Image by by HilLesha O’Nan, David’s wife while she was visiting West Virginia.

-(he/him) David L O’Nan

is a writer/founder of Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art. He has several self-published books and curator of 5 Anthologies. His work can be found on www.feversofthemind.com .   You can see his work on Anti-Heroin Chic, Icefloe Press, Cajun Mutt Press, Royal Rose Mag, Dark Marrow, Ghost City Review, Nymphs Publishing,

Spillwords, Punk Noir Mag and more.  And has been a Best of the Net Nominee in 2019.

Interview Continued

Q2: What was it about Plath and Sexton that appealed to you? 

A: Well, my brother Ethan had a collection of Anne Sexton’s poems.  I never knew imagery could have been expressed so emotionally prior to that.   The use of metaphors to describe misery, love, humor,lust, depression & death were endless. It opened up the Pandora’s Box of words to me.  After Anne Sexton. Then it was Plath, Kerouac,  Burroughs, Ginsberg, Maya Angelou, and the influences keep growing. Lorca, Neruda, and now modern poets that I now talk to is fascinating when before writers and poets was folklore to me.  Now it is an identification to me when I’m not just a father, husband, worker at a finance fileroom. I can escape to the mythical world that seems so real for me that is writing and hiding in other people’s dirt. Their words cover me.

Q3: How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?   A: Well in school, I didn’t always fully understand poetry from pre 1900, or maybe it was just

A: A symptom of having undiagnosed ADHD.  I enjoyed history and learning about lives of people, other writers.  However, it didn’t take me until after High School Years to want to know more about poetry tradition.  Keats, Poe, Blake, Yeats, etc.   I have kind of backtracked in my history in knowledge of poetry.  I am a student, but I hate to be forced to write a certain way. I don’t always fully understand meaning behind older poetry until I can look over numerous times.   As in contemporary poetry I didn’t really think it was as wide spreading (yet needs to be even more so) until after I began reading at open mics, and then hosting my own series of poetry.  I felt the only poetry that was being read was attempts at beat poetry & street poetry.  Trying to be edgy, yet nothing having a full story inside the lines. It took me to do research myself, getting involved mostly on Twitter to fully understand there are still poets that have the love to write.  (Not a facebook fan much and don’t have Instagram)

Poetry From “Lost Reflections”

A CHANGING OF WINDS

As a lonely twister eats away our town
A whistle blows through your frail bones,
As fragile as parchment paper
The decanter crashes to the kitchen floor
Your blue eyes live like a suicide
Skin itches to a burn
Your courage lost in a circadian rhythm of change
All the songs are now lost
You left
The woods are spotless

LUCID

A strong ocean wave hits
A target of heart
Of our prayers
A body in tremors
Where the scent of rose overcomes
A murder truck stop
A Friday night
A haunted bedroom
In the waves we vision the sky
That sky that becomes one with the ground, now
And we spin through our skin
And become lucid

ENEMIES BEHIND FENCES

We still get those no trespassing signs
With barbed wire cutting our hands
Our enemies waving us through
Smiles eating at the precious air
Be aware
Those are jagged halos
Pricking at your mortal vision
They pick you up with a soaked hook
Creating new paint for an old soul
Suffocates
To an artillery of clouds
Watch the ashes electrocute in the wind

ANGELS AND FOSSILS

In the sand is the answer
To the fossils of many sacred bubbles
That burst from the ocean waves
Across the clouds,
The angels in tears
Fanning in new funerals
Sending out new invitations

CLEMENTI MOON

Oh, the pianos fall
And we see in the distance
A heaven warps in the warm keys
From a melted soul
A ghost she left hovering little tiny dust of miracles
Sonatas for the Gods
She waltzed herself away too soon
Hanging by 1 finger on the Clementi Moon.

LUMINESCENCE

Maimed by the luminescence
Shedding my light through
The thinning dim bulbs veiled as skin
I have become ravenous for ripe thought
Accused of being the eccentric appendage –
To a derailing mind
My last decree of love written faintly
“in dark skies where our fears dine”

THE BEAUTY OF THE SEAS

Beyond the beauty of the seas
Are the bending spoons
With the masked freedom
I freeze when touched
In polygon corners
With red tearducts reflecting
Back at my maddening smile
Clouds of ducks fill the air
Bald eagles cripple in my steps
When the world gets sick
And the angels are replaced by snake oil salesmen
Caught and immobile
They move in
And they are hungry
The appetite for the apple
And the throbbing heart of the wolf

LION

In a parade by your kingdom
You soak up all the attention
As boastful and hungry as the lion
You, with the smile that you own as bulletproof
Everyone will treat you like you’re the only power
Watch out for the wires
They are falling and surging
The underlings have today
And they crush flies with bare hands
Idiots!

BIRTHDAY REVOLUTIONARIES

My friends are the bleeding carnival
They are also grocery store garbage
That are artistic,
They are also codeine driven
Sometimes they crawl out of their graves
Long enough to be birthday revolutionaries.

COWARD

If only I could crash through the center of your soul and eradicate the negativity of your past.
And paint your crippling mind into purity and hope I would.
When all is lost
A shadow shakes and will sunshine follow, or does it stay hidden?
A coward behind loose clouds

LAZILY

She crawled lazily as a spider
Through the cracks of the walls
Inside your heart of a bleeding moment
A voice was ulcered out of a gypsy phantom
The sky opened up, and sung a bruised harmony
The spider had to climb into a human’s hair
To hide away from the fears
Until the last raindrop pimpled the ground
And it was safe to be free again