New Release – Spring 2020

COMING SPRING 2020

unnamed

it’s a feeling, and it’s unnamed.

some have tried the terms
distant or cold.
some have labeled it
aloof or detached.

but those words are all states of being.
the process is what has no name.

knowing someone
is slipping away—but not
physically, not yet.
you feel it: pure feeling,
pure intuition.

as if a see-through barrier
engulfs their bodies
separating you from them.

a gray, opaque river
runs between you within
every interaction.

a viscous liquid covers
their words, the expression on their
faces. their insides feel
foreign to you.

the light—once kindled when
your eyes met—is now absent
when you look at them. your light
remains, but when you look into their
eyes—the mirror is gone—and
reflecting back at you is something…

something unnamed.

you can’t pin it down,
even when you confront them.
they’re just moving…
moving away, inch by inch,
minute by minute, day by day.

the more you grasp, cling, insist you know
something feels “off”
the more pronounced their denial—the
more obvious the disengagement.

then one day, they’re gone.

and as you wander
like the ghost they’d become
in the brief-yet-interminable-time
before they physically vanished—

when asked what happened, you
can’t explain. not to anyone

not to yourself
because what happened is unnamed.

and so you’re left bewildered
positive that if it indeed had a name—
you could have surely stopped

whatever it was
in its tracks.

-j.a. carter-winward,
work in progress: dialogues and poems

Critical Reviews:

“Controversial, salacious, sacrilegious, irreverent at times, and at others, poignant, compassionate, and strangely logical. Carter-Winward’s acerbic critique on the world’s religions are bound to provoke—not only thought, but questions to which work in progress’s poems demand an answer while simultaneously attempting to answer: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? And perhaps the most important question for anyone to ask about anything: Why, why, why?”
—this guy who reads poetry a lot, John something

“I was hoping I could be a bit more critical of ‘work in progress’ …but I can only give my honest opinion: w.i.p read to me like…[Carter-Winward’s] magnum opus.”
—another guy who reads a lot of poetry, this guy named…Russel or Roger…some “R” name, I think.

***

What, you want a rock star review? Think for yourself. They liked it, you might too, or you might not. It’s that simple, isn’t it?

Je te vois, and as always–

peace
-j.a.