Thank you to all who've supported this concept and endeavor from the beginning to now. I don't say beginning to end because I know that this very well may not be the end of Grawlix Poetry. There are some incredible artists out there, as we see browsing through our submissions, and we're honored to be part of this global community.
However, as of now, Grawlix has just become too time consuming. Elliot and I both have wives, kids, full-time jobs, and full-time projects aside from this one. I'm working on new stage plays as well as a novel and Elliot has honed in on his drawing super-powers to eventually infiltrate the tattoo world. This was great fun and I'm thrilled at how widely it was received, but for now we are barring submissions. I mean, if I get a second, I'll still browse through and read and respond if I see anything I love, so for the simple purpose of sharing, feel free. But as far as printing, posting, shooting, and uploading, not so much. Thank you again. You're all treasures. Make peace with the pain of being who you are and never stop. Cheers!
Jeremy Johnson (Schofield Alan)
Elliot Ian Ross
Monday, March 25, 2013
Friday, August 24, 2012
August: The Superissue
Awww that's so nice, we missed you too. What we've done is essentially combine July and August issues together into one SUPERISSUE. So we haven't been slacking. Don't even think that.
As far as stickerings go, it's been 100 degrees plus in Omaha as of late, so outdoor venues have been few and far between. However, as the summer is winding down, it's cooling off significantly and affording me opportunities to hit the University campus and a bit more of downtown.
We're quite fond of the poems that made it through the selection this time around. It was a pretty cutthroat deal. Keep writing, keep submitting, or don't and just enjoy the scenery!
Secret Level
Pinwheels
Pipe at a Hospital
University Bench
University Cafe
Cameo
Fire Extinguisher
Flush
Rainy Grainy Sorta Mornin'
WRENCH.
"I Get Drunk And Clean The House"
~Anonymous~
i wake up to rain.
iced coffee. amaretto.
eggs with Tabasco and 90's alternative.
i play Sega until i have to pee.
i get drunk and clean the house
Better Than Ezra is better than anything
on a rumdriven cleanspree.
it's raining harder and i put in a Paul Thomas Anderson
after the first 40 minutes, i'm out.
i wake up for the last scene
and let the thick, stringy credit tracks
accompany my raingaze.
i load the gun and reel in the moment.
when was the last time
i did everything as right
as i did today?
an absent memory
in an empty...
click.
well
today was almost perfect.
Booth at the DQ
Stall
Naptime at the Mall
Rail
IN USE ATCH IT IT!
Hospital Parking Lot
Utilities Building Break Room
A Snide-Looking Mall Sign
Pump
Personal Growth
"Veins Poem: EBGDAE”
~Anonymou ~
We re-veined our bodies
Like stringing guitars
Finding chords to strike
With each other.
She had a freeze-pop body-frame
And only one vein to w
eave there within.
She had simple circuitry
Not the typical ricocheting, crochet
Fray to complicate and tangle
And wrongly interweave, bramble-like.
Bomb-like. Just one vain.
Passion and life from end to end.
She stood baby-bird mouthed
Watching the fireworks.
So we started to start over
With our insides.
New veins will bring new blood
Will bring new life
Will bring new love
Will cure our disenchantment
Will make us more like
the girl with one vein.
I mean, hopefully.
THE LAW
The Sky Is Helping
Positive Thinking
Veins Shake Mall Sign
Barricade
As far as stickerings go, it's been 100 degrees plus in Omaha as of late, so outdoor venues have been few and far between. However, as the summer is winding down, it's cooling off significantly and affording me opportunities to hit the University campus and a bit more of downtown.
We're quite fond of the poems that made it through the selection this time around. It was a pretty cutthroat deal. Keep writing, keep submitting, or don't and just enjoy the scenery!
“Fall, A Zoo Story”
By Sean Donahue
In the right light
You can see these stigmata,
And they're coming from the inside out this time.
Little red rabbit holes,
They take me right back to the zoo.
The first time you told me
You wanted my hot hallucinations,
And I let you suck them off the tip of my tongue.
And we fell into a fever forever.
We had sex like captive animals
And then slept in separate beds
Because we didn't share any dreams.
I'd tell you,
"I'm so tired I can't sleep"
We looked like raccoons
And laughed like hyenas.
Spotted like leopards,
Kissing like lepers
With nothing left to lose but our faces.
A condom in one hand,
A gun in the other.
Of course that's a metaphor.
You know we never used a condom.
You never wanted to protect yourself from me.
You wanted me to leave you,
Transparent and with more holes than I found you
So you could be a plastic bag
On an errant wind.
Beautiful refuse
Guided by chance and clusterfucked by confusion.
Crazy as Helter Skelter
In a battered woman's shelter.
You wanted me to hit you so hard
That I'd smack you back to autumn,
Nothing to break your fall but the leaves.
By Sean Donahue
In the right light
You can see these stigmata,
And they're coming from the inside out this time.
Little red rabbit holes,
They take me right back to the zoo.
The first time you told me
You wanted my hot hallucinations,
And I let you suck them off the tip of my tongue.
And we fell into a fever forever.
We had sex like captive animals
And then slept in separate beds
Because we didn't share any dreams.
I'd tell you,
"I'm so tired I can't sleep"
We looked like raccoons
And laughed like hyenas.
Spotted like leopards,
Kissing like lepers
With nothing left to lose but our faces.
A condom in one hand,
A gun in the other.
Of course that's a metaphor.
You know we never used a condom.
You never wanted to protect yourself from me.
You wanted me to leave you,
Transparent and with more holes than I found you
So you could be a plastic bag
On an errant wind.
Beautiful refuse
Guided by chance and clusterfucked by confusion.
Crazy as Helter Skelter
In a battered woman's shelter.
You wanted me to hit you so hard
That I'd smack you back to autumn,
Nothing to break your fall but the leaves.
“Animal
on the Median”
~Anonymous~
~Anonymous~
Your
limp, slender grace
Sprays
pink sherbet
Foam
in death
The
ants partake
So you
can say that
You gave something back.
"I Get Drunk And Clean The House"
~Anonymous~
i wake up to rain.
iced coffee. amaretto.
eggs with Tabasco and 90's alternative.
i play Sega until i have to pee.
i get drunk and clean the house
Better Than Ezra is better than anything
on a rumdriven cleanspree.
it's raining harder and i put in a Paul Thomas Anderson
after the first 40 minutes, i'm out.
i wake up for the last scene
and let the thick, stringy credit tracks
accompany my raingaze.
i load the gun and reel in the moment.
when was the last time
i did everything as right
as i did today?
an absent memory
in an empty...
click.
well
today was almost perfect.
“Paleontology”
~Anonymous~
~Anonymous~
I’m in
a sprawl
Drying
out
Letting
time stroll
Soaking
in
Chin
rubbing the carpet
Of the
new apartment
Wasting
light
Beetles
at this level, they’re cows
Elephants,
I feel them surviving
Like
swelling peaches.
Persisting
in massiveness being
Dinosaurs
lost and I’m a universe
Big.
Awkward waste of space
Fleshy.
Lumpy. Wrong.
Fermenting
under soursweet lemon light
Shunning
time.
While
beetle flashes blueblack and green
Volkswagen
on tiptoe
Primed to combust.
"Veins Poem: EBGDAE”
~Anonymou ~
We re-veined our bodies
Like stringing guitars
Finding chords to strike
With each other.
She had a freeze-pop body-frame
And only one vein to w
eave there within.
She had simple circuitry
Not the typical ricocheting, crochet
Fray to complicate and tangle
And wrongly interweave, bramble-like.
Bomb-like. Just one vain.
Passion and life from end to end.
She stood baby-bird mouthed
Watching the fireworks.
So we started to start over
With our insides.
New veins will bring new blood
Will bring new life
Will bring new love
Will cure our disenchantment
Will make us more like
the girl with one vein.
I mean, hopefully.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Issue 3: Wilderness, Fili, and Love, and Heat
Summer in all its post-pubescent glory is among us! People are out and about and, Artists, your poetry is getting foot traffic like you wouldn't even believe. We hit the College World Series- Omaha's local yearly big sports thing- and all sorts of places. Photographer, sculpture, digital artist, and big, awesome Greek, Anthony Lanza helped us out with some photography this time. Props. This is a very pretty batch.
Artists whom we have published, please leave your deviantart accounts and art page links down in the comments section so readers can go and gush.
Be sure to like our facebook page and deviantart page mainly for the sake of our egos, but there's some good stuff there as well. Like-minded people and whatnot.
One other thing: Grawlix Poetry doesn't care much at all about exclusivity of our published pieces, please do get your art in front of as many people as possible. With that said, we really wanted to publish some phenomenal poetry by Maureen Kingston, before she had to retract her submissions because they were published in other (not nearly as awesome) publications. So please please please go check out some of Maureen's poems, she's seriously a brilliant writer.
Get your friends to submit and keep this little project in mind. Cheers!
A Touchy Fili
By Kevin Heaton
Boomer babies
have balloon prostates,
have balloon prostates,
& nest eggs the size of
acorns.
I’m that lone gray squirrel
in yonder
poplar, the one over there
above
that field of tall cotton
all bolled up
going at it in a
cloudburst. I avoid
disinterested exertions
& proof all
adversaries of any
consequence.
There are those with
pedigrees
that fancy themselves
discerning
truths for others—others
see truth
as the way they live. I
don’t consider
myself a bard, but rather a
touchy fili,
recalling heroism like a
warrior poet.
I smell the coffee, eat
slab bacon,
& forage for cold
French fries
in discount parking lots
with stray
mongrels who write free
verse,
& refuse to cringe for the inquisitor.
Incompatible Propagations
By Kevin Heaton
I refuse to slander fallen
leaves
for simply clinging to dead
branches,
then mulching themselves
into the manure of things.
Some flora god recants
near-death
experiences through the
boughs
of an evergreen tree;
feeble attempts
at wheedling the needles
into acting
more like pine straw.
Why can’t petulant coyotes
let
sleeping dogs lie?
No good can come from
swapping
incompatible tissues, or
forced
propagations, but I will
not confess
my indiscreet graftings
to a divorced
to a divorced
counselor.
Stadium Courtyard
The Love Affair
By Kate Hammerich
life slides under the door and
I think about you
not knowing how to love
and touching a person's sleeping eyelids
to change a dream, to lie here with you
under a silent oak tree, the sunlight
has begun to breathe and I am digging you a grave for your past
and your future, I am
holding you here, the trunk of my car open to let the sweet
sound of a song rise into the
air, it is rushing by too swiftly
and I have premonitions
or I just got lucky
or everything means something
nothing vanishes without a trace
I hold despair in the palm of my hand and cannot dance without spilling it
onto the floor, it seeps into the carpet
but you are holding out a towel
and the sound of your laughter is like paper birds settling on the branches of
the tree growing from my ribs.
By Kate Hammerich
life slides under the door and
I think about you
not knowing how to love
and touching a person's sleeping eyelids
to change a dream, to lie here with you
under a silent oak tree, the sunlight
has begun to breathe and I am digging you a grave for your past
and your future, I am
holding you here, the trunk of my car open to let the sweet
sound of a song rise into the
air, it is rushing by too swiftly
and I have premonitions
or I just got lucky
or everything means something
nothing vanishes without a trace
I hold despair in the palm of my hand and cannot dance without spilling it
onto the floor, it seeps into the carpet
but you are holding out a towel
and the sound of your laughter is like paper birds settling on the branches of
the tree growing from my ribs.
Falls
The Wilderness
by Asmara Malik
Some say:
"I lost my father
too,"
as if that sets us
together,
lost in the same
wilderness,
strange siblings,
whispering
"Abbu, Abbu,
Abbu"
in the darkness; a call
incandescent as fireflies
gathered upon our
silent lips.
Urban Wilderness
Stairs to the Stadium Gates
Wilderness Fish
Yellow Wilderness
These poems also deserve recognition for being flavorful and delightfully provoking.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Issue 2: May
The support you've shown after just one issue is just insane. Thanks! I'm brushing up on my photography, getting eyes your poetry, everybody's pretty much winning. Well done everybody! Feel free to post links to your deviantart/ whatever creative website pages in the comments section if you have similar ideas to share.
Regarding the poem selection, we created a dreamscape from surreal pieces expressing an eerie stream of consciousness. We won't necessarily do this every time, but it certainly worked out beautifully for us this time around. Enjoy and tell your friends!
Regarding the poem selection, we created a dreamscape from surreal pieces expressing an eerie stream of consciousness. We won't necessarily do this every time, but it certainly worked out beautifully for us this time around. Enjoy and tell your friends!
Salvation
By Ronald Ray
Open window,
fog seeps in; television
color dances, lamplight struggles to
make this
place look like more than
a memory but fails
In a sideways, backwards world that
In a sideways, backwards world that
should be in black-and-white, r&b plays
Papers folded upon the kitchen table,
Papers folded upon the kitchen table,
books in the living room, magazines;
all whispering, none shouting,
all whispering, none shouting,
sleepy grey fog slipping
I gave up ash for Lent, wore a clown mask to church
I gave up ash for Lent, wore a clown mask to church
and howled; it was the wrong church.
I was only dreaming, I think,
I was only dreaming, I think,
but there were no constellations
to console in
the roofless sky
I walked back to my sideways house
I walked back to my sideways house
and watched TV without sound.
(Remember to check all the closets.)
(Remember to check all the closets.)
(Ignore the fog.)
Your voice on the phone sounds like salvation.
Your voice on the phone sounds like salvation.
Single Line
Curvy Line
Toxic Waste Barrel
Uneasy Lump
Barley Street Tavern (Open Mic fav in Benson area)
Walkway on Dodge
New Trees
Under an Overpass
Siren
By Valentina Cano
A voice the
color
of a chalkboard rings out,
greeting me at the door.
I don’t know whose it is.
Or why it thrums
with such violence through me.
I just want it to stop.
Pause where it is,
crystal tinkling in the air,
a breath away from smashing.
of a chalkboard rings out,
greeting me at the door.
I don’t know whose it is.
Or why it thrums
with such violence through me.
I just want it to stop.
Pause where it is,
crystal tinkling in the air,
a breath away from smashing.
From Morning Til' Night
Lake By Graveyard
Stretch
Fuchsia Alley
Please Don't Get Mugged.
Cafe
Princess Peach
The Circle Of Life
By Ricky Garni
In my dream
the piano keys
were teardrops
that gave me
nightmares
because they sounded
more like
vibraphones.
I didn’t mind
the teardrops.
But vibraphones make me cry
real piano keys that sound like
piano keys and I don’t know
where to put them or what
they should
sound like.
Poem Wheel
O! Yeah! (We have these O! sculptures about everywhere).
I Do Not Own A Lonely Dog
By Ricky Garni
Some people
say that dogs
make you less lonely.
But all the dogs that I have owned
were so lonely.
I shouldn’t admit this,
but I am not a very good companion.
People say that. Too often, I feel. Clearly, I should not own a dog,
for the sake of the dog.
But if my dogs could talk,
they wouldn’t say that.
They would never say that.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true.
Dogs are fiercely loyal.
Even the loneliest of dogs
would rather die than be disloyal.
Actually, lonely dogs
like to die all the time.
make you less lonely.
But all the dogs that I have owned
were so lonely.
I shouldn’t admit this,
but I am not a very good companion.
People say that. Too often, I feel. Clearly, I should not own a dog,
for the sake of the dog.
But if my dogs could talk,
they wouldn’t say that.
They would never say that.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true.
Dogs are fiercely loyal.
Even the loneliest of dogs
would rather die than be disloyal.
Actually, lonely dogs
like to die all the time.
Overcast Cafe
Death Hast Thou Pockets Full
Anonymous
Don't
relinquish this moment
No more shall
Death sequester.
His robe
pockets, full of wasted time,
But not this
moment. This one's yours.
CHEF
Bridge By A School
The following poems also deserve recognition:
By D.M. Jerman
Sweet and Poison
By James Keane
By James Keane
By Kyle Hemmings
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