Category Archives: Writing

Rumi

Posted on May 22, 2020 by John Swinburn

I spent an entirely unsatisfactory fifteen minutes earlier this morning attempting to learn more about the Persian poet, Rumi. The time was unsatisfactory because, for one reason, I was unable to wade through the various Persian and Arabic and other … Continue reading →

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Farmers’ Rebellion

Posted on May 4, 2020 by John Swinburn

Kenneth “Hurricane” Whackman was confirmed as Secretary of Weather only three weeks after Charlene Floore was sworn in as the fifty-eighth president of the United States. Two days later, Tyson “Popeye” Monsanto was confirmed as Secretary of Agribusiness, the position … Continue reading →

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Elvin’s Exorcism

Posted on April 24, 2020 by John Swinburn

I’ll try something different today. Instead of attempting without success to craft a wannabe witty stream-of-consciousness screed, I’ll explain myself. My name is Elvin and I live inside a body that is not my own. I use it because it … Continue reading →

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Lacking Credentials

Posted on April 16, 2020 by John Swinburn

Poetry fills an aching need within the poet to express emotions that cannot be expressed otherwise. And poetry enables poets and their audiences, whether readers or listeners, to establish intimate emotional bonds. Sometimes—more often than not, it seems—the words of … Continue reading →

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Talking to Myself

Posted on April 14, 2020 by John Swinburn

I have started, and in a few cases finished, several new posts over the last several days that have yet to be published. Even the “finished” posts, though, are incomplete. There is something about the words I have written or … Continue reading →

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Safe Places

Posted on April 5, 2020 by John Swinburn

Safe places are the stuff of folklore. They exist in ever smaller numbers today, numbers smaller than zero and with even less substance. Safety, always a figment of the imagination, has vaporized into an evanescent fantasy so vague and ghostly … Continue reading →

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Fiction and Reality, One and the Same

Posted on March 31, 2020 by John Swinburn

There was a time, not so long ago, that I found it easy to write about fictional dystopian horrors, experiences unlike anything I ever experienced. My imagination allowed me to picture those ghastly nightmares as a dispassionate observer, watching through … Continue reading →

Posted in Compassion, Covid-19, Empathy, Writing | 2 Comments

Struggles (AR) in the Times of Pestilence

Posted on March 23, 2020 by John Swinburn

The fictional town of Stuggles, Arkansas morphed from a small town coping with abandonment by its principal employer, a manufacturing plant, into a community on life support, thanks to a virus for which no immunity nor any treatment exists.  The … Continue reading →

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Love is the Richest Emotion

Posted on March 13, 2020 by John Swinburn

I love you. You know who you are. I could listen to your voice for hours if you’d let me. And I suppose you would. But what reason could I give for wanting to hear it? What excuse could I … Continue reading →

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Distortion

Posted on February 19, 2020 by John Swinburn

Consider how radically different your life would have been if you had been adopted in 1962 by a Chinese peasant couple who traveled to the United States from their rural home outside the tiny village of Zhongxin in Guizhou Province, … Continue reading →

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Structured Thinking with a Bit of Flex

Posted on February 6, 2020 by John Swinburn

A tiny bit more structured introspective assessment, please. Nothing imbued with gravitas, though; let’s keep it light and airy, to the extent introspection makes that possible. Keep it flexible so it can bend the way my mind bends. Mind-bending. Does … Continue reading →

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The Cost

Posted on February 2, 2020 by John Swinburn

Words left unspoken Thoughts never shared Love never given Hearts never bared Hurt not softly soothed Life like a cell Hate freely given Tears never fell Eyes lacking for sight Regret not felt Emptiness so cold Knees never knelt Heartaches … Continue reading →

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Shrapnel

Posted on February 1, 2020 by John Swinburn

The confetti from the explosion filled his chest. There was still room for his lungs and his heart and his liver and so forth, but the formerly roomy spaces were clogged with shrapnel. The wounds in his flesh healed over … Continue reading →

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It’s Over

Posted on January 27, 2020 by John Swinburn

You wanted to tell her how much she meant to you, but you waited too late. You waited until she didn’t mean as much. You waited until her faults flooded your brain and drowned your good intentions. You put off … Continue reading →

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The Bad Poet

Posted on January 20, 2020 by John Swinburn

The bad poet mangles words and scorches meanings, bludgeoning beauty until it resembles a bloated corpse left in the desert sun for an entire season. The bad poet ruins ideas, polluting them with bias as thick as an atmosphere of … Continue reading →

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