for Wendy 1973-2019 Photo by Sirisvisual on Unsplash
Elegy, One
A Review of Eschatology in Crayon Wax
“Let my worship / be this work / and the force / of each bit / strike / on masonry”. And so, begins Joshua Robbins’ latest collection of poetry, Eschatology in Crayon Wax. With such intriguing titles as “Prayer with a Rotohammer and Stained Glass,” “Apologia Sharpied on Cardboard,” “If Paradise Has Cul-de-sacs,” and “Confession through Honeysuckle and Chain Link,” Robbins masterfully and seemingly effortlessly…
Waiting & The Sand of the Syrian Desert Apologizes to the Armenians
Photo by Stefanie Jockschat on Unsplash
anxiety / me
I wake up with urgency’s sandpaper clawspawing at my throat. I crunch downon my breakfast bowl of rusty nails, each bitepumping iron into my veins. My shadow whispers in Morse code, dotsand dashes of dread tapping out each deadline.I wear my panic like a fur coat in July,heavy and sweltering—yet soft and lush. The bedroom’s clock ticks: a cricket on amphetamines,each second a shriek; a…
Something I Might Mistake For Beauty
At my appointment with the first doctor who might finally name the nebulous illness I’ve suffered with for seven years, the intake form requests I list my symptoms; a hazard of myprofession that every ache manifests in metaphor. I want to fill the page: Snake-pit gut, nerves a swarm of needling wasps, joints riddled with buckshot, limbs like a slack-stringed marionette, brain a tinned peach…