GERGUS COMBED her fingers through the wavy hair on her stomach. She twirled the pencil in her other hand and looked up at the sky. She closed her eyes. The sun lit her eyelids partially shaded by her thick brow. After a few deep, measured breaths, the patches of pink light started to change color and shape.
Read MoreThe Dramatic Days of Lesser Socialism
(or, an unfortunate series of unrelated things)
or lesser evilism
spectres of want and tragedy
our rape of revered ghosts
our politics of melancholy and cigarette smoke
the distressed voter
the incurable and dying worker lashed to incurable and dying pay scale
The Robot's Love Song
Come file off the rust of my grommets.
I have been longing to blow smoke into your apertures.
You remember the frozen steel of that stiff winter night,
How gleaming oil coursed across the gouged surface
Of that thing I have
Giving Up
It isn’t just giving up one time
It’s choosing to give up every day
That’s what completes the circuit
There is no other way to stop the Death Machine
On Hearing the News That George Floyd's Murderer Was Convicted
In a year (and half)
of fire
we learn a list of items
equally quotidian
and flammable
All Statues Toppled In Time
We are the fisherfolks, the gentlefolks, we don’t
Crosstalk over top-hats, tailcoats. They come
Visit from the city, twice every month. They want
Our fishes, our dishes, our bread.
My Body Got a New Job
THE STUPID asshole tried to kill us.
Or is it, ‘It tried to get us killed’?
Good that it didn’t succeed. Thank God! Thank Good Lord Jesus, Moses, Mohammad, Larry, Curly and Moe.
Fucking asshole. Depraved selfish self-centered misarranged asshole.
Read MoreResurrection
THERE I was, alone. It seemed so sad, made even sadder by the mud and the rain and the faint chirps of brittle birds in brittle trees far away. To think, I thought, that I would be here, in this moment, half buried in the bulk of mud as my blood life bled out of my living life. But, it wasn’t like Hemingway wounded somewhere in Italy, his life, like a handkerchief adrift long enough to know not knowing before returning, almost wistfully, to it’s breast pocket. My life left and I stayed with it.
Read MoreThe Boss
There was no silver here, nor gold, nor copper. There was little more than the occasional trickle of dank, green liquid oozing down the walls or across the uneven floor of the mineshaft. Still, they were sent down to dig.
Read MoreGeryon & Daedalus: A Conversation
Dear Orenda,
You subvert me at every twist of your head. Your dreamers lie prone in wait for salvation while the gusts beneath my wings torture their cheating hearts. The sheen of the scales on my back match the notches on their grimy tongues.
Read MoreBorn
Into a ballot box of pre-existing candidates / into an endless series of unlucky paychecks / into a Left of costume parties and facebook pages
Read MoreI Live an Hour From My Body
I went to visit my body to see how it was doing; it was not very responsive. It pretended I wasn’t there. That’s acknowledgment, a response, isn’t it? A step forward. You wouldn’t pretend if nobody was there. You’d just be you. Your normal, non-observed you. It was definitely pretending.
Read MoreAmerican Orthodontics
Each mouth a wound or weapon.
If weapon, then the trigger is tongue
some men dispense for spectacle
for unfair light, teeth a crowding
Bagwood
your legs, a mess of wooden spears / to spindle-stomp a landlord
Read MoreReach For the Dead
“Can you hear that?” Agent Lightfoot couldn’t hear much over the sound of the engine and the churning spray. Her partner, Deputy Frost, was adamant though. “Can’t you hear that…?” Lightfoot cupped her ear. She could. “It sounds like… singing” said Agent Frost. Lightfoot frowned and listened harder. There was something tonal going on.
Read MoreMemoires de la Guillotine
we animate the damned / we wave our flags / we march / and / chant / “solidarity”
Read MoreTwo Minutes Past Midnight
Hitched a ride from a limousine / fueled by festered gout, / traveled every wrecked highway / until the fumes ran out.
Read MoreMike, the UPS Guy, Gives Birth to the New People, But Now the Moon is a Cartoon Bomb
Billie kept a jar of fire in her backpack / for cooking in parking lots / and a scimitar for cleaning gutter fish
Read MoreWhat I Did With My $600 At the End of the World
I invested in three cans of pepper spray / from the army surplus, / passed them out and bought ten more / to watch the masked kids / choke the air
Read MoreEnd of the World
Or, to quote Marilyn Monroe: / “Its good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal”