Unshod Quills

Two poems from hobo James H. Duncan.

Reflections

– on mirrors

now I pace the highway like a real ghost might
tipping the flask to my lips one last time
a quick shot of relief and then down into drive,
a shift, a release of the wheel

in the dark I cannot tell how the bed becomes a highway slab
my eyes never know, they flutter under skin
paper thin to the moon, reflecting now against my
pavement blood,  remembering my
knees against the backs of your long gone legs
wishing for reflection in the traffic headlight drone

JD

12 gauges of remorse

– on When We Two Parted

silence stains the lonely shoes
worn before the soul fell through

cat’s eye wallpaper, honest, peeling,
ever so slight of hand

a flick of the belt and a hush
from the stair, as the moon hides beyond

candle-lit nebulous reasons fly
from the roof into tomorrow’s tomorrow

reality is a loaded shotgun starry
night, hung beside the mirror on the wall

triggers painted red and a cat’s eye reeling,
ever so slight of hand

JD

Author Biography

James H Duncan is a tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure. The editor of Hobo Camp Review, James considers himself a student of the road, where you’ll find him in late-night diners, local dive bars, and wandering train station platforms minding his own business. Apt, Red Fez, Reed Magazine, Slipstream, Poetry Salzburg Review, and The Battered Suitcase, among many others, have welcomed his work. More here.

Unshod Quills’  first featured artist, Las Vegas, Nevada photographer Eva Steil shoots here
on lipstick, mirrors, beasts and When We Two Parted.

Please click each photo once, and then again on the following page, to see in greater detail.

Eva Steil, "Liets." Photo taken January 12th, 1989 in Atlanta, Georgia. On the theme of mirrors.

"Liets 2." Eva Steil on the theme of mirrors

"Eve 2" - self portrait of Eva Steil on the theme "When We Two Parted"

"Lip Blotter," Eva Steil. On the theme of Lipstick

"Tara in Fur," Eva Steil. On the theme of beasts

Artist Biography

Eva Steil is a Las Vegas based photographer best known for at once intricate and stark self portraits and for her portraits of other artists. Eva utilizes digital photography, but the bulk of her work has been done on film, and she continues to work in this medium today. A member of the Unshod Quills Writer Collective, Eva also writes poetry and lyrics. Eva wants to make your art gallery a Ground Zero for an exhibit. She can be found here.

Mark Brunke, "Sideways" on Transportation

 Art and Poetry of Seattle’s Mark Brunke

“Border-Captain, I am determined to make you Duke of Lithuania.”

– on Lipstick

Put some sugar on your knife Potemkin, I’m watching you drown in a song.
I equally dismiss empirical
Atheists and mental Christians;
I prefer the misery in mere
Carrots and of love’s first glimpse.
I remember a time before lipstick
and it stays within my nails,
Where all beings clothed in vapor auger in
To a moment of desire’s nothingness,
Where the center of verse
Was godless among us.
Oxygen separated, in midnight’s cruel
Skin, a day’s hunger younger than us,
Oxygen deprived, moonless magic in animal
Skin, laying tasted, in a candy cane dress,
stained with sausage oil and mustard seed.
“S’il n’y avait pas de Pologne il n’y aurait pas de Polonais!” A. Jarry, Ubu Roi

MB

Recursion Problem, these

– on Mirrors

Childlike and charred mirrors of war.

America sends its regrets
as an advance on its rejections,
an historical imperative where
soldiers die for an after death.
Childlike and charred mirrors of war.

Terrorists we call them, cave
artists painting their
violetless particles in the last waves
of a grayscale ocean.
Childlike and charred mirrors of war.

Soldier’s epsom salt of slow incentives
priced in a sickbay decay, the dirt water
smell in the declination of a fading
Earth, drown in a curtain, bathe with a Cross.
Childlike and charred mirrors of war.

The crickets in the field, in the green
grey waltz-twisting body, the pitch on the death of
Mars lays low in bloodrose and disintigration;

lamb mouth. I
do not need to ask how I got to this, the river
Where I am childlike and charred, mirror of war.

MB

Mark Brunke, "Hotel Ceiling," on Mirrors

Author and Artist Biography

Mark Brunke lives and works in Seattle, Washington.