Field Recordings

From Joseph Ryan’ s discussion in the Facebook group: Twin Peaks: the Dweller on the Threshold Today's erasure poem comes from a short discussion on the meaning of the Woodsman's chant/koan/spell "Gotta Light?"--repeated throughout episode eight. GOTTA LIGHT Repeat connections. Sex ritual at the motel. How does that affect the events in 1956? Some song, the picture behind the bed, the possible era of time. Gotta lighten up. Learn, look. I grab your energy. I think people. Translation mix up, this plane, a verbal conscious. See... Him grab heads. His sex, a total devourment of the head, set free from prison, this particular Woodsman.

I spent the summer reading and watching Twin Peaks, the Return with my wife. If you are not familiar with David Lynch’s show, it is a police/FBI procedural, wrapped in a small town soap opera, wrapped in a inter-dimensional chess match of good and evil; it is surreal and nightmarish, often relying on dream logic. In many ways, Twin Peaks is like a Rorschach ink blot. Recently I took over the editing at The Broadkill Review , and so I am learning the ropes, learning the schedule, and needless to say editing time cuts into your writing and reading time. Currently, I am tweaking my own work, several poetry and fiction manuscripts, but I need a project, a chore if you will, to stay sharp. Having never done erasure poetry, and having never created any conceptual poetry, I decided to copy large portions of different Twin Peaks theory chats, and erase them, changing punctuation, and verb tenses when I deemed it necessary.  You do not need to know the show, or the mythology t...

Honored to have this little poem leading off the poetry section of the new anthology from Borrowed Solace, Hinterlands. You can purchase your copy here. "Custis Field" is an imaginary field. An alternate reality Eastern Shore that is not an alternate reality. You know this field, it's just beyond the main roads, tucked away behind a forgotten town. This poem is about tradition, among other things, you know that eternal parent child motif. The poem originally appeared in AvantAppal(achia ).