No one could breathe for him.Hauled onto the curb as if he were dead already. Heavy as a bag of sand at a construction site. Still human, sucking the steel-tipped teeth of men. Gathered around his neck.They say that you had enemies.Perhaps he was one of them.They say you had a background. Maybe that is why your mother’s blood […]
My Turn
When it was my turn to go in,I sat cross-legged by the ventilator and told my buddy goodbye.I could have cried but he deserved more.He deserved what carries no weight.Time. Before the lungs fill with river water and the dream oozes away from the ribs of lotus petals caught between the rocks.
The Last Days of Summer
God is the original face before I was born. The lost part of my brain, drifting across beginninglesslifetimes, bobbing in the embryonic fluid. God is tortoise tracks and prayers bya beachside grave and the last daysof summer. Why the universe is so hot,crowded, and noisy, yet arrives quietly each lonely evening, on my doorstep, a bouquet of suffocating tulips. George […]
Letter to an Editor
I think I know why I like this piece so much. It’s what I strive for in everything I do. It disrupts everyone. From Generation Z to those still living from the Greatest Generation, this one has something to unnerve and destabilize everyone’s sense of moral justice. No quarter. Almost no social or political allegiance whatsoever. […]
My Turn
When it was my turnto go inI sat cross-leggedby the ventilatorand told my buddygoodbye.I could have cried but he deserved morethan that. He deservedwhat carries no weight. Time. Before the lungs fillwith river water, and the dream oozes away from fingers like the texture of drowning lotus petals no longercaught between the rocks. George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. […]
Everything Is Invented
with words, including the age of rocksand trees and picked strawberries andparticles of sand, all those ideas falling apart between the lips and fingers and toes. 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 Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, […]
How To Fall Out of Love
If we are lucky, it is like an ant on thesidewalks of Times Square. This memory. This oval shaped, solid, durable, now fixed, singular, squishy, ripping sounding, earthy tasting, leathery,months-long, crimson-colored, knuckle sized thing. 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 […]
Boulder, Colorado
Is the wry grin an old hippy makeswhen hiding a handfulof magic mushrooms. Or the way strangers feel innocentand accomplished at the summit. Nowhere but down to go from there. Sucking the jeweled teeth of the Flatirons like kids. 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 Literary […]
A Drowning
No one could save himonce he was lodged beneath the rapids.No one could breathe for himonce he was hauled onto the rocks. Weeks passed and the trips to the hospital became pilgrimages.We were just teenagers. Too arrogant to admit that it could have been any one of us. When it was my turn to go in, I […]
Speaking of Humility
By Master Jingzong; translation by the Pure Land School Translation Team The human mind is like the earth. It possesses Buddha-nature and oceans of wisdom but is filled with the worthless debris of egotism and has lost its usefulness. If we use the shovel of humility to dig out the dust of arrogance and restore the […]