The man in the shroud appeared at my door
Impersonating Three-in-One persons
With his Two-D visage.
He said if I ironed him, a reversed negative image would appear
On the other side of him.

But I wanted to know,
Where are the wine stains from the Last Supper?
He replied that he'd changed clothing
Many times since that day.
The flora was exquisitely exact, he said-
Even the Calcium Carbonate signature of the cave was there.

I asked if it weren't all just a fake
And he asked me if we had the science yet to make even one?
And then he raised his arm
And called down one giga-bolt of the Infinite universal X-ray
With which he burned himself into my memory forever.

My Father’s Clothes

My father left a rack of suits
And on their cloth still hung cologne
Hand tailored navies, greys and mutes
And one plus-fours in herringbone

He had a drawer-full plump with ties
Rolled silks and regimental stripes
But none with matching handkerchiefs
For dad was not one of those types

He favoured good strong walking shoes
And walk he did with fancy cane
“If you look smart, then you are smart”
Was Duncan Baxter’s wise refrain

Some thought my dad a gentleman
He opened doors and doffed his hat
And rose when ladies entered rooms
Now why don’t people still do that?

Folks called him “sir” when he’d arrive
He had that bearing in his blood
Though widowed with a brood of five
He did the very best he could

He taught us rules are hard and fast
And manners make you who you are
And please and thank you always last
As first impressions take you far

Another thing he used to say
“To thine own self always be true”
Has helped me even to this day
When sometimes unsure what to do

Occasionally he’d raise his hand
To keep his errant sons in line
I didn’t understand it then
I wonder would it work on mine

We children could have had much more
Our aunts and uncles used to say
If he’d been wise enough to store
Some money for a rainy day


In truth he lived beyond his means
As men of taste are wont to do
And never realized his dreams
To live the life he wanted to

He moved among a group of friends
Who drank pink gins at social dos
And puffed on Turkish cigarettes
And daily scanned the racing news

He should have been a country squire
Perhaps what he was born to be
With open fires and hearty stews
A labrador beside his knee

To ride about in hunting pink
My brunette mother by his side
Alas there was no joy I think
For father after mother died

My mother left her darling ones
All spirited and out of hand
Three lovely daughters and two sons
On Valentine’s in Newfoundland

Now father lies in simple ground
Carnations flutter at his stone
Across the road, a pub he’d found
Where he would never drink alone

The day he left, the landlord’s flag
Was billowed half along its pole
And locals gathered, glass in hand
To send a tribute to his soul

And when I gaze at hillsides green
Or hear a Richard Tauber strain
Or think of places where we’ve been
I see his weathered smile again

My father left a rack of suits
Those things that last when you are gone
And life is short and love is rare
No matter what clothes you have on.

Local designer Vanessa Froehling has denim on the brain. Stonewashed, herringbone print, chambray, stretch and black denim, to be sure.

In her home studio, Froehling flips through hangers of designs, including sailor-style high-waisted women’s shorts, a men’s blazer and a women’s jumpsuit.

“It’s something that’s in everyone’s closet and it will never go out of style,” says Froehling of the French-born fabric (denim’s etymology comes from “de Nîmes,” the French town where Levis Strauss first procured the tough cotton twill for your 501s). But, she adds, “people are stuck on what denim can do.”

The line is called Carpe Denim and it’s Froehling’s entry into FashioNXT (self-described as “Portland’s Official Fashion Week”) — not to be confused with Portland Fashion Week — three days and nights of runway shows in early October. She will present Carpe Denim in the UpNXT competition, the “emerging designers accelerator,” alongside four other Pacific Northwest designers the evening of Oct. 5.

The fashion week has a cozy relationship with Project Runway, the fashion-designer reality show running since 2004, and, in fact, two of the judges assessing the competition are Seth Aaron (winner of Project Runway season 7) and Michelle Lesniak (winner of season 11).

In 2015, Froehling applied to both Portland Fashion Week and FashioNXT, but was only accepted by the former that time. She says auditioning in front of the FashioNXT judges was intimidating.

“My nerves were like, ‘What do I do with my hands?’” Froehling says, shaking her hands by her sides and laughing. The judges were tough, she recalls, and they recommended that she develop the marketability and cohesion of her line.

Over the past year, she took their advice to heart and decided she would try out again, this time with a denim ready-to-wear line, a departure from the couture gowns that have distinguished her style. She took inspiration from the city — recalling watching the denizens of Portland walk by, falling in love with their street-wear style — and the layers of people, buildings and traffic.

Eight jean looks — five for women and three for men — will walk the runway, but rest assured, this will be no **** of Canadian tuxedos. Although denim is the common thread, the designs feature smart juxtapositions against black leather and a colorful textile that looks like a cross between gas puddles and graffiti.

The self-taught designer has also developed several innovative details: a woman’s denim peplum jacket that unzips at the waist, transforming it into a more casual cropped jacket; women’s stretch leather pants that zip open at the knee, a nod to ripped jeans; and a men’s chambray shirt with the illusion of a double collar creating a fresh origami effect.

This summer, the judges welcomed Froehling on the FashioNXT train.

Froehling says one judge told her that she’s the first designer to return the following year to try out again after being rejected.

“It’s the highest fashion production in Oregon,” she says.

The winner will be announced at the after-party Oct. 5, and the prize package secures a spot for the designer in the main runway show in 2017 and includes business mentorships, feature stories inPortland Monthly and Portland Mercury, and a strategic marketing course at Portland Fashion Institute.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Her fingertips loosed the glass
bottle, which had
of late
gathered rain like the
hands of paupers.

Glitter in a heartbeat.
to be collected by old battered shoes
or car tyres
and streetwise magpies.

it joins a city evensong
this oceanic roar of nothing
fusing chords of cars and smoke
and lonely dogs
with hacks
and throngs
of perambulating suits
and suitors
trampling athwart broads of concrete
As swifts in summer.


We swim in it
through open atriums
and barren rooms of
magnolia and magnolia and magnolia.

All the while if you look harder
you see through chinks a sepulchre
in each greying tower
ranging higher and higher still.

Machines and machinations
stacking life upon life to
build pyramids
to gaudy kings
in pinstripe or herringbone.

Flumes of fumes ***** like floods
Into and out of train stops
and bus stands.
Circling lungs like hungry crows.
Crows which haunt
Bombed out chapels made new
resuscitated with waxen ivy
and ivory lilies.

And the leaves of saintly oak trees
chatter in shrinking crevices of green
story telling
Of how people and things grow old.
And you can walk these streets
And dive too like cormorants into
The platitudes of city living.

Soaked to the skin in sound
to tell your story
like the shards
of a broken bottle.

Wide lapels and herringbone
Was what my parents wore
A few years following
My brother and I were born,
Married in a registry office
My Aunty and mother in hats
No flowery additions
Their love was that.

In my father's pocket
A folded handkerchief
Mother held a handbag
An umbrella just in case.

I never got to try it on
That grey suit of my mum's
Lived in the few photographs
After they were gone
The bungalow was sold
My brother took the suits
And dispensed of their souls.


In remembrance of my dearest parents.
Love Mary their daughter ***

She told me over dinner one evening
that I should switch to white wine—
less tannins and calories, she claimed.

I smiled and shook my head,
a vintage cabernet stubbornly clinging
to my bleached white teeth.

The next day I found a couple bottles
of chardonnay chilled in the fridge,
a note tethered to one’s neck:
Drink Me!

I did not.
Four months later,
we signed divorce papers;
she packed her things and left.

I drank the chardonnay that last night,
dizzied by the herringbone pattern
of the old parquet floor, and wondered
what would happen if I ate our frozen cake top.

—Chet Baker, '88

I put The Lost Tapes
on while I shaved my face, inching
around two chin nicks turning
the lather into the remnants of a strawberry
shortcake paper plate soak-through.
I tapped my Chucks on the pink,
checkered floor to the cymbals.
Heel toe, heel toe strut,
stopping every few measures
to re-tuck my herringbone-detail
tie beneath my collar. I heard
his trumpet wail, and mimicked
it on the rusted shower rod like a cheap
snare, deep drumstick strikes patched
with meat tape. I carefully ran the flexed
blade beneath my cheekbone
like a piano-park saunter, trying not to step
on the drummer’s heels ‘cause he hits
it just right. And the brass birds
are just right. The bench creaks, the cinder
snaps, the twilit fountain dance, the pop-
skip needle, the slick floor, the jazz faucet,
and the shave
are all just right.

Part I
They say death comes in threes
I say pain is apart of reality
Looking at my homies
On the block guzzin' forties
And toting a glocks
On the look out for flaks and punk *** cop
****** ain't no stranger
Nothing but danger
Where I'm from deep in the slums
Ya find killers to drug dealers
Hoes and hoochie quick to give up the *******
They try to throw something to eat
But I don't bite I just watch and write
About the real.**** I see and feel
Keep my pistol concealed
So when my enemies lurkin' me
The last thing they gone see
Is a nice chromed nine shined
Blind Cuz I catch em off guard
Turned there vehicles into an open casket yea I'm drastic
I hate to see my own in plastic
But I gotta do what I gotta do
Its the life of a **** brotha
My heart has no fill so i feel no pain
Razor in my teeth herringbone as a neck chains
Made of gold times is growing old
Friends turn to foes
Looking for me but can't find me
Even though I'm right in front of me
Once im.in the dark I gather my best thoughts searchin for peace
In many ways
Hopin' for better dayz



Part II
And to all.my homies doing time
Hold ya head high to the sky
Cuz we know half of ya serving is a lie
Hard to support family
When ya sittin' in the penitentiary
society is a flim flam
Got ****!! how many brothers they gone lock up ?
The ***** *** system been corrupt no abrupt
After brothers the color of me
But if I **** another like me
I get praises silently from white society
And they won't care
If ya poor and on ya last dime
And do a crime
Not for the love of it
But to support his broken family
But media labels ya a culprit
Dangerous and the biggest threats
Are our cops letting the drugs drop
in the first place Miss the case
**** the judge They all gotta grudge
Against skin colored like me
I ain't a suckas I'm the black machavielli
In time I will rise no need to open my eyes
Cuz my third eye vigilant
Soon to be a retaliation for all the incarceration for scorning Black nation
Comin' with me violently we moving silently
With our clenched fist raised
Eradicatin' evil
Searchin' for better days 

Always had a black Christmas
Uncle sam used to dissed us
So since im a hellrazor
In the guns we trust bust
At my enemies watch em
Scatter like roaches
Take caution when ya approach
To this **** life
Baby we livin' reckless
Rolex watches and herringbone necklaces
So what if i wear baggy pants
**** the corporate society eyin' me
I got strikes on me
Quick to turn a brother in
Take a guzzle of gin
Until its corner left take a deep breath
Im on my last steps lord forgive
Its the **** in me
Lost so many homies through the years
Sheddin' tattoo tears uh


Now that ive studied
Multiple war strategies
I got less casualties  
My comrades all bad
We raw with our weaponry
No nigguh could ever get to me
Since the covert deception is clear
Im no longer happy here
Faded dreams long live the King
Im speakin' Garvey antics
My tactics are frantic
Never panic
I was made a menace out of wedlock
couldnt focus in the bias schools
So i had to drop
Now im packin' knotted socks
With a pocket full.of.rocks
Quick cash leads to the grave
But how can i find freedom
When im.just a slave?
To the entities that be
And if you expose there secrecy
That label you public enemy
Number sittin' in a jail cell
Or send ya body to hell but i dont yell
The most violence is done silence
While innocents mind being blinded
Respect ya self run ya own ****
And never be apart of the corporate
Or pulpit
Cuz when ya die theyll remember ya name
Then the next day forget  ya name
So i guess ill just weighin' my fears
Strugglin' this for all my homies
Sheddin' tattoo tears
Behind penitentiary steel


Herringbone clouds drift in infinite seas
A perfect half-moon in a cosmos blue sky
Elderflowers float to the earth at my feet
Cat slumbers, sun-baked, white among sage and thyme
Green-glorious symphony of breeze, birds and bees…