1452 5 4
|
The silver urn of ashes inscribed
with his unknown name.
|
145241
|
It was one of those sweltering afternoons that San Diego endures only several times a summer. I'm riding on El Cajon Boulevard, with my friend John in his old Chevy pickup. John is a lifelong San Diego resident and fanatical Charger backer. He's talking up some…
|
145220
|
He had a lean build, except, remarkably, his midsection was perfectly barrel-like. As if he kept an alien lifeform in his belly, cultivated by years of Pabst and Yuengling transfusions.
|
145253
|
In Aisle 3 would you brighthearted find Count the Chocula.
|
145211
|
"Soviet Mandelstam rose like Christ from the Nightmare,
Rises from the gulag, sunrise on the page."
|
145243
|
Ey’, it’s where I followed him down
|
145242
|
Feeding you a taste of croissant
|
145288
|
My stories are ramshackle; they lurch along in old sweaters with holes and missing buttons, drinking from mismatched cups and saucers.
|
145200
|
Holding a bouquet of flowers wrapped in a tissue in one hand, a round shape that balances the round yellow burst of light that is her dress. While the flesh of her chest bulges forward and she balances as though in a holding pattern in flight.
|
145264
|
"...she's been seeming like she's been dreaming while awake lately..."
|
145252
|
The manicured lawn rolls down either side of the knoll, punctuated with flat granite plaques, the occasional bouquet of cut flowers, a smattering of faded eight-inch American flags.
|
1452139
|
Those who don’t die, desire, descend. No song aloft arises from my irk. The seeing chieftain, not of sea, nor sand, nor boat, I till nightfall stammer alive, dig boneless trenches against tiding dregs and lathe, hunt, wallow, plow the hours, call in awei
|
145251
|
Darkness was fast approaching. I stuck out my tongue at Naya, and she reached out as if to grab…
|
145221
|
"You don't need the gun," Dean said. "Bring me a bottle of peroxide and some duct tape."
|
1452107
|
There were too many laws but not enough of the kinds she wanted. She wished for the right to go shopping. Then taste rather than disposable income or access to finance could distinguish people.
|
1452177
|
...bush tail beside him his closest comfort next to the genes...
|
145152
|
Don’t forget, I’ve watched the evil you’ve done to the lawn for years, not to mention the chaos you’ve made of the woodshed. Don’t you remember me showing you how to properly stack the wood?
|
145142
|
I left Iowa in august when the air was thick and sticky. I had been there three years minus a few days when the boy I'd been sleeping with packed almost everything I owned into my car and waved goodbye. In Baltimore I had few friends and a job teaching English at a…
|
145184
|
A man bows his head
and crosses his chest
before crossing the street
and the rain keeps falling
on his bare blue shirt
and on top of his head
The taxis will not stop
The light’s still red
as the man waits
for the sign of the hands
|
145197
|
|
145163
|
Day by day people went missing. Reports of the ads being answered with a robocall solution to their problems were at first unconfirmed. Yesterday my best friend told me his emotional distress call was going to be channeled into a free trip to what he call
|
145121
|
Sometimes when I fall I see a ...
|
145182
|
He bites and imagines, numbed by want.
|
145166
|
I'll still want the blinds open
and the lights on,
to see the papier-mache of our flesh
fighting death away to the century mark,
even if you only want to live until
a ripe eighty-two.
|
145166
|
The four Grannies say, “GO!” and leap from the window. King's pickup is below, and he has lined the bed with his mother's throw pillows. Sundresses fly. Blue plastic diapers billow. They want cigarettes. I light their smokes with King's pearl-handled lighter as…
|
145164
|
I'm an older guy. She is still quite young. I tell her I may be too old but she giggles and tells me that she did the research and it said because there is snow on the roof doesn't mean no fire's in the stove. She proved it. Things like this. We excite ourselves,…
|
145132
|
Artie Shaw gave Ava Gardner a reading list in preparation for their honeymoon that included The Brothers Karamazov, The Origin of the Species, Das Kapital and The Magic Mountain.
|
14511410
|
Sitting together at Starbucks, we composed a long love letter which we've been mailing back and forth to each other, signing our name upon each receipt and returning it for the last nine months and it has grown to eighty seven pages, barely fitting in a shoe box.
|
145100
|
lying back on inviolable sheets, your breasts spread apart like a child’s open hands
you’d look up at me and smile
|
145011
|
This is 57% of middle America, I'm convinced: doomed.
|
