Brendan Constantine

@faultlinemag on Instagram: "We’re featuring one of our Pushcart Prize nominations every day. Today, we feature Brendan Constantine’s stunning poem “Not Tonight.” You can find this piece, and the re... 172 likes, 24 comments - faultlinemag on December 4, 2025: "We’re featuring one of our Pushcart Prize nominations every day. Today, we feature Brendan Constantine’s stunning poem “Not Tonight.” You ...

Thanks to the kind folks at Faultline for their nomination.

Second Coming No. 316 — December 1, 2025 A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by Donald Trump and his fascist regime

Thrilled to have a poem at The Second Coming, Indolent Books’ poem-a-day project. Please consider subscribing and supporting this wonderful series!

ME: So?

TREE:

ME: Thought so.

Holy shit! I actually DID promise you a rose garden. Sorry. I’m on it.

You know, it just occurred to me - like right now while I’m drinking coffee - that statistically there has to be at least one perfectly innocent man who drives a white van and has way too much candy.

Just asked the lady at Starbucks for a plastic knife, then added my intent to "commit a plastic crime."

She didn't bat an eye.

Donate to Julianna McCarthy's Care Fundraiser, organized by Brendan Constantine My name is Brendan Constantine and I'm hoping to raise money to help me care f… Brendan Constantine needs your support for Julianna McCarthy's Care Fundraiser

I've been caring for mom at home, and doing so well in fact, hospice says she's too healthy for them. Now we're scrambling to afford supplies and daycare so I can keep working. Were you her fan on Deep Space Nine, Starship Troopers, or her years on Young & Restless? Please share! gofund.me/42ba9606

“I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting.” - Conrad
Collage made from a 1947 portrait of Peter Ustinov by Irving Penn, NASA image of the planet Jupiter (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS) and stock photographs of cars, Ca. 1959

"The answer is Yes until it's No." - Collage made from an etching of a rhinoceros by David Barthold, an unattributed illustration of a child with a balloon from Collier's magazine, 1940, and a portable television from an issue of the Radio Shack catalogue. (Quote from my mother.)

Working with young writers this summer. As usual, I am the student and they the teachers.

Today’s lesson comes from a boy named Bodhi who has just turned 10. When asked about ‘writer’s block,’ he responds thus -

“Whenever I don’t know what to write, I write the prologue.”

You’re welcome.

Hey! What a lovely thing to say! I’m going through your astounding art right now. Thank you for a truly delightful Monday!

I think my inner child is alway a little car-sick.

Oh! Thanks for sharing! And you’re right, it’s not covered!

YouTube video by Young Jessie - Topic Rabbit On A Log

This is the afternoon jam: Young Jessie’s ‘Rabbit on a Log.’ If you don’t know him, get his album ‘I’m Gone,’ on Ace Records. This disc was a revelation - got me thru covid! Think you know about rock in the 50’s? Think again! Thanks to ‘Detroit Deb’ Ingalls for hipping me to the gravy.

Oh! Hi! Thanks for sharing this. Every good wish!!!

‘The Weather’ - Collage made from original photos of objects at my workplace, laid into John Constable’s ‘Cloud Study’ of 1822. It’s the second time I’ve used Constable’s beautiful work. If you don’t know it, go look it up without my silly meddling!

YouTube video by Al Green Al Green - Everybody Hurts (Official Lyric Video)

In the beautiful things still happening department, here’s genius Al Green covering R.E.M.:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=UEwP...

Fascinated by this 1750 effort to portray multiple universes. It appears in ‘An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe’ by Thomas Wright (1711-1786), currently on display at LACMA as part of ‘Mapping the Infinite’. I’ll be doing an in-gallery writing class there in Feb! More info soon!

“who
is invisible enough
to see you?”

- Paul Celan, from ‘ Show-fringes, sense-fringes’

Collage of ‘Foxes and their young in a clearing in the forest,’ an etching by J.E. Ridinger (1698–1767), a 1948 illustration by Gil Elvgren, and ‘journal text’ from Autumn Clark at Sew Paper Paint.

“I couldn’t save a poem to write my life…”
- Arash Saedinia, from the poem ‘M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I’

I think my Auto Correct is having an emotional crisis. Here are just a few words it has suggested in the last days-

Moan
Apoplectic
Starsh
Thag
Booning
Chasm
Skrig
Torsh
and Rodents
(in place of Students)

More revelations from my Creative Writing students. The infinitely quotable Lexi (12th grader) spoke for many of us -

“When I was a kid, I thought quicksand was gonna’ be a much bigger problem than it’s been.”

“Only the future knows art.” - Julianna McCarthy - Unfinished collage made from detail of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s Inmaculada Concepción de los
Venerables 1660-1665) and microscopic image of a cancer cell during division, (National Institutes of Health).

Overheard in my Creative Writing class the other day -

"If it rained more, I'd be a better writer."
- Lexi, twelfth grader