by Justin Robinson
Ritual
I look for omens everywhere, because they are everywhere
to be found.
– Carl Phillips
grandeur can be grander when
you’ve learned to look around
& read the possibilities
warning in the light-spilled
blood dawn
rubies everywhere
pulled from the mouths of men
spiders in groups of three tapping
out morse code on cold bathroom
tile the color of milk
a nightingale singing the black
to life
only to fly into a window
when the sun cracks the horizon
learning to read such things gives
a whole new meaning to fear
unlearning it would be to
feed sharks while in the water
to flay yourself in front of an eagle
as if it would not seize upon hunger
take these omens for what you will
molten-throated terror or glory
in every direction: an old woman with
your nail clippings
clouds shaped like
ladders
an eye worn
for protection that
reports everything
to the omen king
crows falling from
the sky in groups
of four
a clock that
runs backwards
an always open door
Matt Schroeder is a poet and educator currently living in southern China. His poetry can be found in Thin Air Magazine, The Rush, Dovecote Magazine, Poetry Lab Shanghai, The Decadent Review, Fearsome Critters Magazine, New World Writing, and in Art in the Time of COVID-19 from San Fedele Press.
Justin Robinson Expressionist Painter living in Toronto, and a traveller of the north he’s spent the last 10 years exploring the human condition. Realized in the form of rich tonal values, color and brush strokes, the works he considers to share a quality between abstract-emotionalism and structure provided by realism. Current student of London Art College in the field of Portraiture.