Frank G. Karioris (he/they/him/them) is a writer and educator based in Pittsburgh whose writing addresses issues of friendship, masculinity, and gender. They are Visiting Lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh. Their academic work has appeared, amongst others, in the Journal of Gender Studies, Journal of Men’s Studies, and Culture Unbound. Their poetic work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, Collective Unrest, Maudlin House, Sooth Swarm Journal, and Crêpe & Penn amongst others. They are a regular contributor to Headline Poetry & Press.
Special Collection: Creativity in the Time of the Pandemic 2020>>
Finding joy during the pandemic
Bacon in the oven,
& biscuits by a sister & friend
& gravy made on the stove.
If I told you this
as a way of shining light
on the sharing of love,
think more of those
actions you have done
to be together as
couples, as family,
as kin born outside of blood
but made in life.
Day 6: A woman across the alley
Standing on the small back balcony,
overlooking in the distance the Sears,
a woman across the alley & up her back patio
is wearing a face mask & blue plastic gloves.
She stands in her white bathroom, putting
a bag of something into a bin
before heading
back inside briefly,
leaving the door fully open.
Walking down, to take out the boxes
to the recycling can, in blue,
the deck for the apartment below
is littered with
cut chunks of hazel hair.
This, they must think, is the way to find
a cure, a moment outside of the times
we were together.
Aubade for my students in a pandemic
Each morning I wake up
& each morning I have another
email from students with their
stories of difficulty & pain.
Each morning I send them
my positive thoughts & tell
them that they are right &
valid in the disquiet & grief.
Each morning I tell them
to try & take time to relax,
whatever that might look
like for them in these days.
Each morning I see it, getting
worse with more dead & ill,
& fear taking over greater parts
of each of our consciousness.
Each morning I wake next
to someone I care about & worry
what will happen to them, us,
in the coming days, weeks, months.
Each morning I try to put these
worries to the back of my head,
to let them float away quietly
so that I may send my students words
of kindness, gentleness, & support.
Each morning I know they are
worse off than before & I have less ability
to sooth or help them through what will
pock their lives, today & tomorrow.
Pieces elegiac, pt 3
Compress those
touches
into yourself.
*
Touch sky’s
lightning
to keep yourself.
*
Oh bodies,
they are more difficult
than we know.
*
Sand fallen
& fallow
the shore is further afield
*
Excitement over joy
to be spilled
on tables & over coffee,
*
A pinhole eye,
spiral phonograph
plays on.
Watching her paint // joy
Hold it in your hands,
those blues & whites that
overshadow the
midnight sky out the window.
Touch it with your
fingers where rain
kisses ground
& bricks meet mortar.
Those black & white
photos of Picasso
which seemed so
out of place
hold my mind now with
depth & wonder
& I wonder what worlds
you are opening.
A old ceramic white
water jug
now streaked
with a small crack
holds all the brushes face down
waiting to return to canvas.
Published on April 18, 2020. © Author.