Consuming the soft crystalthe alien looked like a probe sent into the orbit of my brain.I gazed wondrously intoits big, Texas-sized eyes. The room became calmlike twilight. The oak trees,the ones outside, felt destroyed,as if they were knocked over,and placed on an 18 wheelerheading out of the great forests. As the scent of sandalwood rose up. The creature placed […]
George Cassidy Payne
A Yellow Cardinal
Genetics could be the sole factor the same way roots of hemlocksthirst for affection like toddlers, some say it is an obscure type ofhermaphroditism, or some other theoryperhaps the reason pumice smellsthe way it does, or the words surface to life from the lips of the newly awakenedshining like a natural sermon, burning phosphorous and strikingthe earth, beneath the polar auroras yes, a yellow cardinal isno rarer than the redno less […]
No Longer Lost
Artwork by catzz Becoming many-celled,bright red to orange,existing by thoughts alone,barely living from thesun, mountainous, even coniferous,pink-tinged, with unlaced shoes, uncombed hair, and handmade signs, broke loose for the first time, making deathhowl, between a porno shop and a truck stopdiner, they said Buffalo was 20 minutesaway and then it happened. Too young to age,too old to […]
Hercules Without Muscles
I am Hercules without muscles.Zeus without thunder. Hadeswithout an underworld. Drifting, like a show out of Nashvillewithout a guitar. Pure country and dirty to the core. I am a Pollockwithout dripping a single droplet of paint. Brooklyn without a bridge. People cross over me without anywhere to go and no reason to go there. I am a tape cassette. The magic is […]
Leaf Pile
Five months after you came into the world, you discovered the fawnbrown mystery of brittle leaves in December. Back when the winterswere late upon the earth. With your sister, you played in the pileof leaves like a small doll sinking intothe earth itself. Into a wormhole of foliage,and a cataclysm of autumn. Laughing atnothing but the act of […]
The Delta
I don’t know why I became an atheist,Yet some days I can tastethe divine. It sits still in mymouth, as a pair of crouchingeyelids in the tall, midday grass. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand […]
The Blankness of Being
(Inspired by the Zen masters of China) Consciousnessis too freeLike the stars in outer space and the severed head of Kalisweeping away dustforevermaking death howlknowing that we do not want to be in churchLike being buried alive in the same place where we beganas if we had never existed at all. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from […]
I’m a Surrealist
I’m a surrealist. So what. Surreal is dependent onthe real. To know that itmakes sense, in order toshow that it doesn’t. Doesthat make sense? Do youmake sense? Does this makesense? Why do you want tomake sense? David Byrne saidstop making sense. But that means it made sense to beginwith. Did it? Who are you to say?What sense […]
Sarnath
Disembodied from thebleeding virus of breakingnews, you taught. In the Deer Park at Sarnath,to see clearly in muddy watersand to partner with illness, no longer treated like a rumorthat may or may not be true.
Does ET Have a Soul?
What would happen to ourunderstanding of humannessif we knew that we are not alone?And does ET have a soul?Parallel worlds and alternate realities.An abundance of creatures on earth;there could also be other beings,even intelligent ones, that were createdby God. Brothers and sisters both. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such […]