It's midnight and the only two people in the green house are watching Tarantino films, the blood on the screen screaming "Get down!" The house shakes its roof doubtfully because the couple should go to sleep instead of arguing about who's the best director, and is Tarantino cool or only a wannabe, and is...
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That scoundrel, man—he gets used to everything. Fyodor Dostoevsky Maybe the moon is full and bright and earth reveals bones, shallow graves in a shallow war. Maybe the moon’s light plays with the meek fire of men cramped beneath a bridge in Ohio as they watch gray chunks of ice float...
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This morning I read Auden and his account of Icarus plunging into the apathetic sea, while I sat in a rocking chair sipping coffee cooled by milk that was nearing its expiration date. Auden has been dead for decades and the sea remains unimpressed by us all. Steve Brightman lives in Kent,...
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Falling off at maturity falling out as soft baby teeth brown needles bicuspids brazen Antlers with their velvet loosened. Abscission sounds just like the thief nature made it, takes advantage of winter drought the sixth birthday. Pairs with gravity. ...
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Swim Lonely one, Curley head sinks rises up for air, water separates limbs, Arm over arm I swim. I need The Pills, have to be exact (the terrifying cost). I am a chemical cocktail, have no idea I am, But Monday morns I line up...
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Love is the loose elevator cable, a hibernating bear, A juggler with fire torches, a blister before the skin rises With pus, a leaky shock on a heavy truck going downhill, A shovel before the hole’s been dug or the seeds planted, A heart monitor without any sound, a juggler with fire Torches...
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after you’d gone our bodies uncoupled in the dark I lay in bed and started to think of things that are halved apples pears seeds and the knives that separate them I thought of doors half open half closed their wide unexpected swings into the middle of rooms how they halve distances I thought...
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My son heaves plywood on the line, where compressed air and staples two inches long find their rhyme: throw a board up staple back, whack, along paneling lines. Throw a board up stable back, whack. No words ever spoken. Stud walls swabbed with industrial glue waiting for nailers and screwgunners to echo and...
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I hope I can watch you grow up to be just like your dad // you can rank above the both of us, he Kahuna // I maka’ainana I will put your head in stars blessed, turn/twist/shine/spin Mana in your palms // a prayer for those dying to manifest into those unborn Kapu flows...
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maybe Copland had it right the first time // we create nothing in wartime maybe all Foster wanted was a banjo on his knee // oh! Susanna, you turned out to be such a slut maybe West Side Story got it wrong // there’s always a slaughter on tenth avenue maybe Rhapsody comes...
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Three beaks ascend at my mimicry squawk, open like scissors to paper-crisp air. Later we find the mother looking serene sheltering her trio. I tell my children to look but do not touch. The father frequents the tree above my daughter’s swing. I admire the color this blue jay brings to a green, flowerless...
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We lift our heads from our computer screens throughout the day: Amtrak’s whistle a whiff of the world passing through town. Where would we rather be than at our desks? But the guy who failed to outrace the 4:15 had no job, in a hurry anyway, and we had already flex-timed ourselves home...
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Sausage jackhandle careens between abandoned Radio Flyer, overturned, missing wheel, leg, fin, wing, whatever belongs on its corner may as well give up on two doves pacing in mulch, toasting bread you will never reconnoiter Great Wall Collage. Whisper the dog around (should that be asquare?) the block tears dripping off your...
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1. There are people who love winter, and you were one lover of winter, long nights and repose for a soul dose of Faulkner or Flannery O. Dickinson made a strong chaser, a bullet for sleep in the winter, a draught straight from a shot glass when finally...
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Waiting in Line with You The back of your head, a little salt and pepper I’m waiting to run my hands through— I’m close enough to catch your rosemary shampoo, my eye tracing your shirt collar, the line moving, my hands waiting to move, to follow the curve of your neck. Amanda...
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Wallace Stevens Joins the Justice League For William Moulton Marston I always wanted to be a member of the Justice League, crusading for the idea of supreme order in a complacent world, even if I had to be one of those “who serve who also stand and wait,” like Lothar, Mandrake The Magician’s companion,...
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Slowpoke Maybe he shoulda paid more attention to his worn out ol’ wife maybe maybe he coulda at least walked the dang dachshund more ‘en once in awhile stupid standard mutt his wet nose jammed into ladies’ crotches LeHew, Slowpoke stupid dead ol’ dawg possibly he mighta put a dish some dishes in the...
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Botched Awareness of Jettisoned Body To say I want you to embosom me with our conversation and shepherd me into latency would be a kind of poetic thing to do though conversation is rarely that unless of course we’re waxing. And if such a thing were to occur I’d most likely be watching...
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re: I love you a simple text Wednesday morning at 7:31 I’m half-asleep but I want to reply something lovingly my dream is almost my reality impossible and my fantasy: me your in-the-future wife next to you. I will (one day) spill will say out loud our secret I love you too ...
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Truthful Wishing about Oregon If I had a time machine, I would become a fry cook so I could seduce Richard Brautigan’s mother. I would once leave her a motel room and take Richard with me on mysterious errands. I would feed him on Belgian waffles, French toast, and Swedish pancakes...
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