by Joe Lugara
Secrets I Keep From Myself
Cobwebby crusty
Covered with hoar
Memories whisper
Images roar
Loves yet alive
And me the goat
Names now remembered
Only by rote
Keepaway runaway
Tamped down tight
In the briar bowl of memory
Memories made
Of pipe cleaners and papier mâché
Schoolboy glue and popsicle sticks
Totem faces
Hacked into the back
Of my soul
So dark so deep
Where the pain sleeps
Just once I fell
Into memory’s well
And felt the pain
Without the gain
Of knowing how
To get well
Gregg Norman is a Canadian poet living and writing in a lakeside cottage with his wife and a small dog who runs the place. His work has been placed with many international poetry journals and literary magazines. He has been nominated for Best of The Net and The Pushcart Prize.
Joe Lugara took up painting and photography as a boy after his father discarded them as hobbies. His works depict unusual forms, inexplicable phenomena, and fantastic dreamscapes, taking as their basis horror, science fiction, and fantasy films produced from the 1930s through the late 1960s. Mr. Lugara’s work has appeared in more than 25 publications and numerous exhibitions. His painting series “Scrutiny” was featured in the winter 2023 issue of The Harvard Advocate and his photos in the summer ’23 Denver Quarterly. His first photography book, The Indicators: 127 Sci-Fi Scenes, is available through Barnes and Noble. www.joelugara.com; www.instagram.com/joelugara; www.facebook.com/joelugara1art.