Well, that’s it… We’ve published our final piece. I’ve thought long and hard about what to say when the time to shut down finally rolled around, but now that it’s here, I’m at a loss for words, so I’ll get down to business first. I’ll be honest… I’m not sure what will happen to the […]| Fourth and Sycamore
Author’s Note: The following poems are from a one-year-long project called POND — The poems are acrostics. Everyday, at different times during the day, I visit our pond with notebook and camera in hand. I jot down some notes, take a picture or two, if a good photo op. presents itself. Then I head home […]| Fourth and Sycamore
You Smile Out You smile out, rain gear, motorcycles, full pack. Blue Ridge Mountains, shades mostly gray, and some black. Left Asheville with storms around, neatly aligned. Highway east. Mean skies ahead, meaner behind. Your dressing for weather, became a good bet. My simpler plan had been, long ride, leather wet. Turned north, to follow […]| Fourth and Sycamore
Late-night Greyhound Come, you travelers of this land, you hemmed in or put-upon parsers of the pocketbook bent on grandma’s heaping plates or the Golden Gate. Bring your paperbacks and iPhones, your bags stuffed with Cheetos, Snickers and pure spring waters— worry not, there’ll be a pit stop at Hardee’s or McDonald’s. Put your cares […]| Fourth and Sycamore
American Crayons Crumbling black brick with white lettering index finger smokestack dismantled machines lost workers Instruments of color creation kindergarten perceptions of broccoli stalk trees and beaming suns an artist’s rendering gauzy scenes of a Bordeaux countryside cylinders of orange, mauve and maroon poured, molded, dried cut, packaged shipped opened in rooms of A, B, […]| Fourth and Sycamore
A Hypnotic Moment It was there, I had it inside my gums. And then it vanished. Like everything external, you can’t hold it beneath your eyelids. You just watch from afar and wonder what it would be like to tremble from the touch by a finger from his heart, seeping through his words. The only […]| Fourth and Sycamore
Hello again, loyal readers! I come to you today with a heavy heart… after five years of publishing, Fourth & Sycamore will be closing up shop. There were many factors contributing to this decision, but ultimately, it all comes down to time. Unfortunately, our new normal just isn’t allowing enough time to run the journal […]| Fourth and Sycamore
It is all after the age of bandbox It was a year of nights, not wholly crushed on the earthen sheet. Planets from the unknown trees weren’t typically flattened by the roller of creamiest blissfulness. And the night’s elbows and ankles still were firmly open, protruding themselves like our lonely visionary child It was a […]| Fourth and Sycamore
Postcard with Photograph I walked the Great Wall today, and went deep in the dark of a tomb. —Gary Snyder On the postcard he sends along with my thumb drives and journals left for the dumpster, the Great Wall trails off into the chalkboard smear of a blizzard, blazing scrubland slopes, its parapets […]| Fourth and Sycamore
Dance of Tears, Chief Nobody (V5) I’m old Indian chief story plastered on white scattered sheets, Caucasian paper blowing in yesterday’s winds. I feel white man’s presence in my blindness- cross ov…| Fourth and Sycamore
