In Which I Do Not Thank Stephen King for "The Mist" by Gretchen Rockwell
Fog isn't that bad, I thought
before I moved to New England--
I was wrong: fog off the ocean is primordial
horror, Cthulhu cloaked in the sea now
indistinguishable from the grey soup of the sky--
an eerie blank at best, it's worst
when darkness joins the fog to roll over
and spawn unknowable, eldritch beings waiting
to slither between worlds and emerge here
in front of my tiny sedan where I sit at a stoplight
on the phone with my brother; amazing (my friend who fell off
what my mind will manifest; I keep clutching the face of the earth
for the spark of a lighthouse on a rain- this week, I can't
smeared night, horn droning somewhere in the void shake the suspicion
yawning around the small ship—a leviathan lurking I'm too much for her)
under the ocean, the boat, the sailor—the world is very
thin here; the difference between knowledge is clear
in French: savoir and connaître, the factual and the felt;
that is to say, I've learned—I know—behind the veil
of fog, any thing could be ready to slip through.
before I moved to New England--
I was wrong: fog off the ocean is primordial
horror, Cthulhu cloaked in the sea now
indistinguishable from the grey soup of the sky--
an eerie blank at best, it's worst
when darkness joins the fog to roll over
and spawn unknowable, eldritch beings waiting
to slither between worlds and emerge here
in front of my tiny sedan where I sit at a stoplight
on the phone with my brother; amazing (my friend who fell off
what my mind will manifest; I keep clutching the face of the earth
for the spark of a lighthouse on a rain- this week, I can't
smeared night, horn droning somewhere in the void shake the suspicion
yawning around the small ship—a leviathan lurking I'm too much for her)
under the ocean, the boat, the sailor—the world is very
thin here; the difference between knowledge is clear
in French: savoir and connaître, the factual and the felt;
that is to say, I've learned—I know—behind the veil
of fog, any thing could be ready to slip through.
Gretchen Rockwell is a poet and supplemental instructor of English at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, RI. Gretchen’s work has appeared in Glass: Poets Resist, Into the Void, Noble/Gas Qtrly, the minnesota review, and elsewhere. Gretchen enjoys writing poetry about gender and sexuality, history, space, and unusual connections.
Julia Forrest is a Brooklyn based artist. She works strictly in film and prints in a darkroom she built within her apartment. Her own art has always been her top priority in life and in this digital world, she will continue to work with old processing. Anything can simply be done in photoshop, she prefers to take the camera, a tool of showing reality, and experiment with what she can do in front of the lens. Julia is currently working as a teaching artist at the Brooklyn Museum, Medgar Evers College, USDAN Art Center and Lehigh University. As an instructor, she thinks it is important to understand that a person can constantly stretch and push the boundaries of their ideas with whatever medium of art they choose. Her goal is for her audience to not only enjoy learning about photography, but to see the world in an entirely new way and continue to develop a future interest in the arts. You can find her at her WEBSITE and on instagram: @Juliajuliaajuliaa