The 2019 Online Issue Two
Gods Copper
Raymond Luczak
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every sunday at st michaels all of us nine kids sat in the fourth pew so i could lipread father frank better yet his voice was so whispery with no facial expression after mass he always glanced down at me & ignored me as he carried on with mom & dad hed married them back in 57 i fidgeted with my siblings waiting to pile into dads station wagon & go over to grandmas house on
greenbush street wed run pell mell screaming & laughing through her house maybe id bang on the upright piano but always grandma stood as if an angel fronted with an apron with the aura of sun through the pantry window she picked out a shiny penny & pressed it onto my palm as she looked deep into my eyes she somehow understood i didnt need words just some unfiltered communication her blue eyes looking into mine with her liver spotted hand on mine i lived for every sunday morning knowing i did truly matter not just another mouth to feed not just a quiet boy waiting to say something then she fell because of a stroke in that limbo atmosphere of silence & death i prayed to god begging to bring her back wasnt god supposed to love me too instead i burned with copper in my veins |
Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of 22 books, including Flannelwood (Red Hen Press) and Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman (Squares & Rebels). He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and online at raymondluczak.com.
About the work: “Even though RAYMOND LUCZAK, a Deaf gay man, was raised in a hearing family of nine children, he has always felt like an orphan in their midst. He sought refuge in the woods across the street from his house, hoping that he’d find himself to be a wild creature in disguise. The shadow of St. Michael’s Church on the other side of the woods was much too strong. His poem “Gods Copper” depicts the first fracture of the many to come in his belief system as a budding Catholic.”
About the work: “Even though RAYMOND LUCZAK, a Deaf gay man, was raised in a hearing family of nine children, he has always felt like an orphan in their midst. He sought refuge in the woods across the street from his house, hoping that he’d find himself to be a wild creature in disguise. The shadow of St. Michael’s Church on the other side of the woods was much too strong. His poem “Gods Copper” depicts the first fracture of the many to come in his belief system as a budding Catholic.”
The Art
Johnson Bowles: "Giving voice to my experiences has always been a part of my artwork. In 2018, someone threatened to harm me. I’m not interested in illustrating or recreating what happened; I’m more interested in showing how the experience haunts me. During the last few years, I traveled a great deal for work and mostly alone. When I was finished with my work for the day, I visited museums, where I felt safe in strange cities. There, I used my iPhone to photograph details of paintings that expressed my thoughts related to safety and justice. These details are integral to my new body of work, Veronica’s Cloths.
