Now that we have the Internet it is very easy to get at lists of the greatest things – movies, books, records, kings, criminals, snacks. Of course, we had such lists before, but now we have them in abundance and naturally enough they reflect the changing times. For example, while old lists of the greatest movies always included popular or Hollywood films alongside what we would call art house films – Gone with the Wind and The Godfather, E.T. and Star Wars, alongside Bergman and Fellini, Goddard and Truffaut – lists of the greatest novels did not, that is, did not include popular novels – no Gone with the Wind and The Godfather alongside Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Kafka and Mann. Now they often do, and even the Harry Potter books.…
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Every time Mom doesn’t call
I think you are dead.
…………I recall the old yard
…………playset legs jolting in long grass
…………as we swung toward ripe green branches
…………carving shapes of light on our skin
…………giggling mouths ringed popsicle red
…………when I saw, limp in the garden,
…………my beloved pet sunflower
…………green hairy stem bent L-ward
…………black seeds and sunshine petals
…………facing earth muddied
…………by tears and sprinkler feet
…………my red-eyed face next to hers
…………a single photo the only proof left.
No loss, no uprooting
could prepare me
for your pain later in life
lined wrists, midnight calls to 9-1-1
substances you thirsted for
like sun.
As my mind reckons my heart
…………recalling how you were the one
…………to break her stem, simple mistake
…………as we ran wild in the yard —
I fear you are just as fragile.…
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5. ‘Twenty Questions’ day
The sky is—?
“Blue.”
The grass is—?
“Green.”
How many days are there in a week?
“Six.”
The son laughs in attempt to lighten the mood, gangling arms scratching coarse hair that is faded and gray. “Sunday doesn’t count, apparently.” The daughter does not smile as she looks at the muted television, which has been on the same five minute loop for who knows how long.
There is no day of rest for the sick.
—…
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And I always wake up screaming, don’t you? I will always remember the screaming. And, if this doesn’t bother you? I’m not imposing myself on you, am I? After all, you were there. You remember, don’t you?
– Harold Abramowitz, ‘Blind Spot’
Indie art usually—if not always—strikes an interesting balance between commercial success, critical appraisal, and creative liberty. By its nature, it’s unlikely to ever reach mainstream audiences and find widespread attention, yet what it lacks in popularity and marketability, it radiates in boundless experimentation, unhindered, often vital perspectives, and invaluable insider appreciation. This is true of music, film, television, video games, and, perhaps most overtly, of literature, where countless writers and presses are challenging conventions every day. One of the most notable examples is CCM (Civil Coping Mechanisms), a publisher whose staff and roster relish every opportunity to subvert expectations with affective and atypical works.…
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…sitting in her chair, well it’s not really hers, but the way her left ankle, embraced by an over fluffed cotton sock, flirts with the poorly waxed front left post and her creamy right leg, somehow finding a way to glisten and glow like the sparkles of a setting sun on the Atlantic despite lying underneath cheaply manufactured and cheaply installed florescent lights, caresses the ill-sanded front rim of the seat as her right heel, peek-a-booing between the heel of her sandal and the strap confining her ankle, toys seductively with the hardened gum and dried snot many failed to noticed and few left behind, …
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When we say, “Bet your bottom dollar,” we mean we’re sure of a thing, so much so that we’d risk losing all we had. But I have never been that financially fragile, so strapped I’m clutching the last coins in my pocket and wondering where my next meal might come from. Even when I’ve lost a bet, my risk was marginal. But if I were living a life of such desperation, would I take such a gamble? Have I ever been that sure of anything?
Here are the things I’m sure of:
My grandfather believed money made the best gift, and from every holiday and birthday card a crisp and bemused Franklin stared out from an envelope. My grandfather was a teenager during the Depression and showed a willingness to work a strange array of jobs throughout his life, a vocational wanderlust he came by naturally.…
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“See this knife? Maybe I’m going to stab you,” Sylvia’s mother said as she set the table for dinner. Then her mother swallowed a whole bottle of pills and the ambulance took her upstate to the mental hospital. They called it The Nervous Breakdown.
Sylvia’s father kept her home from school and drove them in the ancient Studebaker to visit Mom. He swore at the other drivers, words Sylvia had never heard before. “That guy’s tailgating me,” he hissed and stomped on the brakes in the middle of the freeway.
The hospital looked like a castle with patients calling to her in witchy voices, “Come here, little girl, come on.” Her father got her mother and they walked on brittle leaves golden, deep orange, red. They sat at an empty picnic table. …
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