We cannot cross the river until it freezes. Bekker predicts January. For food we gather leaves, berries and roots from the thick forest behind the cabin. Suarez boils what we find into a revolting paste that we spoon into our mouths with dirty fingers.

The rocking chair will bite your toes.

The first time I ever held a gun, I was three years old...

Poetry is conceit; emotional, intellectual or technical.

A white room is empty but for you, a card table and a chair.

We all stared, somewhat shocked and mostly disgusted.

Certain disorders lend themselves to poetics.

All these poets with their wrinkled hands full of freshly poured over poems are driving me into the dried wheat fields like a black block of crows. Offering a collectable cigarette, they light the damned thing with another hand-rolled poem,…

who can quite say/when careless talk & confidence/slips into that other charged thing/so minimal at first

Colton nods, without words, understanding the significance of every word that the Old Man has uttered, knowing that in the end, given enough time, we all go down that lonely corner, to embrace the darkness, wishing to be cured of our sentiments.

I slide my CD toward Eric Burdon who sits, smiling and gracious and fatigued from Seattle traffic, at the table at Silver Platters, where I have just purchased ‘Til Your River Runs Dry, and stood in a line of old gray heads to have him sign it. I remove my hat and…

Magdalena followed the receding tide, her tiny feet leaving no rumors in the hard sand. She gathered only the most beautiful shells and presented them to her waiting Abuela. Her grandmother told her that the only things that a woman truly owns are her dreams. She told her…

and pressed an area on my forehead between my eyes

I wonder if regular nonfashion clothes are out forever, if these kids will ever dress normally like, you know, Phil Donahue, again.

“Tell me a story,” he said, toying with his top hat, running his fingers along its brim.