1936 12 6
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We go in gently at first, skimming over the first few swells and dropping speed, but then we pitch hard, tail over. The windshield holds. I think of Lily. I think of the baby. And I see my life.
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193630
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I was crouched under a bruise-purple sky on a field of battle. I held a World War I-era weapon, an ancient black-iron spear with a spring, and I was told to load balloons onto it without popping them, and then I was to fire the balloons at some unnamed ta
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19362713
|
This is not a story you expect to end at Cape Horn.
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19362320
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There's always a sound, something triggering the fear.
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19362410
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One sunny morning, a big-bellied ball of yellow fur surveyed a yard full of prospective adopters and ran straight to one.
She’d been chosen.
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19361311
|
He had her pinned to the back seat, expressing his love. Do you love me? she whispered in his ear. Do you, do you, Jimmy Dale, do you love me? His only response…
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193673
|
Forget Ulysses, life itself is a stream of consciousness if you ever have time to get out of the stream and take a look at it. And there’s nothing that gets you out of the stream like a short sharp shock.
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193654
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The apartment was a second-level place, so I went down the steps and looked through the stained glass window of the door. “Ah hell,” I said to myself. Raymond Carver and John Fante and Charles Bukowski were outside. I opened the door.
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193688
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The moon begins to rise over L.A.
while the roaches try to crawl up
the sides of the mountains surrounding the L.A. Basin.
While fires rage in the forests of the night,
here comes the moon over the horizon,
big and haunted, pock-marked and coo
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1935125
|
The right is empty, waiting to receive the load like a catcher behind home plate.
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193522
|
His birthday buddy was like a wife to him: they were born a day apart.
This was coordinated, he believe, in the womb. Well, to be more accurate, wombs. She was due two weeks earlier but waited; he two weeks later but cut his womb-time (as the kids call i
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1935209
|
My mother’s old china no longer reflects. It’s value is now estimated as drywall.
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1935127
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It was only when blood began to drip onto the page that he realized he'd been hit.
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193522
|
In those days everyone ate poetry for lunch. It was considered essential for your good up-bringing and mental health. We would skip a meal in order to satisfy our hunger for words. To hell with a meal. To hell with dirty politics and meaningless wars on o
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193570
|
Who is the moron that invented the Snuggie?
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193400
|
See a girl like Lily sitting offstage in a wooden chair in a fourth-rate club somewhere, crying, holding on so hard to so little, and as it breaks your heart to watch; forgive me. Understand me. You can’t rescue us. We all deserve more.
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193433
|
salmon
maple syrup
horseradish
smoke detector
the list read, scrawled in purple marker on the refrigerator door.
|
193450
|
Please direct your attention to the flight attendants as they demonstrate the safety features of this aircraft.
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193461
|
At dinner in Marrakech, Namid danced on the table, waving a white napkin, propelled by jetlag and poor judgment.
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1934106
|
He kind of enjoyed living by himself. It was nice and peaceful.
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19342610
|
I avert my gaze to the crab grass pushing through broken concrete, the spent condoms, the empty vodka nips rolling at her stockinged feet...
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193398
|
Birds FlySeven Poemsby Darryl Pricefor Charlotte and Mel, as always"We should insist on joy in spite of everything."--Tom Robbins“I don't need your love. I don't need you to understand. I just need you to listen.”—Perfume Genius1. I Want to Sing to…
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19331510
|
chet baker shades my eyes
rippling through the cool water
sometimes we feed the fish
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193399
|
I don't think dogs like to die with the pack.
The smell of them rotting brings trouble in the wild,
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1932117
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When I got out I didn't buy a new suit of clothes, step into a bar, or bargain for an hour with a whore.
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193273
|
My favorite was a red bowler, a man's hat, which I never dared wear outside my tiny bedroom. My three brothers wanted it too much to take that kind of a risk. They'd poke me with various sharp objects: the serrated edge of the bread knife, the rusted TV
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1932165
|
Her eyes stared wide with panic, her teeth chattered intermittently with impressive intensity, and with her ineffectual stabs at the air she completed the portrait of distracted mania.
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193210
|
That stupid bastard seemed to defy death at every turn in his life. His actions suggested invincibility, but his catch phrase indicated full awareness that he was indeed quite vincible.
And how fitting was his name. We didn’t know if it
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193271
|
In 1978, a computer program became privy to my grandmother's most secret thoughts.
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193152
|
On some evenings, when I would sneak out of my room, I'd sit on the verandah and count the streetlights. I'd count the stars in the sky and trace the moon with the tip of my finger and consider how anyone could make it through the night when there were so
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