In the putrid remains / of these faithless days / and the void into which / I carry it...

Mask the stench/ with frankincense.

Papa was fucking the artist’s wife, Lillian, and the artist knew it but was afraid to say anything and she had broad, muscular brown arms and loved the sun on the sea and also she was just as athletic as the great writer and caught the big fish right alon

I remember it was late at night I was with Johnny Appleseed’s younger brother Bruce Bruce Appleseed He was the lead singer for the band Fake Moustache Turns out he was just a bum Set on vibrate Who’d bought a 10-gallon hat once But h

with so many thick curtains hung out to shroud/ so many unlit eyes, Night you’d think could spare/ a small few for our diversion . . .

Crispcrashingcoldan interlude from youThe pebbles pulled back and forthlike side stepping nailswhite frothan interlude from youThe sun likeA camellia for herCrispColddropsflicking on her face.An interludefrom you.

"...regurgitating double A's all akimbo."

I remember one of my old high school intellectual friends introduced me to what he called a real wild blond girl named Sally or Marnie or something that summer of 1964. She was tall and blond and thin and looked like a model. Boys were usually afraid to

“Hey Jimmy,” we’d shout at the bartender, whose real name was Bill, but who acquired his nomme de biere with the fixtures when he bought the joint. “What?” he’d reply in monosyllables in order to keep his overhead down. “What does a woman want?”

We laugh at them, parading two-by-two, the elephants rolling tail to trunk across the makeshift gangplank, wide slats flexing under their sway. A pair of snakes contemplates gulping a pair of frogs and their clandestine movements stun a cricket and his mate. Birds squat…

The line of the unemployed wrapped back on itself like an accordion pleat and extended all the way across a great hall You could see the faces of them, bluish and drawn under the dim florescent lighting First in

Their son doesn’t eat anything. They can’t see how he keeps growing. He’s like an air plant, living on air alone, all the while knowing they themselves will never live on air alone again. They sewed their wild oats. They lived their universal life

Jeremy starts "dialing-for-dates" shortly after Thanksgiving to make sure he has someone to ring in the New Year with, but his scientific mind noticed a disturbing pattern after his initial round of phonecalls this fall.

She put on her hat, and walked into the back area, where she found a locker that held her name badge and a tube of chap stick.

Death threats? Just another mumbling day in the world of Willy Gregg.