Words:
- Bookish
- Escapist
- Flamingo
- Tiddlywinks
- Glisten
- Cat
Phantasms
I’m a mousy mister, a bookish bloke.
My apple is crab; my cherry is choke.
My income is fixed; my budget is broke.
My dreams are fantastic, escapist, baroque:
tiddlywink towers that squop to the sky,
jacks in tall stacks, twenty knucklebones high,
checkers that leap, model airplanes that fly,
chess pieces polished with midnight-blue dye –
a game-player’s paradise! Pinball! Pachinko!
Graphics that glisten and pop! Lights a-blink-o
as bright as the feathers of fifty flamingos!
Sounds that go BLAST-O and BLAM-O and BINGO!
… I beg your pardon. I long for that.
I cook my supper. I pet my cat.
Mild-mannered philosophy professor by day, poet by night,
Ray Briggs teaches at Stanford University, where they also host the syndicated radio show Philosophy Talk. They are the author of the poetry collections Common Sexual Fantasies, Ruined (Cordite Press, 2016) and Free Logic (University of Queensland Press, 2013), as well as the co-author of the zine Modern American Gods, Volumes One and Two (2018, with Anna Zusman) philosophy monograph What Even Is Gender (Routledge, 2023, with B. R. George).
Anna Zusman immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union when she was twelve. She currently teaches drawing and illustration at Southern Arkansas University. In her artwork she questions stereotypes and conventions. Anna regularly participates in zine festivals and exhibits her art around the US. She is a creator of many art books and zines including Mermaid Heritage (2014), Men from Dating Sites: Volume 2 (2019) and Modern American Gods Volumes I and II (with Ray Briggs, 2018).
http://www.annazusman.com/
