suppressing most planetary voices
as if my skull was acres of dried and compressed clouds
my brain-sun long ago dwarfed for self-protection
asteroids of muscles that once were—or could have become—planets
is blood dark matter, are my nerves the intentions of the
quote unquote big bang that barely had time to breathe
life into mud before momentum drove it onward
back here the napkin of my pencil-sketched circuitry
has gone from the wringer and the clothesline
to microwave oven and nuclear toaster
nothing solid comes in cans anymore
and the list of ingredients is graduate level chemistry
it’s an eat or be eaten world
every non-decision a new flavor in an old disguise
sometimes archetypal and resonant, sometimes too sleek
for more than a syllable, fuel-injected introjections,
commands disguised as choices, only the clocks
can change themselves, refusing to see the sky
Floored
“If You Lived Here…”
When the system
we don’t understand
the wrong word
When so many
ignored like the first fly
the bite of an invisible mosquito
a drop of dried blood on my shoe
Microscopes in the sky
knowing the sun must be somewhere
to thread the eye of another dimension
A way of seeing inside your own body
catalogues of internal ornaments
function and sway, hungry pillows
Spin the plug three times before inserting
hand through a mirror
light with a child-proof lid
When plastic rebels
When the street refuses to take the blame
but the alleys have so many stop signs
lights away from windows
burning like lasagna
A sandwich large enough for gravity to notice
flying deep into the crevasse widening with sparkle
Why aren’t more of you in bed, off the street
a third of these cars haven’t moved all month
Go so far
fever collapse
water, sunshine and carbs
no blankets but four sets of clothes
A crack so sudden you don’t see it til almost stepping
connections worked loose over decades
a house as old as me would be on roof 4 or 5
From the highway median I’m skyward
clouds racing closer to lay down bets
About the author:
Dan Raphael‘s poetry collection In the Wordshed was published by Last Word Press in December, 2022. More recent works appear in Packingtown, Back Channels, 100 subtexts, Spinozablue and Unlikely Stories. Most Wednesdays, Dan writes and records a current events poem for The KBOO Evening News.
In the artist’s words:
After 40+ years as an award-winning commercial photographer, Jeff Corwin now focuses on fine art photography. Simplicity, graphic forms and repeating configurations personally resonate. Recent career highlights include: numerous museum exhibitions; gallery shows; work in permanent collections; features in numerous fine art publications; and representation by several contemporary galleries.
During my infancy as a commercial photographer, I quickly learned the real nature of my job – to communicate my clients’ needs. I was not there to serve myself. So, how to bring attention to the subject, or hero, of the image was always at the forefront of my approach. Composition was one tool to weed out extraneous content. But my most powerful tool became lighting on location. It also became my favorite part of the job. After years of shooting landscapes in my spare time, I decided to bring those same powerful strobes I used for commercial work into the landscape. And as with my commercial photography, using these strobes in my fine art photography became a technique to not only guide a viewer’s attention to what I considered the subject of an image or improve a graphic quality that is almost right, but also to provide me with delight while solving visual problems, as I had commercially. Once during a magazine interview, I was asked about the nature of my work in relationship to my interest in contrast. I think my answer was “it’s amazing how much time I spend lighting to make a situation look dark.” I know that she was asking about my lighting style in my black and white work, but it made me realize I like contrast in other ways as well. Contrasting theories, contrasting politics, how contrasting relationships work, the nature of competition with colors. It reminded me of a quote by Stanley Kubrick, “However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” (I would love to be able to ask him if he was being metaphorical or literal. I feel and hope it’s both.) I have always questioned myself regarding the origins of my style, but never to the extent of being unable to answer the question. It simply is. Because I am so much more passionate about light than I am about snapping the shutter, it has become the device I will use, both naturally and artificially. Whatever I am shooting, if the light that I look for is not there I will “supply” it if it is possible. Yeah, God’s light is pretty damn cool, but it’s not always how or when I want it. Sometimes natural light just needs to be augmented. (Sorry, God…)
“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” — Sir Francis Bacon