Fishermen are good at sea.
Strong arms, pull steady sails
In shifting wind,
In storm.
Rudders for left hips guid straight to streams pregnant with catch, so they may cast their nets in place of incantations.
Heave!
And here’s the day—easy. The water like a looking glass, they sit upon white decks watching the world. Fishermen are very good at sea.
When beached, the ground moves under them. Confident steps slide, awkward and uneven. The air too warm, the wind too dry. The sea just there, and not.
They’re caught
Right on the precipice of life—free to stare, but not enter.
There, they mend their nets. Knit fingers bloody, set gaze upon the sand. Bottle up complaints—though that part’s harder. They wake and walk and sleep, all on flat land and adrift, with only God for anchor.…
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It was early August. On that steamy Saturday night, which was slowly changing over to a Sunday morning, the temperature was still in the 90’s. Under the heat dome, there was no relief.
Kevin was smoking and pacing in front of the pizza place. He checked his watch and saw that it was ten till midnight. Kevin looked out at the street, but there was no sign of Wayne, who’d promised that this last run of the night would be really quick.
There was nothing Kevin could do, so he sat on the curb to finish his cigarette. He felt his anxiety building. He was anxious about when he would get done with work. Anxious about how much time he’d have at the bar before last call.…
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Todd Floss here. A quick note about my future. I plan to write a few fiction novels now that there is a huge need for them. I’m shooting for high six figures for the first one. Toby Vonnegut’s book Ass in the Chair: Writing Your First Blockbuster was a big help to my thinking, so I’m way ahead of the curve. I have sixty-eight ideas as of noon today. My plan is to print the ideas and tape them on my living room wall. In that way, they will be staring me down. I’ve dipped into some fiction novels recently and made a few artistic notes. I want bold colors on the cover, and I’m aiming for 250 pages, but I could go 400 if the “characters keep driving the plot.”…
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as a ship in a bottle
believing every wooden piece
a symbol of something
that can be shaped.
I see each fragile word nestled in your
lined fingers being carefully homed.
Eyes straining, focusing,
anything can be built despite
the small opening.
You laugh
when I tell you the ship
will never sail.
My words, random particles,
amass to nothing.…
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Even though it is her second trip up the Balik Pulau hill, Sanhui still turns into the wrong lane. She does not understand why her father chose to live so high above, in the middle of nowhere. But she made a promise to visit him at least three times a year.
After twists and turns, she finally reaches Lotus Garden, where the buildings are adorned in earthy tones and overhanging gable roofs. The sunlight falls on the shoulder of a large golden Guanyin Pusa statue, which meditates on top of a gigantic lotus flower with her eyes closed. The fallen leaves whistle a relaxing, serene tune that can easily soothe one’s soul. No wonder her father invested his retirement funds to secure a unit in this tranquil sanctuary, away from Ayer Itam’s hustles at the foothills.…
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“See you tomorrow,” says Grandpa Julien, as his fake daughter drops us at the door for our usual weekend visit.
He waves as she skitters down the steps. The stinkers. I sling my backpack hard into Julien’s messy living room and stomp into the house. He looks the same as always with his rumpled velveteen jacket and a wild geranium in his snow-white hair. Mom and Julien pretend he’s our grandfather. He is really our father. Mom was really just a model for his paintings. They’re not related.
Yesterday I found out about the big lie. How doesn’t matter.
“Gampa!” Sprout jumps into his arms, reaches to jiggle the flower in his hair, and slides down his body to the ground.
Slinky, Julien’s ancient Siamese cat, rubs the side of her body against my bare leg, then disappears before Sprout can grab her tail.…
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I used to be jealous of the rising tide, for it could never leave
Just lap at jagged teeth and spray its foam upon your sleeve
My blindness felt the seagulls flee, their mocking heard no more
Yet still the tide, it rose in time, to crash on rocky shores
I know why the kestrel races, on the hunt for freckled faces
In the beaches, ports, and harbors, raving for its saving graces
In the alleyways, for forty days, I heard them caw
In the burning trees, I heard their pleas, their throats so raw
I swore the birds, they never rest, for land and earthly law
Don’t much apply in cyan sky and clench of vulture’s jaw…
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