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Founder and Editor
John Burroughs,
a.k.a. Jesus Crisis, is a pacifist, poet, playwright, musician, composer, bibliophile, and seeker in Elyria, Ohio.
Co-founder (with Dianne Borsenik) of the monthly Lix and Kix Poetry Extravaganza and the annual winter wordfest known as Snoetry, John is also the founding editor and publisher for Crisis Chronicles Press and a regular contributor to the Cleveland Poetics and Ohio Poetry Association blogs. Since 2011 he has served as the OPA's webmaster pro tem.
John founded a loose association called Poets of Lorain County, under whose auspices he's hosted regular open mic and featured poet events at the Avon Lake Public Library and the Lorain Arts Council's 737 Gallery, as well as the PoetryElyria series at Jim's Coffeehouse and Diner, the Scott M. Duncan Photography studio and other venues in his hometown.
John's work has appeared on stages in four states, as well as in numerous journals, and he is the author of five poetry chapbooks:
Water Works (Recycled Karma Press, 2012)
Electric Company (Writing Knights Press, 2011)
6/9: Improvisations in Dependence by Jesus Crisis (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2009)
Identity Crises by Doug Manson, JC and Bree (Green Panda Press, 2009)
Bloggerel by JC (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2008)
Two broadsides featuring his work, For Change Is and Low Kay Shun, are available from NightBallet Press. His fifth chapbook, Water Works, is forthcoming in 2012 from Recycled Karma Press.
Visit the Crisis Chronicles home page or his Crisis Blog to learn more about John.Subscribe Via Feed
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The Base of All Metaphysics (by Walt Whitman)
The Base of All Metaphysics
by Walt Whitman
from "Calamus" in Leaves of Grass, 1871
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base and finalè too for all metaphysics.
(So to the students the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)
Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,
Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,
Of city for city and land for land.
To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.
On Those That Hated 'The Playboy of the Western World,' 1907 (Yeats)
Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]
On Those That Hated 'The Playboy of the Western World,' 1907
by William Butler Yeats
from Responsibilities [1914]
Once, when midnight smote the air,
Eunuchs ran through Hell and met
On every crowded street to stare
Upon great Juan riding by:
Even like these to rail and sweat
Staring upon his sinewy thigh.
To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.
The Wind Lass (by Lisa J. Cihlar)
Lisa J. Cihlar
The Wind Lass
Standing on the shore, the big lake threw everything at her. Everything it had—sand, broken reeds, alewife bones, and scales. She settled her spine flat on the dune, head tilted to the left, always to the left. Listened to the shush of grain on grain, the rattle of beach pea pods, the screee of seagulls near and far. Covered with a fine particle blanket she wore away. She lost her name. She became a hillock. The black lab bounding down the surf with a red ball in his mouth was called away when he sniffed her. This was the place she dreamed. This was the place she joined the wind and flew apart.
"The Wind Lass" (c) 2012 by Lisa J. Cihlar, all rights reserved. Used by permission. This poem appears in her chapbook This Is How She Fails, published May 8th 2012 by Crisis Chronicles Press.
This is How She Fails (CC#23) — cover art by Lisa Marie Peaslee
This Is How She Fails by Lisa J. Cihlar is a cycle of more than two dozen prose poems comprising 26 pages and featuring a white and dual blue cardstock cover. It is available for $7 US (includes shipping) from Crisis Chronicles Press, c/o John Burroughs, 420 Cleveland Street, Elyria, Ohio 44035. Or you may order via PayPal:
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances (by Walt Whitman)
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances
by Walt Whitman
from "Calamus" in Leaves of Grass, 1867
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they are) only
apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known,
(How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them,)
May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but seem) as from my present point
of view, and might prove (as of course they would) nought of what they appear, or nought anyhow,
from entirely changed points of view;
To me these and the like of these are curiously answer'd by my lovers, my dear friends,
When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
To read other Whitman selections in the Crisis Chronicles Online Library, click here.
Joshua Clover - Million Poems Show at the Bowery Poetry Club
http://youtu.be/EgfMT58xkTg
science project, pocatello (by Chansonette Buck)
Chansonette Buck in Lorain, Ohio, 2011
photo by Dianne Borsenik
science project, pocatello
as a child, i was always drawn by death.
i thought it was a fifth-grade project
but i started it so early. early
i slammed out the shack door,
trotting barefoot on night-cooled dust
through sage, mountain flowers, purpleweed,
combing the borders of the government land
looking for death. sometimes i found it:
horse skulls,
eyesockets,
jackrabbit bones,
field mice under a juniper,
lizard skins drying on the hot red rocks.
"science project, pocatello" (c) 2012 by Chansonette Buck, all rights reserved. It appears in her just published chapbook desire lines (Crisis Chronicles Press). desire lines features 17 poems on high quality ivory paper with a cover consisting of ashen orange and white cardstock. Dimensions: 8.5 x 7 inches. It is available for $5 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 420 Cleveland Street, Elyria, Ohio 44035.
Cover foto captured by Steven B. Smith in Oaxaca, Mexico
Chansonette Buck spent her childhood “on the road” as stepdaughter of a Black Mountain poet, living all over the American West, in England, and in Spain. She holds the PhD in English from the University of California, Berkeley, where she concentrated on 20th-century poetry and poetics and wrote a dissertation on childhood trauma as the source of William Carlos Williams's poetic obsessions. She has a BFA in painting from Massachusetts College of Art, and has won awards for her visual art, her poetry, and her teaching. Chapters of her memoir Unnecessary Turns: Growing Up Beat have appeared in Why We Ride: Women Writers on the Horses in Their Lives (Seal Press, May 2010) and Polarity eMagazine (Fall 2010). Her poems have appeared online and in print, including a feature in the journal tinfoildresses 2012. Her first chapbook, blood oranges (NightBallet Press, 2011), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Berkeley with her family, her boa constrictor, and way too many cats and dogs.
Glimmer (by Carl Sandburg)
Carl Sandburg
Glimmer
by Carl Sandburg
from Smoke and Steel [1916, Harcourt, Brace & Howe]
Let down your braids of hair, lady.
Cross your legs and sit before the looking-glass
And gaze long on lines under your eyes.
Life writes; men dance.
And you know how men pay women.
Science of Mind (by Ben Nardolilli)
by Ben Nardolilli
I close my eyes and see
All my regrets are vermilion,
They are not quite burning,
And not quite bleeding either,
My face senses a strange heat,
And I open my eyes to it,
There is snow on the ground
But flames in the trees,
A wolf howls in front of me,
Here everything is beautiful
And nothing is worth saving.
Ben Nardolilli currently lives in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, One Ghana One Voice, Caper Literary Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, fwriction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Pear Noir, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, and Yes Poetry. His chapbook Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained, has been published by Folded Word Press. He maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is looking to publish his first novel.
When Helen Lived (by William Butler Yeats)
Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]
When Helen Lived
by William Butler Yeats
from Responsibilities [1914]
We have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent, sport,
Beauty that we have won
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those topless towers
Where Helen walked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.
To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.
Nature and Art (by Paul Laurence Dunbar)
Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906
Nature and Art
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
[from Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896]
To my friend, Charles Booth Nettleton
I
The young queen Nature, ever sweet and fair,
Once on a time fell upon evil days.
From hearing oft herself discussed with praise,
There grew within her heart the longing rare
To see herself; and every passing air
The warm desire fanned into lusty blaze.
Full oft she sought this end by devious ways,
But sought in vain, so fell she in despair.
For none within her train nor by her side
Could solve the task or give the envied boon.
So day and night, beneath the sun and moon,
She wandered to and fro unsatisfied,
Till Art came by, a blithe inventive elf,
And made a glass wherein she saw herself.
II
Enrapt, the queen gazed on her glorious self,
Then trembling with the thrill of sudden thought,
Commanded that the skillful wight be brought
That she might dower him with lands and pelf.
Then out upon the silent sea-lapt shelf
And up the hills and on the downs they sought
Him who so well and wondrously had wrought;
And with much search found and brought home the elf,
But he put by all gifts with sad replies,
And from his lips these words flowed forth like wine:
"Oh, queen, I want no gift but thee," he said.
She heard and looked on him with love-lit eyes,
Gave him her hand, low murmuring, "I am thine,"
And at the morrow's dawning they were wed.
Dear Mosquitoes (by Ben Nardolilli)
by Ben Nardolilli
The limbs of the fertile city spring out
And blossom and rub,
Fingers keep moving along lovers' backs
To make pretend explorations,
Though they know every vertebra there,
In other rooms, mouths open to share
Breaths when there is nothing more to say,
I look for a cool abode of bricks
To abide by and find a little night to hold
In the shadow of this bright day,
A relief for me because the night is a fine time
To be an isolate untouched and alone.
Ben Nardolilli currently lives in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Red Fez, One Ghana One Voice, Caper Literary Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, fwriction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Pear Noir, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, and Yes Poetry. His chapbook Common Symptoms of an Enduring Chill Explained, has been published by Folded Word Press. He maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com and is looking to publish his first novel.
bath poems - moon train (by Chansonette Buck)
Chansonette Buck in Lorain, Ohio, 2011
photo by Dianne Borsenik
bath poems
moon train
listening to
the moon train
passing beyond
the bart tracks
while it rains
that lone
lonely whistle
i hear
on wakeful nights
without you
i sink deep
into these
soft warm waters
running my hands
along the contours
of my wet
body, as i imagine
you might...if you
could...if you
wanted to
as i sink
deeper
into the warm
wet and watch
the play of patterns
thrown by candles
onto the ceiling
above me
"science project, pocatello" (c) 2012 by Chansonette Buck, all rights reserved. It appears in her just published chapbook desire lines (Crisis Chronicles Press). desire lines features 17 poems on high quality ivory paper with a cover consisting of ashen orange and white cardstock. Dimensions: 8.5 x 7 inches. It is available for $5 from Crisis Chronicles Press, 420 Cleveland Street, Elyria, Ohio 44035.
Cover foto captured by Steven B. Smith in Oaxaca, Mexico
Chansonette Buck spent her childhood “on the road” as stepdaughter of a Black Mountain poet, living all over the American West, in England, and in Spain. She holds the PhD in English from the University of California, Berkeley, where she concentrated on 20th-century poetry and poetics and wrote a dissertation on childhood trauma as the source of William Carlos Williams's poetic obsessions. She has a BFA in painting from Massachusetts College of Art, and has won awards for her visual art, her poetry, and her teaching. Chapters of her memoir Unnecessary Turns: Growing Up Beat have appeared in Why We Ride: Women Writers on the Horses in Their Lives (Seal Press, May 2010) and Polarity eMagazine (Fall 2010). Her poems have appeared online and in print, including a feature in the journal tinfoildresses 2012. Her first chapbook, blood oranges (NightBallet Press, 2011), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Berkeley with her family, her boa constrictor, and way too many cats and dogs.
Hummingbird Woman (by Carl Sandburg)
Carl Sandburg
Hummingbird Woman
by Carl Sandburg
from Smoke and Steel [1916, Harcourt, Brace & Howe]
Why should I be wondering
How you would look in black velvet and yellow?
in orange and green?
I who cannot remember whether it was a dash of blue
Or a whirr of red under your willow throat—
Why do I wonder how you would look in hummingbird feathers?
The Colored Soldiers (by Paul Laurence Dunbar)
Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906
The Colored Soldiers
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
[from Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896]
If the muse were mine to tempt it
And my feeble voice were strong,
If my tongue were trained to measures,
I would sing a stirring song.
I would sing a song heroic
Of those noble sons of Ham,
Of the gallant colored soldiers
Who fought for Uncle Sam!
In the early days you scorned them,
And with many a flip and flout,
Said "these battles are the white man's
And the whites will fight them out."
Up the hills you fought and faltered,
In the vales you strove and bled,
While your ears still heard the thunder
Of the foes' increasing tread.
Then distress fell on the nation
And the flag was drooping low;
Should the dust pollute your banner?
No! the nation shouted, No!
So when war, in savage triumph,
Spread abroad his funeral pall—
Then you called the colored soldiers,
And they answered to your call.
And like hounds unleashed and eager
For the life blood of the prey,
Sprung they forth and bore them bravely
In the thickest of the fray.
And where'er the fight was hottest,
Where the bullets fastest fell,
There they pressed unblanched and fearless
At the very mouth of hell.
Ah, they rallied to the standard
To uphold it by their might;
None were stronger in the labors,
None were braver in the fight.
From the blazing breach of Wagner
To the plains of Olustee,
They were foremost in the fight
Of the battles of the free.
And at Pillow! God have mercy
On the deeds committed there,
And the souls of those poor victims
Sent to Thee without a prayer.
Let the fulness of Thy pity
O'er the hot wrought spirits sway,
Of the gallant colored soldier
Who fell fighting on that day!
Yes, the Blacks enjoy their freedom,
And they won it dearly, too;
For the life blood of their thousands
Did the southern fields bedew.
In the darkness of their bondage,
In the depths of slavery's night;
Their muskets flashed the dawning
And they fought their way to light.
They were comrades then and brothers,
Are they more or less to-day?
They were good to stop a bullet
And to front the fearful fray.
They were citizens and soldiers,
When rebellion raised its head;
And the traits that made them worthy,—
Ah! those virtues are not dead.
They have shared your nightly vigils,
They have shared your daily toil;
And their blood with yours commingling
Has made rich the Southern soil.
They have slept and marched and suffered
'Neath the same dark skies as you,
They have met as fierce a foeman,
And have been as brave and true.
And their deeds shall find a record,
In the registry of Fame;
For their blood has cleansed completely
Every blot of Slavery's shame.
So all honor and all glory
To those noble Sons of Ham—
The gallant colored soldiers,
Who fought for Uncle Sam!
To a Shade (by William Butler Yeats)
Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]
To a Shade
by William Butler Yeats
from Responsibilities [1914]
If you have revisited the town, thin Shade,
Whether to look upon your monument
(I wonder if the builder has been paid)
Or happier-thoughted when the day is spent
To drink of that salt breath out of the sea
When grey gulls flit about instead of men,
And the gaunt houses put on majesty:
Let these content you and be gone again;
For they are at their old tricks yet.
A man
Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought
In his full hands what, had they only known,
Had given their children's children loftier thought,
Sweeter emotion, working in their veins
Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place,
And insult heaped upon him for his pains
And for his open-handedness, disgrace;
Your enemy, an old foul mouth, had set
The pack upon him.
Go, unquiet wanderer,
And gather the Glasnevin coverlet
About your head till the dust stops your ear,
The time for you to taste of that salt breath
And listen at the corners has not come;
You had enough of sorrow before death —
Away, away! You are safer in the tomb.
September 29, 1913
To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.