POPOL VUH The children held a competition, building snowmen. It was an all-day affair, bundled munchkins with red cheeks and furrowed brows scampering from yard to yard like little Giacometti gods at work on the Art of Man. In the end, there was no one to judge who won, nor guidelines to rate the melting […]

A Poem Written After a Bad Night in June 2021 I have never much liked thinking About parallel universes. Order is so tempting When faced with The terror of chance.  It is easy to believe that We are the result Of one special Sperm, That our happiness Is not dependent  On two people Swiping right, […]

‘Appendices’ is part of J.A. Pak’s Chaos Back to Me. A Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions nominee, her writing has been published in Firmament, BHP, Litro, Lunch Ticket, Joyland, etc. More of her work can be seen at Triple Eight Palace of Dreams & Happiness

ACTS 17:16  paul left rome for athens where he found a city full of idols  & cried out  for they did not do as he did if you left the emerald city without taking off the glasses,  you too might scoff at someone  who pointed at a pomegranate and called it red EXODUS 20:5 God […]

In lane 1 squats a racoon,Thanksgiving Day at noon,motionless, on its haunches staring at I64 pavement. Along the creek’s unfrozen soft soilthrough a blanket of brown oak leaves, green briar whips push out red buds,brush my hand, thorns blood mefour months before spring. Barn cat retracts its claws from a mole,seized from a burrow nestnear the firewood […]

Love to walk by the creek and hear the birds speak  their secret language. See them play in pairs like pilots in an air show. Wish to fly now. Seems like this whole lifetime  is spent waiting. Will miss the fleeting moments of joy but is it ever worth the pain? Salvation is promised yet […]

You Got Your Spell on Me, Baby Santana, “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” A woman exited the B Line train near her North Hollywood bungalow just as the night sky began to look as if God were juggling with the sands of time. The train exited the station leaving a neon streak in the darkness that […]

In college I cut my hair boy short, you noticed  and saw value in inadvisable decisions.  At night we would center ourselves on a half mattress,  meant for a sofa bed, on the floor.  Your mother bought us a new bed. Handmade beautiful honey pine. A year later the soft wooden slats began to buckle, […]

Memories lie In rosary beads Rose bush seeds Between fingers In prayer Scattered, buried Both bloom From dark places Of the mind The earth Reaching toward sunlight Hunting for dawn Outstretched among the thorns The aches and alleluias Mementos of the heart Shrouded in sepia Beads bound by chains Familiar refrains Like the roots of […]

I dreamt I dreamt I begged  you for us to watch  The Office—it was  so ominous inside,  so insidious inside of me.  When I awoke I was so still, still thinking I was in limbo still. The frogs, they only laughed at me. Why do they? Why do they laugh as the dawn draws near? […]