Many thanks to my long-time friend and editor, Sheldon Lee Compton, for putting first this story as he launched his latest online literary journal. If you’d like to jump over to the story, here is a link to “Poor People.”

This has been worked on for a long time, a few years. It began as part of a grouping of stories and poems that fictionalized and deconstructed things I knew about the artist Francis Bacon. I find Bacon an attractive menace, and his art the most human of all, infused with some spark, some spirit, that cannot be replicated.

I wrote a long poem about him, published in one of the Neutral Spaces magazines, that I am yet quite in love with (both the magazine, edited by Giacomo Pope, and the poem). It follows a form (based on eights) developed by Raymond Queneau. It was hard to fit together, to dress Bacon in some travesty of language, but there he is.

This story, however, focuses less on the artist (although the artist provides the setting and the problem) and more on the economically disadvantaged portion: A girl whose only possession is an arcane piece of jewelry, the main feature of which is a black stone. There’s a menace from the first sentence, a poison. An ending image, reminiscent of photos by Peter Beard, reinforces the dark forces circulating near. We can hope she lives through the night.

This story is also an evolution of ideas. It began with a simple conversation, then veered into some sort of a Betty and Veronica (blonde/brunette) rivalry, characters came and went, but what was standard was the inclusion of a Bacon-styled character.

An artist whose work I love and collect, Bill Skrips, recommended the Bacon interviews by David Sylvester.

It had many titles as a work in progress: “I am ready, head to toe, to fall in love again” was the start, then “Black Nails;” “Brutalism,” then “The Exhaustion Doctrine;” “My Life Is a Toad,” and finally “Poor People.” I think they all work for it, tbh.

So, thank you once more to Mr. Lee at Poverty House, to my friend Elissa Mathews for help with beta reading and feedback on the final round, and to all who find a moment to read something I thought about a long time. Here is “Poor People.”

C O N T A C T