
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:
Q7:Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?
A: I look for writers that either trigger emotions or have an interesting rhythm in their work. There are so many between writers I have not spoken too and those I interact with on here quite a bit. Ilya Kaminsky influenced a couple of my poems last years. “By the Almond Tree” published by Anti-Heroin Chic being one of them, I always enjoy reading Peach Delphine, Ankh Spice, Robert Frede Kenter, Barney Ashton-Bullock, the sonnet series that you have, Catrice Greer, Jenny Mitchell, Tim Heerdink who is from nearby where I live, Shaindel Beers, December Lace, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, Charlotte Hamrick, Robin McNamara, Kushal Poddar, Megha Sood among so many more. What I’ve read by Jericho Brown is wonderful, Ada Limon, Ocean Vuong, Ron Whitehead, Anne Casey, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood has some interesting material. Anything that brings good imagery, or anyone that can feel they can bring a positive change in writing I enjoy.
I don’t read enough. I’m still digging and looking for the scrolls that will help shape me further. Any writing that bleeds empathy. In current music lyricists I enjoy Manchester Orchestra, The National, Valerie June,
Nicole Atkins, Marissa Nadler, Angel Olsen, Big Thief/Adrienne Lenker, Amanda Shires, Jason Isbell, Jeff Tweedy/Wilco, Jay Farrar, Michael Kiwanuka, Built to Spill, Damien Jurado, Austin Lucas, Elliott Smith (I know he’s passed), First Aid Kit, The War on Drugs, Janis Ian, Kate Bush, Lana Del Rey (has moments), Leon Bridges, Lera Lynn, Okkervil River and more of course.
Poems From his book “Lost Reflections”:
DORIS
Doris, like a mannequin in a 1920’s dress
Swayed towards you
The lipstick kiss of a demon in hysteria,
Balancing new traps through a mind
latched in by a plastic skull
She is shade, shut, tragic
The remedy of miracles
Now, fraudulent
She became an old soul to erase death
As Radar
Through the night cold
Lit up by only the light of snow
We can hear wolves howl
Heartbeats pounding as radar
We whispered to each other our last secrets
That depression was born in trails of lost acorns
Micro thoughts that you wanted to evolve into completion
A formidable life
GOLIATH’S PALMS
Watch as the wind invents a new scream
Alarms pulsating you to twitches
Your body defeated you
Your angels deserted you
Your puddles of disgust that leaks off the roof
Staining the beautiful murdered flowers under your shoes
Your night walks vanish in Goliath’s palms
TRAINING PHANTOMS
Laying down in my dying sheets
Amongst a crowd of maggots and fleas
I dream of her and I on our wedding day
In my coma dreams
You take my blood, you slow my heart
Tell me to breathe
How do I start?
Is this how you train your ghosts?
FETTERED
Formerly a clown fettered to a balloon
Now a casket mime holding a finger to the mouth
A hush over the deserted town
When all exploded and went away in a city of joy
Laughter buried under the rubble
And a balloon floats to a flaming sky
IN THE DISTANCE
In waves that clash together in a staccato masterpiece
We rummaged the ocean
Searching for all her secrets
She left us old bottles full of folk songs
And the city’s skyline tattooed its image as
Reflection in the waters
Can you see the shark’s eyes in the distance?
YOUR BIBLE
A twist of brilliance
A dulcet drip from a sink
Listen to the silence
Surrounds suffocation
Claustrophobia, the nemesis
A comely whisper flows by your ears
You whip open your bible
Your urgency
Pray that God is with you
While you see smoke & mirrors in a lassitude reflection
LITTLE NERVES
Explosions throughout my little nerves
Blankets of skin wrap around my aching body
And my December eyes
Listen, watching the snow
As It pops on electrical wires
Holding gifts
Shake out all the air
Missing pieces
The heart needs repaired
To burn away
As ugly as money
REVELRY
Through all the revelry lay fragile ghost-skinned
Poison Ivy on a frostbite
A dancing fool on a train track
A zipper away from my skeleton
A dream that became reality in the same room, a same nightmare
From nightmares before
Vaporates the idea of dream
We are all riven loners
THE OVERLOOK
A dirty minded storm approaching
And my mind is rambling
I’ve got police car flashes burning my retina,
And I feel my disease is spreading
Head to the angry waters of the river in some lost park,
An overlook
For the drifters
Pen in my hand
I write my sins down to be forgiven
STATUES
Shiver out my concrete heart
Crumbled statues that rest as cuts inside my glove
In mad genius hideaways
Sometimes the world stops
The mirror breaks
The reflection becomes your shadow
Rearrange my jigsaw puzzle
As it unravels, frayed and dull pieces missing
A PORTAL
Can you sketch me a portal to escape to
I’m feeling blended in with the rest of the clouds
All trying to stand out
A loose cannon to dare the formation of a destroyer
When all I want is to be calm, a breeze
Through the shelter
My site blind to all the conflagration
DEATH BALLET
When you’re approached
By the shadow man
And his death ballet
His coffins display in a figure 8
A murderous grin
In a pirouette of sin
You better find an arm to hold you away from his clutch,
His narcotic stare
And his bones
That constantly pivot and twist
Trances in rapture
WONDERLAND
What are your true feelings?
A cryptic wonderland we swim in
Tears of saltwater cuts through the oceans
And now free the sharks
To feast on our death in our shells, we hide
And hope the fog will mask our scent
MAINE TIMBERS
When born to the wild
You are the comfort of sunlight
And the hell of a meteor
A vigilante disguise
Bullets for eyes
Cloudy ash tears
Death of old cigarette breath
But you are the running fawn
A run into the Maine Timbers
And they are just a sniper who stepped on a nail
BRAVO
Bravo, good job Romeo
You smell like old fish and piss
Well aren’t you a tiger?
With your emotional bullshit
I’m sure all the ladies had quivering hands
Ready to twist your chord
Did you feed them all of these feelings?
I mean, feelings
Do you have feelings?
Never have had feelings?
Come on sting me, talking bee, sting me!
Only for the Shore
I’m just another paranoid cloud
Moving away
From the puncturing of lightning bolts
I want to feel the sand in the skin of my feet
I want to curl my toenails over the beating heart of seashells
I want to feel the glance of a surging wind
The feeling it has in the front end of a storm
I am just the greater ocean
Not the beach that you adore
Write only for the shore
BATTLING THE ROSES
A Wrinkling face
A cheek to the window
Electrical light now dimming
Everything used to be brighter
My head is a swimming ocean
Full of endless drownings
I rest on the pane, inside screaming
No energy left
I can only watch
The surge of rain battling the roses
DROUGHT FOR A CACTI
Crossing sticks as they crackle under my feet
That bridge seems like far away cacti in a desert,
drought of water
Keep reaching,
The blades are only temporary
As they live inside the chambers
Water the plant of love
Keep reminding yourself that you matter
even when broken
HOME & THE HEART
I feel the bruises of those
who hurt the heart for pleasure
I feel the healing when the beauty of family
erases my self-doubts
Which, with my anxiety is often
and to me annoying
So, who knows why I constantly feel like overcoming
when love is the home and the heart
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Reblogged this on Fevers of the Mind and commented:
Part 4 of my interview feature on Wombwell Rainbow with some short poems from Lost Reflections. Thanks to Paul Brookes
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