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Chapter One In the Woods Everett Finn liked white-bread sandwiches. In June, Flora forfeited all her free cafeteria lunches to sit with him during his quiet lunch breaks in the classroom. "Eleven more days until graduation," she told him. He sat…
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It was the truth, you'd say. Then someone else would step in, someone who knew the situation. It wasn't long before the entire population of our sleepy little town became accustomed to your routine. It was even welcome in some circles. Those circles were made up…
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Sandra exits her bedroom wearing a bikini. It’s celadon green, though brighter, ‘SW#6705 High Strung’, I’d say. A saturated splash of yellow overtakes its straps.
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Time has wings. They are bright and beautiful, like those of a butterfly. They are delicate wings, and they carry the years away from my decaying mind. I would break those wings if I could, for tomorrow I turn seventy-three, and I grow weary of their ince
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we gave divided houses / child stand up anyway
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For I would draw a diagramTo signify the things I amBut I think you know--Todd Rundgren The door was opened before me. I know that's not a good way to start out on an adventure, but it is what happened to me. I didn't see any beckoning light, I felt a crazy urge, like…
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If there is an airport, it is one of dreams. If there is a dream, it is one of shadows. If there are shadows, there is not much more but the thoughts of a short man meeting a short woman on a runway of forbidden desires, in a foreign city belonging to n
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Having a single blurb on your book cover is like having a single friend in grade school. So I lied.
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Z. takes lewd/suggestions/with little blinks/of his everlasting/eyelashes.
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It's been a bad year, People dying. Some too close to home, Some too far away. I cry down to you, In your casket, and think you might sit up. You were not sick You went in just a moment, Looking stunning and alive. Not…
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He tells me that he thinks he reached out as he needed healing
and I wonder if I should diagnose him on the spot,
explain what years of therapy taught me about him.
I don't.
Instead I compliment a photograph of the pot plants he grows, organic,
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I made her a mix tape. It was revolutionary. Twenty-two songs she had to hear at least once in her life. I even drew some trippy drug-like designs on the label of the CD to make it seem more real. It was the ocean and the sun and every body of land balled up…
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Their love was doomed at the onset, yet they engaged in it anyway, heedless of the numerous error messages and critical runtime failures. Abort, Retry, Fail? They selected Retry over and over.
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A friend has been shopping an opera around without success. It's about Arthur Inman, a hypochondriac who hired people to talk to and, in some cases, have sex with him.
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Perdita's confusing profusion of parts makes it impossible to know which way up she goes.She flutters beneath the camera's shuttered stare, …
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are speaking clear enough, through their open and bleeding wounds, for you to at least try and understand. Waving their massive arms like living lighthouses, bobbing in and out of the floundering waves, they are splashing out an…
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We went east. It wasn't all that easy, but easier than staying where we were, unable to freely move or give birth to anything brand new. We went east insearch of the mysterious faraway beginnings of a mythical wild west. We went east becauseit…
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cold plunges its lethal chill spade/into the dirt before cold takes the earth/to ossify it stiff with ice/the semblance of cold the semblance of death/said only to be felt this side of the grave.
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The irony is that Smart's work of self-abnegation has surpassed that of her erotic master; George Barker is largely forgotten now, while the reputation of Smart's one work of genius seems secure.
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The last time I saw Jackson, I didn’t write down the set list. This time I didn’t write down the set list, either.
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Small wonders, her worthless,priceless treasures fortify the wallswhile hoarded trinkets protect her like armor against memoriesof a desperate past.
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He went for long, quiet walks. These seemed to quell the seething rages swirling about him as he exhumed and reconstructed the truth of himself.
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The world is a mighty funny place. It spins wildly and we are held down by its strong ghostly gravity. We're still able to communicate with one another over morning coffee and delicious cake donuts dipped in chocolate. Some of us used to keep…
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“Don’t you think you should tie a tourniquet or something?” she asked as I bled profusely from the points where Jesus was wounded during his crucifixion.
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This caused a problem when some raccoons, skunks and a fox were found lingering on and around the premises (separately, of course).
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You know how it is, one day a good friend sends you this long note telling you how-the-hell they are or aren't getting along in the frigging world
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his wife had made love to another man,
out of spite or love or to wake him from
his conventional slumber, we never learned.
We were there as a foil,
a first step towards reconciliation,
unction.
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only thoughts lost in lonely trails of red
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In an area of high winds
and strong convictions, I have
lived among the ever-changing crowd
that is always the same.
I must have died overnight,
and now my wings are
flapping in my own face.
I used to be an owl,
a night owl, to be sure
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The cats sniff at the small opening,/
one by one, in a furtive casualness./
They think the outside air is sweet
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