Shrine, to joke, bar

It is the year 3001, and humanity has almost reached the point of no return: only a select few humans—known as “The Feelers”—are able to experience emotions, and a governmental program has decreed that they be medicated to ensure they to adopt the detached, unfeeling dispositions of the younger generations… After the Feeler’s ashes were […]

A chant, to wail, hospital ward

It is the year 3001, and humanity has almost reached the point of no return: only a select few humans—known as “The Feelers”—are able to experience emotions, and a governmental program has decreed that they be medicated to ensure they to adopt the detached, unfeeling dispositions of the younger generations… Syringe in hand, Doctor Albright […]

When Silence Fails

It is almost exactly ten yearssince we shared drunken kissesin an unheated barin Chattanooga, Tennessee.Later that night, drunker still,a kiss broke into laughterwhen we rolled off my bedand fell to the floor. Ten years later: youstill in Tennessee, in Nashville, mein Phoenix, Arizona. A catch-upconversation: You told me aboutyour kidney transplants, addictionto pain medication, recovery,getting […]

Dad

He ate plain oatmeal every morningin the same leather chair that mom got him for Father’s Dayin 88. One breakfast after finishing an orange grapefruit, I told him that I loved him just loud enough so he would not hear 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 […]

Grieving

The Santoku knifeI gave to my brotherbut wish I hadn’tAnd some nights when Duke and Hankare on the turntableI still drop what I am doing 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, and 3:16 Journal. George’s […]

Spreading Ashes in the Ausable

more coveted than winefrom milk, the masteralchemists of China coulddo no better than these cloudschurning into rivers, the way cottongrass renews itself or how a son returns in time to let go. 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, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays […]

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. […]