It’s raining The water droplets are nothing but a calm, soothing hug that envelopes my body It’ll all be alright  it whispers, as if it has any idea what’s going through my head I wish I knew too, let me in on this secret that you’re hiding from me It’s a cacophony of voices that aren’t my own, choking whatever piece of me I have left and leaving the corpse of my brain out to dry It’s raining The rain makes me think of nothing or everything at all My tears are like the rain,

Brick didn’t remember falling asleep by the motel pool. When he awoke, he sorely regretted it. As he stirred on the plastic lounge chair, he felt miserable. Placing a hand on his stomach made him wince. “Oh no,” he groaned. After all the times he warned his daughter about using sunscreen, Brick made the mistake of napping under the blazing July sun with no protection. His chest, arms, and legs were as bright red like his hair. “Terrific,” Brick muttered to himself. “Just te

Lucy stepped on an ancient landmine outside Girvetz Hall. I talked to her Brother, Suvin, about it while we were on the beach, and Lucy was treated in the aid center. “If it had been one of those new ones, I’m not sure there would be any Lucy left.” He said. Across the sea, the single oil platform stood proud and sturdy, impressing us from miles off the coast. The green, littered waves came lazily ashore in a way that almost made them look safe. We continued down the bea

That mossy stone there, man-shaped with such care, blindly, it stares at me, and everyone else. Proud gaze, unaware,  eroding green eyes and hair, yet somehow it stares, returned gazes for 300 years. And now it sits here: a stone’s new home. Uncertain ancient leer, frequented, and alone, this spectacle is skeptical of ever going home to that stone dead carver, that human he calls father, long buried under fodder who shaped him at such cost, sunken and decayed like  me in one

thick room of tension  it could be cut with a plastic butter knife  that’s how abundant it is.  my eyes avert themselves from the glare of the sun those yellow, jaundiced eyes,  looking in my soul precisely.  intensity intensifies in the room that we occupy while the consideration of taking myself out of this equation dances through my mind.

"Occluded Vessel" I collapse at the plinth sagging over the edge, a monolith knowing I can’t gulp down anymore tonight, knowing I ingested too much, spoors of spirits dispersed in the dusk like musk tracks I sip the sky admiring its lush. How will I huff my way over the hydrospheres as though I am on a plane in the captain’s pit playing with the buttons as though there is no consequence. Like I tapped the wine stains on your oxford, as though they could extend like branches i

“Church Flowers” It’s called the blue church Because the roof is blue. Inside is dark and sombre, Chandelier light is golden. The Father sang and echoed. I would look at the walls, At paintings of bible scenes, Empty spaces filled by flowers. Five petals, faded blue or red, Yellow middle and curled leaves, Arches, frames and crowns, Second pairs of halos, Perfectly symmetrical, Perfect repetition - maybe stamped on? The saints all look the same too. --------------------------

“Her” All these lines. All these words. All these thoughts, scribbled across paper for a girl I do not see. (Not know.) Scribbled in ink, staining the paper.                                     Staining my soul.                                     …But she is—                                     …she is beautiful… She is the way. On the composition notebooks pages before me: Dig deep.                                     Dig deep to the bottom—   and think of her,     to the r

object permanence: queer death i troweled loam last summer for this,  a pine sapling, loitered with creeping charlie, door- knobs of little cabbages. pink geranium hustled by bittercress, seeds puckered onto my wrists  like a rash of bullet casings. what’s left is wind.  if i don’t claw the earth  from the earth, more & more  genitals return. wild turkey thrash  at the mulch regardless of the silver  tongue of bird tape. most houses build around  their canopies. in a decade,

“A head full of flames” A spell of rain Wash the smoke rings from my brain I hope, I know Let the floodgates overflow Through my veins What remains? Of dust and ash 'lectric wires, broken glass Concrete, pale heat And an empty plastic seat Cant maintain, can't complain How long can I delay? Not another day It's gonna get easier I've spent some time alone I'm glad I've always known It's gonna get easier Five years have gone And my life flows on and on  What a dream, what a dre

My dog's head hangs out the window, breeze on his face with a little support for his hind legs. Driving past California Street, but couldn't be farther from it. The snow capped hill tops of Montana dissipate as the season comes to a close. Porch light on but the sun couldn't shine brighter. Maybe I should turn that off & go back to bed, as the voice of Mr. Rogers on the TV screen urges me to take a nap.

Her eyes were shiny and still, like glass. Her skin, now the texture of porcelain, and devoid of any life; pale as the face of a ghost. The frequency of a thousand shattering dolls rang through the space between her ears as she mindlessly played the cello. She could not feel the bow in her right hand or the instrument pressing her thighs. She could not feel anything. The fair lady stared into the dull abyss of the crowd with a tragic blindness.  1968  Tabitha Rogers was a s

LOSING MY RELIGION why, of course, Michael Stipe said it so much more eloquently better putting his blood sweat tears fears hope dreams jizz into the song of it me, I lost mine in the cold stark musty Lutheran Church basement during those Catechism lectures Germanic Stormtrooper dissertations from the weird old farting choir lady solely and sorely a teenage condition that had thirteen-year-old budding iconoclast yours truly turning my Catechism book cover into a Bic pen stew

How informal to be so normal In a world where no one is defined As such, because a definition Can’t be a summation, If the meaning changes As frequently as it does How mutual to be so usual During a moment when originality Gets lost in between everything And no one is willing to improve What’s been done anyway In order to make it new today How habitual to be so typical While standing in a room Holding a crowd of familiar beings Engaging in a dialogue That can’t be above it al

Society has always made a joke out of people like me. Don’t eat that. You’ll get the diabetes. That candy was so sweet I can feel the diabetes coming on. To some, my life will be nothing but a cautionary tale. About having cake and eating it with blood pooling at fingertips. They will scrutinize my choices and mistakes as if the killer living inside me stripped me of my humanity. Being diagnosed with a chronic illness in this country is like being issued a clock counting down

Jade thrusts the marinated fish into the wok before instinctively flinching. The oil jumps up from the wok immediately, just as she anticipated; one pop after another. The little girl struggles to keep her balance atop the splintered wooden stool, despite her toes being firmly planted. The cabin is not evident of any signs of life, with the dead silence only disrupted by the sizzling of vegetable oil. She adds a spoonful of salt and mixes it around with a chuan, routinely. Sh

The Forest In the forest, calm and quiet, where all my family rests, the people come in all their riot, while beating on their chests. Names they inked into my skin, and through my veins it flows, the poison of a thousand knives, that hate to see me grow. Why can’t they let me stand and be? Why can’t they touch me soft? Why can’t they gently see me, instead of clawing at my croft? Our roots run deep to each other, from the healthy to the sick, a community of child and mothers

w i l d f i r e    every july the west burns the skies darken sicken from yellow to brown to grey and the wind fans the flames that cleanse the forest floors and barren hillsides to clear the way for the coming year   every july i burn with those hills and everything i am and have and want goes up in smoke rains down in ash ripping/tearing/breaking me down to clean bones and aching soul   every july i am destroyed with the forest rebuilt with the grass burned and healed layer

i … with dirt twixt his teeth.  I give him a once over  pour him a gin and tonic.  He asks for a triple. I make him a double.  Last shot’s mine.  I ask if he knows how it got there.  The dirt, mate.  He isn’t sure he remembers.  He worries its been thur’ as long as he’s had teeth. Holds his glass in his left feg in his right  looks at peace.  Makes me want to scream.   ii … smelling smoke.  There's a symptom of a stroke, so.  Aye. Depends. How long has this been  allowed to g

Starlight It is true that its glimmer is so faint that it disappears where the eye tries to fix upon it… yet… it gives an impression of brilliant beauty. —'A History of Astronomy’ —A. Pannekoek—   you have to squint                               or gaze sideways    to see the farthest star.                               its light is peripheral   & quixotic—but if                               you peer obliquely   you can spot it.                               I never look at