ACE of TENTACLES by Kevin Opstedal

The original ACE of TENTACLES manuscript was/is 130+ pages, which I ruthlessly cut down to 22 pages for this chapbook. Nevertheless, it still has a kick to it. Published by Sunnylyn Thibodeaux & Micah Ballard's Auguste Press. 

Accordion Book w/a Pop-Up Heart

Any moment you could be there listening
or right here not listening
but hearing it all tumble
in one ear & out the other

An unobstructed view

Maybe it was the way the pavement laid down at her feet
the sky not quite as dark as her eyes
& the wind if there was any wind must've been cold

Wake up to find that I'm starring in this movie
a mistake down at central casting
a movie I must watch thru binoculars from the balcony section

What would I remember? The plot twisting
as the music swells, subsides,
dissipates into tinkle bells, sledge-
hammers, bird voices

That kind of carelessness
                              it isn't so easy to master

When I get to Mexico all her broken vows will be mine
our children will understand then & the rain will
step into the street & survey the damage
w/eyes of translucent silver

SELECTED PROSE (2008-2019) by Micah Ballard

Poems in prose clothing like Mardi Gras traveling incognito conjuring San Francisco street scenes through a Cajun filter with mystic Tarot reading kickflips and Southern Baptist backslides while a half-forgotten dream lingers somewhere off-stage fiddling with the dial.

Get yourself a copy today.

I Heard You Paint Houses

The key to the motel room was a metaphor
rhyming with the allegorical sunglasses

which may be the point of it all

pointing due north

An ounce of nightingale
versus banjos in the eucalyptus

which I took to mean the prototype

& to lay it down then 
         w/a little 2/4 oom-pah beat
                  spinning the wheel of outrageous fortune

                           like taco Tuesday on a Wednesday

but knocked from the karmic loop
         whatever is going to happen
                  like it already has

& all of it leaning up against yr mind
like a bulldozer
leaning against a feather of mist

HOW I MET JACK BUSWOLD by Stephen Emerson

Here's what the poet Ed Dorn wrote about Stephen Emerson's short stories in 1982: "Steve Emerson notices everything. At the center of his style there is always some detail which, when uncurled, reveals the story in its veins." That statement holds true with Emerson's latest, his first book in over 30 years, How I Met Jack Buswold, a new selection of nine short stories now available from Blue Press. 

Out of Print - Unavailable - 03/01/2026.

They Call Me Pagliacci but My Real Name is Mr. Earle

All that I no longer am
yet carry w/me
an inheritance left unclaimed

         half buried in the sand
                  half washed away in the tide

w/I suppose Oceanities of misappropriated
         albatross-befeathered
                  shadow wings on the waves?

         Only the tender caress of oblivion
                  can take the guesswork out of mercy
                           is another way I could have said it

but if I was talking to you I
wouldn't have to say a thing

After the Gold Rush

The sky its azure reticence
(azure residence?)

between rainstorms

The Dark Rose in her bed of thorns
pinwheels, springs, pendulum ghost shapes
& in the space between molecules
a tractor gracefully rusting

as I said to the lady behind the counter at the
gas station mini-mart
Doris
             a name that means "gift" in Greek
                     in mythology a sea nymph
                             geographically a mountainous region north of
                                      the Gulf of Corinth home to the Dorians

I said "Descriptions should always be misleading"

"Whatever" she said

             In French "d'or" means "gold"

Telemetry

There's no place I'd rather be than
half way there
         walking like a Peloponnesian
                  as though it might cure the common yearning
                           love leaves in its wake

         The audio clip ticking like a waterproof watch
         from the T'ang Dynasty

                  A sun tan neatly folded over the
                  balcony of my heart

& sure you can pretend that you see your reflection
in the polished blue mirror of the sky but
it isn't yours
until you give it away

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Cashing in on the 7 Deadly Sins
Trying to build a banjo out of
used car parts & a lost weekend in San Bernadino

Jimmy Reed & Ida Lupino
Listening to the wind skip like a broken needle

Motive & Opportunity
I could swim thru all that you spill I said
but drinking from a puddle
at the bottom of the ocean
wasn't the only way to
express my thirst