At First, They Wandered – Homer

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”― Albert Camus – again. Whom did the sailors say they were, and how did they land. Beasts from another world, they had slaughtered themselves, playing at…

my ribs break easily so be nice

Lonely As If Kept Enchanted

To Prey Upon. The Something Next. Everytime you open up your hole. Prey Tell. The leaden sky left no room for sun, no room to pretend you lived here, or pretend you lived anywhere. They only murdered Homo sapiens I didn’t like. Someone was following us. I could see it…

ACTING ON YOUR BEST BEHAVIOR

DOLLFACE THERE I SAID IT. It’s evocative. Art is evocative. It reminds you about where we fucking cum from and the gin of it, Babylon. It’s a mess with the future. What’s going on. Gin. Sit down. Dude, don’t do it, I am toxic and dangerous. I said dollface. It…

the woods

Dirt Bike Town

New York Times      Homo sapiens become rich because Homo sapiens are greedy.  Is there anyone on the planet left who does not believe the rich are anything but ordinary. The rich are thieves, and they know it. They will kick your ass if you dare to articulate any ziggy signs…

dancing with memory that holds you down/

https://tim-barrus.format.com/tim-barrus/around-here-we-dance-a-lot

Kansas

The Failure of Seduction

i no longer know what it is they are trying to tell me/ the kid with the moving hands tells me far more about his poverty than his sedution/ i have sent pigeons and far-flung jazz sounds WTKO/ and to hotels where he has stayed/ not unlike his seductions seeping…

YouCannot AlwaysHave AReason

Gold Coins For The Boatman

ArtPhotography: Tim Barrus

more poetry is needed

U Can Write An Entire Sex Scene Just About the Eyes

so this morning, he turns over in his wondering where he is, and just before it all comes back to him, to face me with his bedroom eyes, and i am, as always, taking his photograph/ he rolls his eyes/ he asks if there is anything about me that has…

WHAT DOES THE PHOTOGRAPHER OWE THE DEAD

I have been taking photographs for sixty years. It’s a blur. During that time, some of the people I have taken pictures of have died. Car crashes. Suicide. AIDS. Cancer. Covid. Cardiac arrest. The list goes on. Some of the photographs of these people were taken while they were children.…

Death In School

you flew out of my mouth

you flew out of my mouth and spilled look at mine/ your balls of enamel murdered by the sky, the aegean blue as prison/ when you came apart, it was in threads/ even in the core of any bitter winter, you could sleep through anything/ https://timbarrus.tumblr.com

the legends say

there is always a narrative/ usually one divorced from reality/ stones and bones/ many narratives were created from revenge/ if they say you are a criminal, you are a criminal/ if they say you get fucked in the ass, you get fucked in the ass/ if they make the point…

your mouth of rain

we were the dead/ and we would be them, too/ our tongues had been silenced by our shame/ i would trace your face of pain with my finger sweeping down the rest of you like wet leaves i slide it in you knew you knew you knew i would with…

Dying Alone

his wings in the jagged glass shadows have been clipped hideously/ they say sedation is this empty vacuum where you are not conscious/ this is a lie/ get used to it/ they’re going to lie to you and force feed you murmuring the dark selves songs/ curling discontent, you hear,…

Quarantined

Being quarantined is not as easy as people think. The trick is your inner being. If you have one.

What Is Art

Art is something usually degraded into a sickening effort to spruce up the aesthetic of the living space with something that reflects corporate consumer values like a pretty picture of a sunset your mom would love on the living room wall. Art is usually dreck, and it is rare. Art…

For Anna

we tried shocking people out of the religious family and tribal rituals (like christmas or the 4th) of complacency, but we mainly failed/ we do know we failed/ we are not stupid people/ skin gigs exist all over the planet/ we wanted to be someone we were not/ identity was…

JUXSTAPOSITION

adding context to the trade-off where the real plays off again, the unreal unreal/ you decide/ my job is not to decide for you/ i could, but that renders the photographs more mundane than i can tolerate/ especially when the mundane among you, the ordinary, who have buried any creativity…

Rogue Photographer

Timothée Barrus Photography timotheebarrus#gmail.com

ferris wheel of rust

we were insomniacs who played on an abandoned ferris wheel whose pendulum in appalachian rain was one blind eye and sullen just like you and weary where your skin leaked raw and your bones in the dark were soup inside your nerves to be so high such as we were…