The Killer’s Colorful Confession
I’m writing my confession in crayon, each sentence a different color, each telling, perhaps, a fairy tale. But I swear this is near the truth as I sometimes color it. The facts will not come out of...
View ArticleKids
I remember in my youth how we played hide and seek and how we killed doves and sparrows with slingshots; and how the sky was different then and the air and the sun. But now all the young boys play...
View ArticleAutumnal Reprieve
Released of her pupal enclosure she spreads her botanical wings and basks in the sunlight The blessing of life, filled with purpose dancing upon her axis, singing in the breeze assimilating as nature...
View ArticleSex by Gender
The male perspective has been A claustrophobic dimension. Projecting stop-watched choreography, Minus context and emotion. A snake blinded by the rut of its tail. On the other hand, a web is spun With...
View ArticleWhile You Weren’t Looking
pennies on the train tracks pop rocks and coca-cola razor blades in apples red eyed creature under the bed cyanide in advil an alligator in the sewer roach eggs in the envelope glue and a part time...
View ArticleAll the King’s Horses
I am a father who has no son but sits beside someone who bears the names I gave him. I have a son who has no father. He straddles the wall politely, paints over the wind of my advice. I am a son who...
View ArticleOn No Mission
The television flickers. The ballgame comes in and out. The players have rippling faces. The outfield is fuzzy. Old men sit around on rickety chairs shout at the screen. They curse the umpire’s call,...
View ArticleThe Pope’s Ring
How much does one choke up As the Pope lies lifeless Under a silver hammer? Tap. The Cardinal thumps him On the forehead, calling His birth name with each stroke. Tap. Silence looms like the bells That...
View ArticleListening to the Music
When I first came to America I decided to learn it ways of saying where my place is where I belong so far away from the faces of my parents I was learning my new way At some truck stop I bought few...
View ArticleTo The Girl I Went On A Date With Last Night
Your songs never got sadder, how can that be? Your mother still has your father you held onto your God, I didn’t know the world still deserved something like that Yea, I’ll go to brooklyn I’ll pay for...
View ArticleDriving the Eastern Seaboard Through the Night; Winter, 2013
I By dusk we were just somewhere outside of Philly. Frankie swallowed the first of the uppers and I lost count of junction signs trying to pinpoint colors in twilight’s arbitrary scheme. I thought the...
View ArticleKindred
stones and people start out soft, but harden quick , learn to have lots of layers packed like index cards, some of them onyx, or rubies sequestered deep. they absorb and crust over the most toxic lies...
View ArticleBoarding Time, 5:49 a.m.
Chasing the sunrise Portland to Denver connecting to Branson, Missouri on an airbus A319 the coffee on the first leg of the flight is bitter and strong but not enough of either to make the two hours’...
View ArticleDo Not / Write
Do not write to me With the dark blue ink anymore Do not write to me With the bloated metaphors and metonyms Whose meanings are forever sliding and slipping Do not write to me With the calm of your...
View ArticleSticky Like Honey
Play on Coltrane Wail on sarah The night is out And even the stars are Jealous of you Honey brown baby Bathing like the queen of sheba Flames float on water Surrounding you Teardrops coated in...
View ArticleSong of the Suburban Madman
After the New Year The crystal earths descent Over heads at Times Square And Sydney. The shards crunch Under high-heel shoes. The Joneses crash their car Into the crocodile pond. The police insist It...
View ArticleInsomnia
A lost mitten in a snow bank barely visible from the sidewalk The crunch of ice under snow boots from Canadian Tire Light from a single car’s headlights bounces off untouched snow banks Sparkling...
View ArticleWhy I Am Not a Poet
I am not a poet, I am a painter. Why? I think I would rather be a poet, but I am not. Well, my walls are made of colors. Red, blue, green, orange—every wall a different color. Even the ceilings. I live...
View ArticleGreen Berets
1. Lisa pacing the halls of ICU: Father emerges from a room, trailing wires and tubes, saunters to the nurse’s station, rips a sheet of paper from the machine recording electrocardiograms “We’re at...
View ArticleDon’t Come Around Here No More
for E.E. It would be so nice, you say, if something made sense for a change. If your body wasn’t the bright-iced cake that Mad Hatters swallow whole. Tonight, though, we’ll eat the courses we...
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