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Thirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbeard

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Across the placid sea/The only moving ship/ Was eyed by Blackbeard

The Madwoman Who Called on My Wedding Day

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She’d reached me after running through the directory, alphabetically. Apparently no one in the a’s or b’s or c’s before me would talk to her.

Upwards, Into the White Eye Rising (Parts IV - VI)

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IV. Upwards, into the white eye rising, There is will, to stay, yet stays no will to be. Come,…

The Executioner

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No one knows where the wind comes from, but sure as hell it comes. The executioner glances round the reception area. Nods to himself. Function versus form. Anodyne, instantly forgettable, like hotel rooms. Perfect.

Jonestown on a Global Scale

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Picture it-/ air not clogged with the shit// that makes Beijing the dark joke/ of the developed world.

The Parade

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I see them walking. They pass right by my house. If I’m outside, I sit down on our porch and watch the parade. Sometimes I watch them out of a front window.

The Roses Ask For You

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The roses ask for you when I smell them They seem to remember your touch more than others. They can’t bear it when you’re gone and wonder when you’ll be returning I am beginning to do the same I no longer go outdoors to be with them

The Wedding

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Anneliese inserted one of her crystal drops in Hymen's left ear and kept her left earring in. For a quarter, she bought a handful of cashews and plopped them on a red napkin.

EXAMINATION

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I had the idea while I was in the county jail. I would get jail glasses; I wouldn’t be me; I’d be some other person. I could pretend that it was someone else rotting away in that 8x12 cell.

Wheelbarrels

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What a great feeling it was, the day I first thought about and discovered how toilets work. Nearly as exciting as the day I learned wheelbarrel is actually spelled wheelbarrow.

Bar at East Capitol Road

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My friend, drunk, spoke to me / outside a bar where we hung out; / and his eyes were red from tiredness,

Advice to the Lovelorn at the Mall

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Beware of shouting Dress Barn, Dress Barn! when having an orgasm And don’t tell him you were seeing Starbucks when you came

summer fields

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we ran that afternoon/across Bayshore lanes/into green blooming fields, beyond all those

Tomorrow

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You hold me now, and pay attention. Everything is new.

The Girl Next Door to Andy

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Then there was this short little girl, Jo Ann, who had a daughter and was divorced, who lived next door to my buddy Andy. She told me right after we did it one night that she had always wanted to have sex with me when she was growing up, as a teenager, I

The Lizard King

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Jim Morrison moved ever so slightly in the cold of his grave

Intimate Dialogues - "Ledge"

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It was a mildly windy day of the working week in the financial district of the city—the bright morning sun was out—when a security guard was called to the fifteenth floor to deal with a disruption. “This way.” Someone pointed to a desk. At the desk

Secrets / Cigarettes

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We gave our cigarettes names.

The Nurse

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I lay on a table in a cold room in one of those little blue gowns that open in back.

Natchez Shrapnel

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I was like a bullet shot from a university tower

A Study in Plastics

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She sat Indian style against the strawberry tree. In her hand she held a little mirror and a note that her father left her that morning. What a night, eh? See you in the morning. That’s what it said.

Breaking News

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We are our own pathogens.

Atrocities

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My table offers up the gutted calf/ with carrots and potatoes yanked / alive and whole

How to Tell if Your Loved One Belongs in the Booby Hatch

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It is well known around town that Ray's dad went crazy. Today, when asked, everyone will tell you that they knew all along he had a screw loose, told their wife, “That Mick Borkowski's gone bat-shit.” But when it was happening, no one paid it any…

The Shredded Carcass of a Small, Helpless Animal

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It gets eaten.

The Floating Dock

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Charley carried the corpse over to the dinghy and tossed it into the pool of rain water collected inside. The headless snake swerved through the water, oblivious to its fate, powered perhaps by exposed nerves and muscle memory.

The Swindler

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John Davies paces nervously around an empty parking lot...

Elizabeth Karlin, M.D. and U.W.-Madison’s OB-Gyn Chair’s Cash Window

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Sad to tears, not bubbly, ordered as all in Madison, outpatient by Elizabeth Karlin, internist, later a bullet-proof vest abortion provider.

Night and Day

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The muezzin calls the faithful, his voice soaring over the rooftops, over the trees and the brooks,

My Insides Are Made Of Water

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I am the ocean. My soulless organs live in all of its motionless movement. I am the low. The high. The in between. I am nothing. Back and forth, I simply float along: existing, rising, and then falling into a life that can be considered one big decision left…