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30 Writers You Should Discover: Volume VIII
Clementine My fingernails mangle
the mottled wax
shell. Citrine sap
caresses each bulge
as I lick away
mattress-foam veins.
My teeth pop polyps
and shred cellophane skin.
If only everything
could be this sweet.
The Witching Hour Freshmen don't get to choose their dorm rooms. There are a few that are set aside specifically for freshmen: the small rooms, the ones with awkward angles, the ones farthest from the Dining Hall. But when the entering class is larger than usual, some of the rooms usually reserved for upperclassmen are opened up. If you're lucky, you could get one of the best rooms available.
I had a large class. And I got lucky.
My room wasn't huge, especially for sharing with a roommate, but it was on the top floor, right by the Bell Tower. It had a soaring ceiling, with windows nearly as tall. &#
Empty Sidewalks Her caramel complexion
was the perfect companion hue
to the cinnamon-bronze car.
She was hunched, headscarf
paralleling the curve
of the window, shoulders shielding
her infant: a curled
semi-colon wrapped in her arms.
Her eyes were
the color of wet sidewalks,
and as empty
as the night streets.
The Synesthete Red is red.
Firetruck red. B
is blue. P is purple.
Purple is purple. Y
is yellow. Yellow is
bright yellow/dark blue/plum purple.
Green is brown.
It's complicated.
Rape is red. And then purple.
A bruised, pulsating purple. Nothing like plums.
Rape feels like a rape. Quandary
tastes like guacamole.
No reason.
But she really likes guacamole.
A buzzing in her room burns
in her hand. Like a metal object
taken out of the microwave.
Or out of the oven. Or like a seat belt buckle
that's been in the sun. She can't sleep
in her room. No one else
can hear the sound. No one else
is able to feel
the sound s
What I Know First daylight is darkest dark
This is not meant
to be an aphorism or metaphor
or somehow comforting
It isn't even a fact
It is nature
which is to say
an absurdity
taken by its arm
& twisted into the truth
Your Mistress Wisdom She hovers colored, over your bed-covers
and coils around your ability to suspend belief.
She breathes in all your fevered winds
until sheep skin passions wither sheet thin.
Whispers slip out from her lips. She beckons that you
"Live! Reignite the night! From the windowsill, spew flames!"
Break away from the blanketed arcane! Leave!"
She begs you to simply love, leaves you simply self,
and calls from you conviction that coerces like a spell.
At dusk, these lost, these ship-wrecked thoughts toss
through your spider-fang spine, all through your spent host.
Then your holy ghost colludes with the coldness -
God alone remains.
Dressed To Kill Death need not appear in funeral wear
no drapes of gothic silk should
shroud that impish frame -
folds and furls about her curl
the shade of coal,
the shape of pain.
She little cares
if these threads be spun from silver sun
or lilac moon, his blushing colour drained,
her kiss shall fall from spider lips
dewy - crystalline.
So dressed in shuddering scenes of life
a blooming flower - a dying flame,
she treads the patterned tiles of fate
to still the blood
within our veins.
Amature Heroics Superheroes can catch bullets
with their bare hands.
Prise open your gushing palm -
a lotus flower in scarlet bloom
unfurling to reveal
its precious metal seed.
Save the day, get the girl.
I swear to swerve around the many
multi-coloured obstacles of life,
with the same degree of tenacity.
I will juggle it all
no joke, no rehearsals
and like a pantomime villain
they will chase me from the stage.
These lies we sell ourselves
are like fervent prayers,
to a disembodied deity
who offers only dreams,
or doubts.
Hortus Venenum Cultura The rarest flower -
all vine, dead leaves
earth.
A death blue hue
to match the tune,
of winter’s heart.
Do they not feel?
The damp of dawn,
wet soil, the bodies
so many little lives…
the insects, the vermin -
bearing summer.
Rotted flesh feeding
poppy fields in France,
for peace -
for opium?
Healthy anarchy dimmed
by a flow of ecstasy,
oh joy - for green leaves
and mellow afternoons.
Forests fallen -
giants lain to rest
children slaughtered,
to lace the sky with diamonds.
Suspended Animation We will hide in rooms
of corpses in clear coffins;
our names carved into every surface,
our fortunes told in fish eyes
and sharks’ teeth.
We are frogs in formaldehyde,
puffed up like tear-stained faces,
motel pillows;
we are jellyfish in jars,
hanging like bleached willows;
tangled tentacles dangle, flaccid,
and spectres of the Pacific
will not stir us.
In the mother-of-pearl,
in the birds of paradise,
in the ribcages and tortoiseshells,
we linger, petrified,
and do not hope to be unearthed.
Now we stand like stick figures
pinned to twilight
as orange and blue hesitate in the sky;
starlings swarm across the stuttere
Jump I could jump—
no, not to die—
just to feel the freedom of falling,
of my body kissing the pavement;
just to let my last breath slip away in laughter.
I could totter to the edge, all haughty,
and tell myself I could fly
only for gravity to remind me I’m average—
to feel the universality of broken bones,
of mixing myself with the earth.
I could dive,
magnificent in the sunlight,
and be omniscient for a second,
believe in something more for a second.
I could jump—
no, not to die—
just to know what I was missing;
just to
Under the Umbrella That’s me under the battered umbrella, the one with the Technicolor dreamcoat and the hairstyle that’s decidedly undecided. I’m avoiding looking down, I expect, because I’d like to be one of those confident people that smiles and says “Afternoon!” to everyone they pass on the gum-dappled pavements, and not someone that puts all their energy into considering abandoned takeaway packaging and coins glued to the floor by psychology students.
I’m probably thinking about poetry, or one of many arrogant young men that occasionally give me a look that could be mistaken for something meaningful. Maybe I’m just
unlearn the constellations I may carry my voice
on white-crested wingtips
but I refuse to take the names of birds.
My throat is not a desert
with smoldered star limbs
in place of sand, not a stone
for you to overturn and mark
with gentle cloud prints
or leave in the mud
to be perforated by bright moss.
My song is not made
to be thundered like a body
on the wind, to be bellowed
by the jagged mouths
of some distant, forgotten jungle.
It is made to slide along the edges
of twenty burning suns and rise
like a halo of newfound breath
from the crevice which splits
earth and sea. To break open
like the young, wet-winged dove
born of a glorious mud
which cracks mountains wi
we are all going forward imagine this:
your life strung out
on a line, on a series of lines. the sum of you
peeled apart and dissected and laid bare.
imagine your memories
radiating endlessly outward, glasslike
and glowing, making crystalline patterns
of sunshine and dust. these patterns making cracks
behind your eyes. each crack leaking dreams. imagine
yourself and your body and at the center of it
a circle of constant light.
(you are standing in the circle. the light
is blinding.)
imagine time
forgetting to breathe. the supple darkness
between its heart and lungs
suddenly expanding past eternity. billowing outward,
coiling. not a stutter
but a pause. a space
ju
When God Sleeps. I. So it comes to this: pangea tearing itself raw
from our throats to pour into squares of newly open sky
where the stars grew aches and darkened lakewater
once bloomed into bruised winters. Somewhere
beyond the thick of snow, prayers are strung
on moon-rattled winds
and birds' teeth tear apart the poetry
of our hands. They will raise something beautiful
from these ruined words.
Continents shift slowly. They are
dirt-bound titans, these beasts;
rootless giants that mold themselves
to fit the vision we hold inside our heads. Oceans sigh
and their tides crawl ever upward.
II. Our shadows become umbilical
in certain light. Unknown children cas
Innocence Killed Teddy never saw it coming,
bless him.
The knife was in my hand behind his
threadbare head.
I crept on stockinged feet across
my bedroom floor, the light between the blinds
casting shadows over the rest of my childhood lies.
Before his little ears could twitch,
the knife was between his button eyes,
stuffing popping out the side like
white, fluffy blood.
He never even made a sound,
just slumped over onto the jaded
cover of my bed.
The comforter my Grandma made for me
when I was six,
his death grounds.
They'd never know why,
they would never understand.
In the past washed present of my room,
with the same wallpaper I'd ha
Bellyache Sirens wailed and Jesse almost fell down the few metal steps into the engine room in his hurry to reach the stricken machine. Red light bathed the room and strobed over the brass and steel in steady flashes. Jesse ran to the pressure gages, watching the little black needle tap against the edge as it fought to read numbers that didn’t exist. Punching buttons, the mechanic tried to release the steam feeds but the lights on the control board just winked at him in frantic red and green. He ducked under a bunch of rattling brass banded pipes and fought his way around to the main engine compartment. He swore as boiling water dripped down from
Lullaby Doucement, doucement
Doucement s'en va le jour
Doucement, doucement
À pas de velours
The air was close, wet, reaching down into his lungs with solid fingers. A warm press at the back of his throat that tasted of swamp water and bourbon. He was swaying, or perhaps the bayou was moving too, Spanish moss leaning from side to side even though there was no breeze.
The mouth of the bottle was hard against his mouth, the glass clinking against his teeth as he took a swig, the liquor burning with the promise of courage and oblivion down his throat.
Cicadas hiccupped in the long grass, a sound so common in the calm evenings but now it sound
The Pianist His fingers rested on the keys. He inhaled a shaky breath.
He had finished practicing for the day. Four hours straight, every day except Monday.
For a moment, the thought of why his fingers weren't bleeding crossed his mind. But he quickly rationalized, piano keys had no way to damage. At least, not yet, He thought dully. One of his greatest fears was growing old and getting arthritis.
The young man had a difficult relationship with the piano. Most everyone who heard him play enjoyed it. Most everyone said he was talented. But it did not seem that way to him.
He did not have idols like immortal Beethoven, or modern sensations like Einaudi
Relationships Are Amusing Camrea's flats made a soft pat-pat on the carpet hall as she walked. She had been summoned by the Chancellor, being his Chief Aide. It was a brief walk between their offices.
As such, she had her full uniform on. It consisted of a simple, long sleeved dress that ended mid-way on her thigh. It wasn't form fitting, but still complimented her figure. The color was white, with a blue crisscross pattern on the sleeves and back.
Along with some white tights and a matching side cap, she was ready for whatever official business awaited. Though Camrea didn't need be as strict as navy personnel, she did so anyway.
She opened a door, and weaved throu
Crimson King Rykorbeq had a happy history. The city was tucked in a large and varied forest. Sugar maples were prominent, making a market for the syrup, and things extrapolated from it—such as unique baked goods. Naturally, too, there was a lumber industry. Rykorbeq was known as the Capital of Wood in the small region it served.
The King was blessed by the wind, and he was able to wield it. An aeromagi, a wind guardian, and a variety of other terms would describe him. He had been a good monarch, caring about his people and considering them all extended family.
But unfortunately, in his true family history, there were numerous cases of insanity.
An
Stopping a Thief As she walked down the hall, every guard snapped to attention and awaited their command. "Dietrich, nice to see you this morning. I was under the impression you had other duties to fulfill today." Ceara spoke to her friend and second in command.
"Just thought I'd check in with you first. I don't want to get in trouble because I'm reporting to someone else before you." Dietrich's voice was playful. Even though Ceara was his commanding officer, the two had grown up together and were good friends. Ceara was two years younger than Dietrich, but that didn't cause any pro
Behind Blue Eyes She lay on her bed, unable to even get out of it and walk around her own home. Having had visitors most of the day, she was grateful for the peace and quiet her empty room gave her.
Looking across the room to the long mirror on the back of her bedroom door, she saw her brilliant blue eyes sparkling back. Not a day went by that she didn't look in that mirror and see those soft eyes returning her gaze. Not since she bought that mirror all those years ago.
As she looked at her reflection, she wondered if her eyes had always been that shade of blue. The night she was born, when she opened her eyes for the first time and looked at her mother
Fighting Fate : Prologue Nineteen years ago
Quickly making his way up the staircase to the king's chambers, Lord Rafe, the king's administrator, entered the room, and walked up to the king. "Sire, two children have been born to the Queen—"
"She is not the Queen or a queen for that matter, and you will not address her as such." Anger evident in his voice.
"King Malachi, my apologies, but I still await your instructions on what to do with the children." Rafe replied.
Malachi shook his head. "I can't believe this! First she scams her way into my castle and into my bed, and now she has given birth to two heirs to this throne!" Malachi paced the room like a
Oil Oil slid from the sky to the river.
Onto the road, into the gutters, into the pipes, down to the river.
"Do you think we've been seen?"
"Shh! It hasn't stopped yet."
"We should stand higher up."
"They told us to stand by the sewer."
"But will they see us?"
"We can't move. It needs somewhere to drain down."
"My shoes are covered in it. I hope they're going to compensate us for the damage."
"You ought to have worn boots. They said."
"It's getting in my hair."
"They said about that too. Wear a hat, they said."
"I really think we ought to stand higher up."
"Shh! Hear that? It's stopping."
"What now?"
Oil slicked the streets,
the u
Cassette Tape “Which room is the cassette player in now?” says Joe.
I picture the old stereo, a tower block of black plastic with a record deck on the roof and a double cassette player in the second storey. Then I paint the room around it. A brown cupboard, yellow walls, a twisting table lamp.
“The front room,” I announce. It’s hard to remember things like cassette players.
“Do we know where the tape is?” mum asks.
“I’ll find it.”
It ought to be in the cupboard drawer. I pull out The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Little Princess, Just William. None of these are right. I open the DVD cupbo
Trip 1
I speak six languages, French on the train,
Flemish in a square, money in my top hat,
I sell the hat, travel on, Italian at a Cathedral,
Hebrew on a mountain, money in my flat cap,
I travel against the sun, speak music with him.
2
I did not lose my treasure on the crossing
and no pirates approached our ship.
The natives are civilised, for natives;
a charming prince with a nose ring performed a dance for me.
3
wine buckfast lager pass a smoke man the dope shroom stash smashed
out of my head can't feel my feet the bed half a pill I'm delirious dead
4
Strong man and the Siamese twins dig ruts for the wheels
and the acrobat brew
15 de octubre des 2010 2 I had just finished
cleaning the house
the day you
kicked me out
it is only now
I realize
I left that house
clean
Spring Cleaning snowflakes
chased by a broom -
a robin directs.
for Stephen blackened jack boots grinding to dust cherry blossoms
The Holocaust still burying the innocent
Children wrought carols of holiday
sick children simmered
in the winter winds.
lawns became alabaster junk yards,
The evergreen carousel floodlit
tired snow, galvanised by late comers
ascending the lawns. kids like vultures: bore
heads protruding from a bulbous coat.
pickings of city snow, smashing windows.
a pitiful pine-tree crucified with lights:
&#
bucolic concrete sulphurous clouds still seep
from abandoned factories;
concretes burnt a poignant
orange. greens fallow to
desert soil.
debris unevens pathways,
crippling old city farmers. searching
for water down waning wells:
uncouthly supported by
rudimentary salvaged structures.
water crawls along the ground
as it spills from buckets. city farmers
journey back across urban
wastelands.
in cities: doors stand alone along
wide spread roads. Homes turn to
houses and city farmers weep as
they sheepishly graze empty shelves.
they go to families presenting poor
city yields. slowly dustbins roll
down streets like tumble weed.
skitterin
Kind of Like Birth the day grew old
under the whines of the oak.
a pitiful shadow cast where
my great-uncle sleeps,
collapsing into the last hours of fast.
his scaffolding ribs creak
and rusting lips purse like
a vulture's greedy beak.
tenement roofs trim the treetops, and
canopies of chicken wire hinder the breeze.
the machinery of
tenacious heat welds my great-uncle to place
and his sticky hands and feet
curl and shrivel like dying weeds.
stacks of cans replace stars,
twinkling in the busy lights.
my great-uncle, like a man to his maker:
saw the neon lights drifting like a flare
to a sobered sailor and took the bottle
to jam the rasping
lights out, child of mine she wakes up to the sound of white bottlecaps shifting weight
like the boughs of a taciturn ship
only to realize thru bedcovers
and forgotten colours
that it was just her vacancy sign.
she hugs her knees to
stop
the nausea that slithers along her major organs
a telegram
stop
to
bedposts and wire springs that construct her waking life
and now perturb the numbers in her head.
the streetlamp outside her window is
no lighthouse
just a metaphor for something she shouldn't read into
but always does.
jettison cigarettes on her marline veins
la sangre
more the colour of phosphene scarlet letters
lik
intrinsic, you go unnamed the memory of your laugh is an oral tradition
and I cannot release
the dust off my lungs
that you stirred from among long nights
and solemn books.
a philosophical question, innately unanswerable
and just as beautiful, you are
the denouement, fractal and convoluted;
like the Arabian nights
we were once. but you moved on,
personae, boundless
avifauna villa his feet are bare and open
herringbones of pentecostal bracken
like two birds frozen in the nest;
a nametag is lashed upon his breast,
wilderness homely and pure,
his praline token unsung
as he works it like a moat
churning honey pinwheels
that hibernate between inlets
in the heads of children.
names turn their faces, like the shaken joy
of turtle dove couplets.
only subsidiary bodies-
pebbles shamed into the grey-belly well
like beasts with bloody noses
can keep from sinking
from his geometry of words,
steely discuses oxidizing on the tongue
Fat Stop trying to force-feed me:
I don't want to eat.
Don't tell me I'm skinny
when I'm not.
Don't tell me I'm unhealthy.
This is my body,
not yours,
and it's doing just fine.
Do you know what it's like?
To look in the mirror
and feel disgust?
Look at you, you fat bitch.
No one will ever want you.
You'll never be thin enough.
Put on a baggy shirt to hide your huge gut, you whore.
Do you know what it's like?
To step on the scale?
Hoping,
praying,
wishing
that you dropped those two pounds?
Eighty pounds?
Is that really the best you can do?
Your thighs are repulsive.
How did you get so fat?
Lose. More. Weight.
Do you wak
Rape Drinking drinking
Glasses clinking
Blurring slurring
Stomach churning
Screaming, yelling
While I pled
Grabbing, pushing
'Til I bled
Climbing climbing
Never rising
Descending ending
Never mending
Living, dying
All the same
Waking, sleeping
Without change
Shifting shifting
Ever drifting
Crawling crawling
Ever falling
Lying, hiding
Far away
Drowning, rotting
Slow decay
Breaking breaking
Never waking
Tripping gripping
Ever slipping
This Too Shall Pass Seventy-four pounds of skin and bone, held together by nothing but a fraying thread of resilience. People who have met me since my recovery wouldn't recognize me in pictures from back then. I never thought my life could change with just one short conversation.
"I need to talk to you about something," my boyfriend of one year and four months told me after school on March 13, 2007. I still remember that it was chilly and gray outside—the usual Chicago-area end-of-winter weather.
Even though we'd been fighting lately, I thought nothing of it. Everything that day had seemed normal—better than normal, in fact. I was wearing my favorite
Barbaric Treatment The noontide sun gleamed off Hrothgar the Northman’s rippling thews, and his shaggy mane of golden hair shone. The cheap tunic he wore could not conceal the hard, rangy lines of his frame as he stood astride the path through the narrow pass he had made his own.
Voices reached his ears; ears that, although attuned to the clash and clangor of battle, had never been deafened by the clatter and bustle of what men called civilization and so remained alert to the slightest threat: the padded footfall of the wolf, or the quiet hiss of a blade drawn from its sheath. But these were careless voices, chattering and laughing, heedless of the peril
The Secret Oasis Early autumn, 2261 AURC
The northern road got more and more crowded the closer we drew to Great Market. This time of year virtually all the trade on it was heading south, and so were we, but we were in no mood for a trader's plodding pace. The nights had become chilly, and we wanted to be on our way down the Spice Road before another fortnight passed.
A hundred years ago, Great Market didn't exist. On the spot where it now stood there was nothing but a crossroads with a Regellan transfer station. Even this far from New Regellus, all imports received into the Empire had to pass through the capital before they were allowed to be sold anywhere
The Rising Storm: Chapter 1 Late summer, 2257 ab urbe Regelli condita
There was an opponent to either side of me as I stood ready and waiting for Master Wei-fu’s direction. His black robes hung off his bony frame and he leaned on his staff. His sparse beard pointed stiffly at me and his eyes flashed with annoyance in the shadow of his brows.
I was stripped down for exercise. The late afternoon sun is never very warm that time of the year in the mountains when summer is dying and there’s a scent of autumn in the air. With the sweat from our earlier passes drying on my skin I was feeling the chill.
“Begin!” he cried.
My older brothers Calcedor and
Across Seas bits, motes, stars.
they fit in the palm, in the pocket, in the quick glance toward the sea.
they also fit the end of unfinished sentences and the gaps in between your fingers--
and in the zero space of a gaze and in the weave of a bird's nest.
and in the eye of a needle and the margins of a book,
and in the nooks of a trumpet and the spirals of laughter.
they fit in film canisters and the cracks in the window frames,
in tree bark and in the untouched night of the soup can.
they fit in the spaces between songs and the gaps in fences,
they fit between light and substance, between touch and feeling.
they fit between flesh and fabric a
Lady Depression I am getting fat and complacent.
I sup on the riches of your labour and
spit the bones back in your face.
You are not worthy of anything.
You are a fly buzzing in my ear,
neither here nor there.
I can fell you with one slap,
end you with one loud clap
of my hands together and you fall,
like a marionette puppet whose
strings have been cut.
Pitiful thing.
You are easily killed.
I think I'll play with you a little more.
Only Dreams You dreamt of me in sunshine
and I dreamt of you in sand.
Images shared in whispers
for fear of reality hearing.
Wings By four in the morning, City Airport was beginning to resemble a refugee camp. The would-be travellers had long ago run out of fuel for their anger and accusations, and now only a noise like a distant waterfall filled the skeleton rafters - the sound of hundreds of people breathing softly in sleep. They lay bundled in coats, huddled against soft cases, and draped over airport furniture. Some still had pouts and scowls etched into the lines of their face, but most slept placidly - like worn out dogs or the sort of babies that only exist in TV adverts - dreaming of postcard beaches and over-decorated cocktails.
Standing in the way of such drea
Believe I believe in blue skies,
And I believe in rain.
I believe in rush-hour jams,
And missing the last train.
I believe in taxes,
And "honest rates of pay".
I believe in Downing Street,
But never what they say.
I believe in "good laughs",
And I believe in pain.
I believe in caffeine shots,
And pills to keep you sane.
I don't believe in martyrs,
Just cynics gone astray.
I don't believe in Peace-On-Earth,
'Cos nothing works that way.
I can't believe in blue skies,
When all I see is rain.
I can't believe in preachers,
When all books sound the same.
Let me believe in justice.
Believe the skies are blue.
Let me believe in angels.
Between Drinks The atmosphere inside the club had reached the consistency of a bachelor's duvet: smotheringly hot, and damp with all manner of interesting bodily fluids. The air tasted simultaneously sweet and sour, as the competing odours of fruit cocktails and sweat mixed and mingled along with the dancers. And, all through the space, the humid air pulsed with the heart-beat thump and grind of the music. Into this dark jungle, bubbled and rang the most exquisite laugh in London.
This was a laugh of character. Of quality. It permeated through the fog of sound like tiny roots, bone-white and china-fragile, but with the strength to prise solid rock apart. I
Empty Carriage On the inside of her thigh
Scrawled in delicate black lettering
Was a tattoo
It read:
"Where is my god?"
When they would speak of her
Their voices resembled raindrops
Gentle and falling
Very quiet within all the thunder
She would press her cheek
To the window glass as she listened
It relieved her that their voices held her
When nothing else did
Her eyes ran neither hot nor cold.
Instead they were much as her body
Arrows held taut, ready to be fired
Aimed straight at you
At night she lay with a baby doll
Its plastic ears had no holes
For her murmurs to drain into
So instead she drowned each night
In the overflow
Skip to the Last Verse I went to Catholic school all my life
And thought in agnostic terms by 5th grade.
I'm now what you'd call an existential nihilist
But I believe in inalienable human rights.
Tuesday early morning I took my dogs for a walk.
The pimp stopped his car to let his whores out to pet them.
He told me how pretty my girls were
I told him his were too
When I got home I got myself a drink,
The last hard liquor in the house.
I can't decide to be proud of the 'functioning'
Or ashamed of the 'alcoholic'
Next, out to get the newspaper
and heckle the meth dealers next door.
It's fine because I was stealing the paper
Off the neighbor's porch.
Prayer of the Ordinary As told to the inchworm on my window sill
It's a hymn for Dalmo
Because no one ever writes for Dalmo
And it's likely no one will ever again.
Dalmo thinks ideas are like soap
Slippery little devils
We rub them all over ourselves if we like the smell
Sometimes it gets the grim off
But no matter what
Underneath is our same old stink
Sometimes Dalmo would sit on the curb across the street
The kind of kid that drew with a stick in the dirt
And flicked litter into the middle of the road
Half of a
cigarette carton
open doors make houses colder there is a machine set up to dry the paint
on the double-doors that purse their lips
against winter's skritching fingers.
its voice is like that of a computer overworked,
and together, both buzz arduous little ditties
that fill this home with the husks of honeybees.
she is poised pensively before the monitor,
a headset curled hopefully about her skull,
entangling itself with hair harried by
two children and a husband working overseas.
she is waiting for his call and the headset
is like a raindance. he is angry with her again,
at four in the morning in dogmouth manila,
feeling neglected and despondent
amid the sleepy hum of airc
vancouver II I
Panic's preservative effects: efficient as formaldehyde. The everlasting spiral of engine, the crawl of sunshine down the cabin walls. The forged clouds & mountainsides, the self as receptacle for their divine undulations. One's subsistence on stimulants, space saved in the body for this. All the geography of the world won't kill off your demons -- I would know -- but there is some sort of absolving silence in the wooded districts. Some sort of pride, love, ownership in the unaddressable city below. Vancouver: unkeepable, unguardable, glass upon glass, impossible shiver in the night. Clean & fragile, a sneeze of Swarovski crystal, decadent
songs for a cowboy A.
Saturdays happen around the blessed sound of your soles sticking to a morning built of spilt gin and tonic and linoleum flooring; the light streaming clean thru dollar-store wine glasses shattered into half-moons at the belly of their curvature; the stale hangaround poem smell of tea-box stacked with crushed-butt stratum of Lucky Strikes & Shanghai specials, Belmonts & dark ash. The days are brighter now: white rage sky torn straight into by sunrise sirens, Doppler-effecting beyond us. We wake and dream more vividly: "To be aware / of the divine union[,] the soul detaches itself / from created things."
( Oh, but white wayfarers, dark jea
In absence of God. i.
no, no, I have a human touch, see:
morning blossomed earlier,
a grey kind of wind
who breathed foreign grief on me.
it lit up my bedroom in rain drops
and bird calls lamenting the loss of a man
I have never known—
but our hands would touch
in evening sun, remember?
ii.
oh, no—your heart is not made for loving,
he said, and I do not love his bones
today—so inflicted with a broken need
to not be needed, a collapsing country
I will not visit, that will not be explored
or understood,
and the
Spring, 1992. on the third month, we slipped outside
our bodies in may, left them curled
inside the womb. we could not live here,
watching how your fingertips swept walls
with a sister's touch: a heartbeat fused
into a chest. it clung invisibly
to white paint—recipes for how to live.
flood your lungs with symphonies, you wrote,
stamp footprints into the carpet, do not dance,
tell father he built us. you addressed it to us,
signed your name and sealed it with your palm.
we left, two pale incoherencies that drifted
above the bed in a dark room propped by stillness.
our voices moseyed through square spaces
in the window screen and snagge
When we cry as children. i.
winter was a season for not touching
your hopeless hands. you unlearned
movement that year,
& your tongue birthed empty speech.
I put my ear to your chest, cotton between us,
heard the bray of your breathing
being dragged into lungs;
they did not want your breath, either.
I baptized my heart in the still quiet
& layered prayer atop your skin:
may your cells learn something of cancer
& grow to forget what death is.
earth distended its wide mouth
& accepted your body whole.
ii.
morning expands its bright opal
& wind shakes the talons of trees,
as if to
The Dream of a Highly Successful Man There is a familiar low rumble of cobblestones. He shifts his Boxster into neutral and unwinds the window, pushes the intercom button.
"Anthony..."
Silence.
"Hello? Anthony..."
Still nothing. He waits, counts to ten mentally, and then hits the alert-buzzer: once; twice! Where is he? This is ridiculous. Surely he can't have strayed too far from his post, at this hour.
He pushes his thumb against the buzzer and the intercom button together, holds them down. "Anthony! Can you please open the gate! It's just me."
The speaker crackles to life at last. "Just you, sir?"
"That's what I said."
"Oh... no lady friends, tonight?"
Ah—so, is
Foreground Four thirty AM
I am standing in my kitchen
wearing my dark blue dressing gown
building a time machine
from assorted cutlery
and a broken microwave.
I am visiting you
three years ago.
I have calendars for you
with notes written each day:
some are highlighted orange
to show you when to ignore
the things I say.
Others are circled blue,
and on these occasions
I meant every word.
I am smiling at you,
already knowing the day you leave
I will understand
in time, despite what I say.
You look at me quizzically:
bemused by this odd smiling.
It’s four years later:
upsetting things we said
seem like empty noise,
instinctive
Own Skin I bought myself a Moleskine
to emulate Picasso, Hemingway
was never seen without his
in canal-side cafes, Spanish bull rings.
My fingers grease its ebon spine
over and over in tactile search
for some hidden leak of creative essence
I found Dante's house
down an old narrow street
alongside a crowd of German tourists
I did not enter only stared
at his stones, the exterior.
The hotel room is filled
with the buzz of the alleyway below,
restaurant kitchens' backdoors opening
for cooks, waitstaff, rubbish bags and oaths,
effusive shoppers admiring new pashmina
scarves haggled from vendors
in the adjacent market square.
I close t
I Never Held A Raindrop I never held a raindrop
Made cold from quiet fear
I never touched a tender heart
Unblessed by silent tears.
A moment ends, the setting sun
A memory disgraced
The light, a slowly fading nod
It's touch, our sorrow's soft embrace.
I never knew but one time touched
The Rose of Innocence
Would shed its petals evermore
And Fade from brief existence.
Once more I'll whisper sentiment
Once more so much to say
But words will only shadows cast
Of my souls bouquet.
I never wished for sacrifice
To stain our hallowed breath
Or linger in the depth of us
And feel like welcomed death.
In time my voice will travel down
To ages yet unspoke
La Petite Mort Still my beating heart once more
rest 'til morning's light does break
withdraw from heaven's farthest shore
into the gently fading take
the ever distant leagues of time
are whispered with serene intent
the smallest glimpse of fair divine
lies deep within that sweet torment.fly my stilling spirit's splendor
leave this place where I once died
the Little death (each time remembered)
the little Death dwells deep inside.
sleep my love through dream undone
breathe in once, breathe out again
rise anew with Dawn's first sun
and feel the tender moments end.sing my fearsome quickened heart
to keep my tattered soul aloft
evermore inside
Today I am Alone Today I am alone
In the vastness of my bones
With the silence of my many years
And the unseen lines of dried up tears
My heart the only well lived home
I gazed upon my birth
On my solitary worth
On the ones who wraught me into being
Who gave me hope and joy and meaning
And the creators lips so set in mirth
I heard the saddest joke today
Those we love all fade away
We live on an island, vast and remote
Where none may linger, and few will hope
I stand alone at the end of each broken day
I dreamt that I was split in two
Rendered, to carry the burdens of our truth
My hands were shaking, failing, trembling
My soul was breaking wi
Haikuwrimo Summer 2008 31
flower in my hat
bees trailing behind
30
dragged from my bed
by the smell of frying bacon
29
pale twilight-
cold wind
warns of nightfall
28
office dress itchy
over yesterday's
bikini sunburn
27
banner of thirty-six stars
a broken nation mourns
26
black clouds going east
wet streets and rainbows
25
from my hammock I see
the wasps building
in the porch light
24
a little polish for the wedding ring
one year older
23
smell of rain
horses are galloping
tails and heads high
22
and just who
keeps leaving their
cat toys in my shoe?
21
in line for the movie-
watching the faces of those coming out
20
playful k
June 2011 Haikuthon 30.
cloudy morning
maybe it will rain
I tell the staring kitten
29.
alone on the mountain
an airplane
seems terribly loud
28.
who is following us?
leaves crackling with each step-
little bird collecting leaves
27.
under the umbrella
a kraut dog
and an Onion
26.
one bright star
a blink
I see the dipper
25.
all around the house
mowed for fire abatement
but one bunch of poppies
24.
How long since I've been here?
backlit poppies
fire in the sunset
23.
stray lock of hair
when did you get so grey?
22.
halfway down the hill
my horse notices me coming
and decides not to move
21.
river swift with snowmelt
almost
renga tree- hangover just before dawn
the hunchbacked moon
limps home
Hollow Suicide I love this world.
I love it even when it's so beautifully achingly lonely that I can feel the drum of my pulse throbbing just under my skin, a constant reminder of the hollow center the veins connect back to.
Sometimes I think I want to build my future in the forest because the trees are so lovely – but then I realize that I would be missing out on the vast, limitless blue expanses of oceanwater and the sound of the waves lapping at the shoreline. And then I think of the view from the mountains, or the honey-golden tones of the desert at sunset, the neon lights of the great cities, all the beautiful places in the world I have to choos
Recycled Dreams I was halfway down the second floor apartment stairs when I realized I'd left my left arm on the table.
It's no surprise of course, for I've always had a habit of misplacing important things like keys, documents, and identification cards, but to leave one’s arm on the table is truly embarrassing. I would have run back to get it, but the bus driver is always a bit early on Tuesdays and I could already hear the distant hum of the engine making its way to me. And it's not like I really need it for work anyway. So I left it behind.
It's penguins and oranges today; my latest client is a fairly normal one. The last dreamer wanted marsupia
Absolute Horizon Molly Steinberg can bend light. I would know. I'm dating her.
I know what you're thinking. You think I'm calling her dense. Thick-headed. Stupid. She's not. Oh no, she is not.
She's smart; very smart, but in the worst way possible. She's pretty, athletic, popular, top of the line family, manipulative bitch extraordinaire. Molly Steinberg gets what she wants. And Molly Steinberg wants an A in science class.
It's easy to look at fools in love and think you'll never be like that. I know I thought that way once. But when the (ahem) perky cheerleader sidles up to you for a little help with Physics homework, well, you just don't say no. Not unle
Hubris The world is not a skeleton. It does not ache bone-deep with our atrocities, nor is it fragile and ready for the breaking. It knows nothing so human, except perhaps to forgive our pride. Let me explain:
Young, I am a bright star with small, pudgy hands for guiltless flower-crushing. Before even that, I am a wispy squall for food, unused to knowing anything but myself, and warmth, and hunger.
The concept of a hero is a natural progression from understanding speech. I am Me. I am the one all the stories talk about, born special, to whom both innocence and wisdom are possible. I am so great a part of my own self that I do not know it can be de
Newspaper Notation There was a newspaper sky the day he heard, glued across the breakers. ("Rebellion", said the sea, you hate each other. In a personal or global sense?)
I'm a composer, he had said once to Leanne, when she laughed at him for sketching sonatas on coffee-shop napkins – I've been trained to hear music everywhere. He'd said it like a contract, hoping she would understand. She had laughed and asked him to write a piece for her, all the syllables of her name bubbling like wind chimes.
He still had it, tucked away under the piano stool. It was not a labour of love so much as a dedication; notes jostling each other up the scales while he wrote
Antes We are We, the Hunters of greatest knowledge and spell-blood. We use spell-words to hunt and to Change our bodies to rocks or trees. It has long been forbidden to Change to other Hunters or Hunted, or to kill others of We; yet it happened, and without it We would not be living.
This is that tale.
This is a tale from before the Fire, before the Dark, when the world was still green and the sky was still blue.
We had a Pack in the north, running free under the moon. The hunt was good. The Pack was strong and the prey was weak. The prey was a Hunter, a small running-Hunter; and so he turned, hissing spell-words, but he was claw- and tooth-stro
What Makes This Haiku Great What Makes This Haiku Great
a frog floating
A Mountain having spun
a mountain
on a record
deck, causing
earthquakes
when faultlines
strained to hear
the needle
reading trees,
streams, valleys
and crags,
it has grown
obvious
that Giza's
pyramids
could pass through
the eye
of a needle
but Atlas'
shoulders
could not
Haikuthon July 2009 31st---
sun glare -
every last drop gone
from the bowl
30th---
orchids fade
in the evening gloom
gibbous moon
29th---
night stroll
through the rain
the sound of rain
28th---
returning sun -
the crow's caw also
turns to gold
27th---
movement of air -
leaves shed a slew
of the morning's rain
26th---
no war here -
vapour flits over
a mug of tea
25th---
budleias sway
by the church voices whisper
of her strained marriage
24th---
tidal mist
a stone the shape of
an arrowhead
23rd---
unfolding the tissue
a butterfly
made of snot
22nd---
rain presses down these burdened bones
21st---
out at sea
a wave strokes pa
Man Bites Panda Man Bites Panda
Sometimes it takes a lot of work to uncover news stories to make fun of. Other times, God delivers them to your doorstep nicely gift-wrapped with a little tag that says, "Cheers!"
The case of Chinese building worker Zhang Xinyan is one of those fortuitous latter opportunities. Mr. Zhang, having had four pints of beer over lunch while on holiday, decided it would be a neat idea to intrude into the territory of one of nature's most adorable beasts; one who has captured the hearts of the world yet is unfortunately known for being somewhat inept with its young.
No, not Britney Spears. A giant panda.
Zhang jumped the fence a
Biology of the Long-tailed a The ecosystem of language is relatively stable, with few of its creatures ever facing the threat of extinction. One exception, of course, is the Interrobang, an obviously detrimental mutation that should serve as an example of the horrors of punctuational incest.
However, when a purer character begins to fade, it is all the more important for conservationists to step in and ensure not only its survival, but the precious balance of keyboard habitats everywhere. A more recent story of conservational success revolves around the Long-tailed a.
The Long-tailed a looks much like its more plentiful cousin, the Giant a, but are instantly differenti
Dear Honorable Mr. Holmes Dear Honorable Mr. Holmes:
I bring to you hearty greetings from across the pond. However, as you likely have already surmised by the small smudge on the address bar of the envelope undoubtedly caused by a bead of my own sweat, I also deliver a quandary for the likes of your finely honed skills.
As you may know, a survey was recently conducted of 3,000 of your fellow Britons, asking whether certain figures were real or fictional. When your name came up, Mr. Holmes, 58 percent said you were real.
Isn't that preposterous? That means 42 percent believe you're a fake! I can only think that such hoodwinkery be caused by some sort of slanderous p
Accurate Portrait Accurate Portrait
A picture entitled Lemon Treed Le Monde.
The sound of it knots my tongue
like the memory in which I use my tongue
to try to knot a cherry stalk.
He wants my best angle. Ah but for a tree
of cameras and their ephemeral fruits.
Under the arboretum is a nuclear bunker
which we don't worry about, meeting
between shapely trees. How about
this snow? It'll wake up the child in you,
when it arrives, if you're willing to wait.
And this cairn of leaves will wake up
the caretaker, he likes a hoard of rot.
You have to think of this oak
as an old man leaning on a weathervane.
He paints himself as a caretaker.
He paints a
No Halfway House No Halfway House
No axeshaft in the oak. Iron brought down
the mountain. And the house of the word
doffs its roof to a cyclone,
so the slow invasions of open space.
A tree is the sound of a piano attenuated
to pinprick twig-tips, as if the instrument
were the bulb of it, underground.
The piano in the drawingroom wants to sprout.
~
Outside, the noise of cars shipwrecks,
Doppler-echoes at the corner --
here is the time of the echo before it is gone,
like the wind that snags in branches
and forgets itself to sky, like the sky
so generous with itself, falling
into the arms of trees as snow. The discovery
of puddles precludes
Instrument Instrument
A piano attunes itself to pinprick twig-tips,
as if the instrument were the close-clustered roots
of the oak, underground, under-roof
in the library whose books lean and listen together
like a forest not quite owning its noises.
Sky is looking too carefully at the ground again --
look at its magnifying lenses on droplet-brained grasses
going inwards, judging the distance of dirt from their faces.
The piano hulks rain's summerhouse
whose smashed windows lie everywhere, inert.
You can hear its tentative jazz on a tin-top hut,
it wants to be used to bring the worms roping up,
to turn worms to rope --
look at their graine
Sweet Tunes - FFM 2010 The only way to appease the creature was to play music at it – the older music the better. Whenever the music stopped, it'd stop its melodic swaying, freeze, and then let out the most terrifying and deadly cry. Eardrums bursting, glass shattering, electronics exploding, eyeballs melting – that kind of cry.
After that, it would disappear, only to reappear at the most inconvenient place imaginable, ready to explode again. If those around it valued their spleens, they would start digging for their MP3-players right away. The more musical amongst us might start a serenade, or some kind of ad-libbed drumming session on whatever's nearb
The Sphinx The Sphinx's tail devoured the buzzing fly in a single mercurial snap. A decidedly unhalcyonic silence descended between man and beast. Oedipus did not dare move, lest he would disturb the ungodly sepulchre that the Sphinx's lair had become.
"Well? What is your answer to my riddle?"
The body of the lion was strong and limber, the wings the wings of a bird of prey, but the woman – Oedipus' gaze vacillated from marrow-cracked bone to broken skull, anywhere but her visage. His spear was useless against such a foe.
"Oh, do not think I do not know what you are thinking."
He saw the black, keen-edged, cat-ungulae sweep past, heard the rust
FFM 2011, 29.7 - The Tower "Dora speaking."
"Mrs. Appleby? This is Aimee Bonner. I don't know if you happen to remember me..."
"Ms. Bonner? Of course I remember you! You were my star pupil in the 7th form. I'm so glad to hear your voice."
"That's right! That's right, Mrs. Appleby. I'm glad you remembered me. Um. I know this isn't strictly according to procedures, but I was wondering if you could help me with...a thing."
"You're being awfully secretive, Aimee. I can't promise anything before you tell me what it is."
"Well, ah, you see, it's a matter of...uh...invading realities? Maybe I better explain...."
"Ms. Bonner, if you have a haunting or a poltergeist or an
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Sta.sh
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--
Looking for the heart behind the art.
"You are like an internet praise machine." - `zebrazebrazebra
Thank you for the mention
Now on to discover and read new lit pieces and deviants!
--
You language where languages end.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
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Looking for the heart behind the art.
"You are like an internet praise machine." - `zebrazebrazebra
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facebook is like a jail. You sit around, waste time, have a profile picture, and get poked by guys you don't really know.
Avatar by animefanime426
Lets Tumbl. [link]
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Looking for the heart behind the art.
"You are like an internet praise machine." - `zebrazebrazebra
--
facebook is like a jail. You sit around, waste time, have a profile picture, and get poked by guys you don't really know.
Avatar by animefanime426
Lets Tumbl. [link]
Their work is amazing, but not very many people know about them.
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Looking for the heart behind the art.
"You are like an internet praise machine." - `zebrazebrazebra
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Proud big brother of garbagegirl89.