Ray Osborn

Articles by Ray Osborn:

Pyracantha Berries

in Issue 80 | Blood and Milk (Sep 2017)

lattices in her distance – lifetime made from – the hem of self – open mouthed tandem – writhe in my wait – tropic memory – in ache for comrade gnawings – it is the dire – but the spell

Two Beach Poems

in Issue 78 | The Weird (Aug 2017)

cookie cut from the sand - crepe-paper concrete - a variety of dunes - or harder parts - sources of warmth - into freshwater pinks - but like you

System

in Issue 68 | Ecstasy or Attention (Sep 2016)

a she-beast kept - canteened - putatively, she tries - seriously even / rapaciously - i sucked on / a ruby

pasting together our tongues and thighs - when we pour you into the cast-iron pan and let you cool - first let me wear you on the outside of my yellow rain-slicker - a correlation between carefully placed panties - my Butterball, my uncooked Gingersnap, my Stomachache

The Swans on a Sandbar

in Issue 65 | LEATHER (Jun 2016)

how unbeautiful - peace on the sandbar - manage symmetry in fives - as if swelling brassy - wisdom of a rowdy love - this will not be

On Suicide

in Issue 64 | Representation Is Not Violence (May 2016)

the dislocated aspect, haptic realism, and irrationally blinding characteristics of this - I do not advocate suicide as a trendy or posh alternative to life - as always, to hell with Descartes - doing right by themselves and their selfish Egos - call me a sucker, call me Camus

Four Poems

in Issue 55 | Fraternity (Aug 2015)

desiccated - rescind these glottal drops - bawdry ictus - a sepal, some petals - odontalgic - in 1817 the Germans - limitless devotion - the meaning of the root - prickly pink animus - my twisted ventures of madness - crassness in Florida - intoxicated - enthusiasm

Milk Thistle

in Issue 54 | Degenerates and Decadents (Jul 2015)

my own fettered tip of tuft and malaise - unboiled lust - No, I am not this plausive poised - cutting you, deluded - imagine

Moment 1, My First Memory

in Issue 48 | Dear Mom (Jan 2015)

yellow light yellow room - cut shame to none - the first memory is a thing without - birth a heavy reason - she broached the topic

Carnation: An Elegy for Alice Alsup

in Issue 46 | Lovers and Friends (Nov 2014)

I was talking to a flower or a girl or a flower - a broken bottle's neck / made into a wedding ring to marry myself - Thank you sea! - pitch-night cradling the sickly memory of day - I have eyes like an oil spill - but the muse of amorous invitations tore through me, Psyche, without me

Poems

in Issue 43 | Bar (Aug 2014)

oh fuck / how you looked! - my red semen - the Lotus without teeth - wishing to be / indifferent sky - this impersonation / does please me - over sessile rot - you think I care - teal tokens of twice-chosen sea glass - to imply anything human at all - like something Nature made / after Nature was made, an afterthought to the fuchsia-fucked - you were never color me once

Excerpts from Tchotchke Party

in Issue 39 | Animals (Apr 2014)

most ready, Devil - I reap red in the eyes and might see - velveteen / antlers - not to see who wins - I find myself hideous and lackluster, vision - his gums likely pepper and pink as they are - parts, suck, stuck - I am pliable and I am my mate - and lord do I lay with none - my personal tchotchke collection, speaking literally here - because it is a libretto

Excerpts from an Untitled Manuscript

in Issue 38 | Scriptio Defectiva (Mar 2014)

I myself, the sun - I am insatiate - a wide-eyed / pulp and a / chrysalis. - He meant light but I said « Good » - untwisting her braid - not to use moonlight - afloat with its upright memory - finding / my maw / too shallow

On the Exhaustion of Time

in Issue 37 | Fashion (Feb 2014)

left out to gather pain and rainwater - the scoria space of indolent and violent yearning - be it sharp or flat the rule is always to stay - wielding is that which bears eat - their ribald nature, the pew of sex - let's macro-manage that daily duty into a poem - love stayed is a rutile stain - as though emotional money were blue

The Soul Stuck, (Hell itself is an Autobiography), or Autobiography from Hell

in Issue 36 | Modesty (Jan 2014)

checkmate your will - what kind of prize would I want anyway? - my autobiography which is actually your biography - teem it with talc - but this is law - between the pupil and the target - I see in your work some trees that you've bought - splatter / across four anapests - my deer tracks, or shouldn't I say my fox tracks - am now dolled up in doubt - let me tell you, dear reader

Wasp

in Issue 34 | Bait and Switch (Nov 2013)

I see / the bee - and jealous - until

I Didn’t Think of You

in Issue 32 | Small Wars (Sep 2013)

« the sponge » - quite so broken - phatic - so/ patinated - I’m the - Queen Anne’s Lace - and made to bloom - ain’t

To the Girl in Black

in Issue 30 | The Daddy Issue (Jul 2013)

do I drain the room - chickadee - I have nothing to ode - until salt spindles are soft - she, satisfied, supine - curls, sunder, time - minor chords are not as cosmic as they seem - Teal, Turquoise, and Quinacridone don’t show up in this elegy because those are where I stash my private moments - avarice doesn’t remind me of wrath - what I don’t want you to know is this

The Five Senses

in Issue 29 | Faces and Masks (Jun 2013)

this is no fragrant ode for weekends - the likes of artichoke - dreams of my opposite - some sort of wieldy élan - between epsilon and epaulet - O!

Articles illustrated by Ray Osborn:

in Issue 83 | Going Big (Feb 2018)

Image by Ray Osborn

in Issue 64 | Representation Is Not Violence (May 2016)

"Tree of Life," Ray Osborn