Neon Dust Falling Out of Time by Jeff Bagato

Consumed by wind 
in its full fury, sucked
dry, powdered, dusted,
each grain of ash picked
out from the others and absorbed
by new winds, tossed until
it turns to smoke; all things
will smoke in the end
as the universe dissolves,
cinder by pale cinder,
until every particle comes clean
of the others, vibrating alone
like a jukebox in a tornado
on the cold surface of a wasted 
moon—but that moon 
is now dust, and the neon 
record machine is now
dust, and the music is dust,
but the song lifts up 
from the shining voices 
of those cinders floating 
on a space-time sea—
the tingling of destruction,
like some lost mollusc
joy when no longer forming
a pearl but becoming one,
flesh going hard and smooth
and gray as electric carrion,
or just neon dust
falling out of time;
there are these
things we can’t know,
and that’s all our dreams
are good for

A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), And the Trillions (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found jeffbagato.com.

No Love Like the Sun by Jeff Bagato

two pale butterflies
curl around each other
trailing electric smoke, sparks 
of fairy light calling 
back to the sun—
                 a message
against the dead world
of trapped fire ganged
into service of a machine
that would kill the sun itself
if it could reach so far
with hands so big—
                   a curse
against hands that break
wood and stone and air
into pieces that cannot be returned
to other shapes,
their use for building
drained to rust and toxic ash
and no longer even fit 
to fuel that sun—a lustful gut
that would wear away
the world for its own delight
to see other things lie
down in shame—
               an old love
not like the sun
which fosters eggs and wind, 
layering even ice and ocean
into many teeming worlds,
each with their own taste
for light, no matter
how obscure, or far away,
or nearly out of heat

A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), And the Trillions (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at jeffbagato.com.

Another Broken Home by Jeff Bagato

paradise so often becomes hell
when a king bears himself up
on the false pillars of pride
which he carved alone
in a legacy of dreams

wind blows across time,
stripping the houses from those pillars,
a culture from its bones

a princess goes mad
under the influence of wind;
the king must die—he who killed 
her favorite brother—the son
whose greater strength sealed 
his doom

as his children died,
the king built a pillar, one by one,
and so they fell in time,
eleven broken stones releasing souls;
one pillar stands today, 
the soul of the patricide 
trapped as if forever
in the rock:

a mushroom stone
like a fist raised
with a cry 

A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), And the Trillions (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at jeffbagato.com.

Once Upon an Island by Jeff Bagato

It’s a dream we all had,
to float out across this sea
to another, larger land
and there find sweeter
fruits, and meat and fish
coming to net and snare
of their own free will

Dreams like fierce winds
carry us away—dark
green waves break
on the bow of our island,
and one day we, too,
will join those continents
of other men

Ambition’s prisoners
take no further looks
around to judge their position;
only the horizon remains in view,
and the sharks ahead
are seen as guides
instead of omens of despair

A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), And the Trillions (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found jeffbagato.com.

Future Dragons by Jeff Bagato

All the dragons of the sea
leaping in the rain;
a typhoon tickles their fancy,
and a hurricane sends them food
in ships broken down 
with heavy loads of soap 
or turds, or loaves of metal,
clashing bells of concrete paranoia,
and so many frantic shrimps
popping into mouths
with gooey bites

The dragons race away from land,
a toxic place, never knowing 
they’ve been extinct for many years,
a thousand, thousand watchful years
of ocean play and the love of brine
like pickled eels preserved forever 
against the fading tales of ocean 
glory and haunted maps, where 
danger looms like hope
at the frontiers of future time







A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. Some of his poetry and visuals have recently appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, Otoliths, Gold Wake Live, H&, The New Post-Literate, and Midnight Lane Boutique. Some short fiction has appeared in Gobbet and The Colored Lens. He has published nineteen books, all available through the usual online markets, including Savage Magic (poetry) and Kill Claus! (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.com.

Shattered Maps by Jeff Bagato

For iron and gold, 
and diamonds,
and the lesser stuff like fruit and grain,
warriors passed this territory
along a trail of blood

Haunted cities died, and these people
dropped their names in blood
so often they called themselves
the forgotten

But their cities lived in legends:
faerie towers built
on light, minarets and domes
and glories of a civilization
too marvelous to bear,
its riches brighter than the sun

The best cultures 
are those that do not survive,
as only there can human
dreams find refuge
from the barbarian storms

All the roads that lead there
were drowned in shadow and mist,
and the maps recording
the roads shattered
by dragon’s claws

This late country is soon re-found
by mapmakers who had never 
seen beast or land or war
or such beauty outside 
the inner joy of a mind at rest






A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), And the Trillions (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Computing Angels (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found jeffbagato.com. 

This World is Ash by Jeff Bagato

What rock wouldn’t scream
when it learns, upon awakening, 
how it used to be human, 
and all that’s left of a soft body
is displaced ash
and the hollow mold of volcanic ire

A banker who died
not clutching coins
but dust and the last breath
of cool fresh air

A gladiator who dropped
his sword and ran for open space
as the armory collapsed,
his lungs burned from the inside
out at a single breath

mothers and children who snatched 
at visions of ropes thrown 
down by unknown hands
to pull them from the scorching blast
and the layers of powder
pressing them down to humble 
address, out of reach
of each other’s comforting arms

a mountain of fire
can kill a city
when it roars,
and all that remains
becomes a landscape
of shattered dreams







A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music, glitch video, sticker art, and pop surrealism paintings. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), Cthulhu Limericks (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Dishwasher on Mars (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.wordpress.com . 

The Lock of Victorian Hair by Jeff Bagato

go over the window, follow the voices
into morning—an ectoplasmic
cool shivers you and it’s only natural
that you should regret living—
you’re little, young with hair fresh
and it’s never too late to be flying,
for the pillows to feel so heavy

your long dreams have told
you what to do and how
it would go once they touched
your hand

you have only to see the tops
of the trees which you had not
seen before—and it wasn’t
angels that most amazed
you but the thought of somehow
now living this way—always
in flight, always airy—

with sickness became normal,
a special case
allowed to see







A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music, glitch video, sticker art, and pop surrealism paintings. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), Cthulhu Limericks (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Dishwasher on Mars (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.wordpress.com.

The Haunting by Jeff Bagato

blind spirit in the room
gives negative charge unintentional—
no purposeful malfeasance
but only terror, like a wild bird
pressed against glass, unable 
to pause, unable to comprehend
its inability to pass, the adrenalin killing
cells rapidly, the bird then fighting
death more than the glass, and where
a fly merely becomes angry at such
inconvenience, the bird bashes its beak 
to pieces, slamming itself into the 
invisible, and this spirit, I think,
has found me, and I can name
her, although that won’t help her 
situation, won’t help her find the light,
or the darkness—not knowing the spirit
world, I couldn’t say—but I feel 
her fluttering in my own heart;
her fatigue exhausts me, tears me
out of myself, but still calm—
sensing her, her freedom become ecstasy;
I know she will settle down,
last of the Lost Generation, possibly
scared at how lost I seem, now 
that she has suddenly seen me
and goes blind








A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music, glitch video, sticker art, and pop surrealism paintings. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), Cthulhu Limericks (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Dishwasher on Mars (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.wordpress.com.