Technology & poetry
People & fish
Everything &
the ineffable
Clear and Sane
A novel
“No one talks about experiments that went right. Maybe tonight you will start one. Or maybe tomorrow in the sober light of day. That’s a good time for experimenting, too.”
Follow Joel and Joel-related enterprises
On American interchanges,
in collaboration with Leo Marcel Schuman.
Commercial writing, supporting technology companies.
Poetry (pohms, PΩ). Short, long, and in between lengths.
Social Joel
As of this writing, Joel is active on Substack with poetry and writing, Bluesky with political content, Facebook with political content and lost dogs of Central Oregon, and LinkedIn with technology and business screeds. He would like to be on Mastodon more. Reach out to him there. Don’t hesitate to just reach out to the guy wherever. He has time for you.
From Clear and Sane
Maybe you could catch radio signals or…”
The bar had a concrete floor that treasured every sound. In the morning, when the first worker opened the door and walked across the front room, before he starts the jazz mix he likes to work under, the room resonates every step. Even the rattling of his keys comes back to him.
Now, with the room filled with people, no individual sound stands out. A true cacophony. Sarah is awash in it. She tries to think about what to do next. She should collect her drink, on the table next to Reginald. He is seated in a booth listening to Blaine. They both have small glasses in front of them with a finger or two of scotch holding up an ice cube. Her beer has a coaster on top.
The rest of the room is the backs of people, standing on the hard floor or sitting around small tables. Most of The Green Paintbrush staff came down after the beers and sushi that Blaine brought in for Reginald’s last day.
Cherry is here. Sarah spies her sitting at the bar between two empty seats. “I am going to go catch up with Cherry,” she says to Blaine and Reginald as she picks the coaster off of her glass.
“Do that,” Blaine says.
The other two smokers have reclaimed their seats beside Cherry so Sarah stands behind Cherry’s stool.
Blaine turns back to Reginald. “Looking forward to the move?”
Bio
Joel Byron Barker flyfishes and runs and adores dogs. He has lived 96% of his life in Oregon, currently residing in the Central Oregon high desert. Along with Leo Marcel Schuman, he publishes about America’s urban rural interchanges at oldtruckgoodcoffee.com.
The best job Joel ever had was pulling cable for computers and phones in 1997. He spent his off time writing long poems to try to sort the world out. To this day he is seeking ways to braid together community, technology, and the outright unstoppable beauty around us.