Artwork © Ira Joel Haber

 

What I Can Recall

I took a detour
Lost the map

None of this looks familiar to me
Reflect back to me what my words
Meant to you: “what can I
Believe in but you?”

A train of thought
Unravelling; I mimic what I
Heard in barroom conversations:
Tipsy steps! But at least
I’m still coherent

This daze
Is so inevitable
Still, it’s what you said
To me that will finally
Lead me home

 

Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, California-based writer whose debut poetry collection, Everything is Distant Now (Blue Horse Press) is available on Amazon; In a Place of Dreams, her digital album/chapbook, was published by Jerry Jazz Musician. As for her favorite poetry-related quote, it’s by Lucille Clifton: “Poetry is a matter of life, not a matter of language.”

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer, photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows both in the USA and Europe and he has had nine one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 300 online and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Creative Artists Public Service Grant (CAPS) two Pollock-Krasner grants, two Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grants and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc. in 2017 & 2018 he received the Brooklyn Arts Council SU-CASA artist-in-residence grant.