Why bother bending utensils when you can bend minds, bend limbs, bend roads? We pulse from city to city, light streaks even a map can’t catch. Sammich sustenance absorbed in rest stops with carelessly locked bathrooms and landscaped-area flowers flaking color into the absence of light. At least the sprinkler timers are working.
The visitors from the Continent stitch the air in my car with vexation over how to locate themselves in/on Google while I creep streets striated in freezing precipitation in the hopes of a spot. Their kindly obliviousness and the night can’t be wrapped up and slammed into an umbrella stand soon enough. I am a chorus of rubberized responses desperate not to get sick, but the crud catches me three days after my friend hacks without mercy from the passenger’s seat. …
...continue reading
We cry, with the throb of deception,
Because we’ve seen the tongue of deceit, without exception.
We cry, and we feel guilt,
Because we’ve spat the words of trickery ourselves, knowing what it would wilt.
And so, we speak in feathers of white, to cover our scarring words,
Even when we know white lies can so easily be tainted by the song of black birds.
But why can’t we speak in different shades of light?
Periwinkle lies, so soft and pure it would chirp with joy even through the darkest of nights,
Or navy lies, that, with its deep hue, would calm our harrowing thoughts.
And why not lie in shapes and spots?
Diamond lies, with their captivating clarity and sharp precision,
Sphere lies, the ones that may seem shallow, but offer solace in their gentle vision.…
...continue reading
Limp leaves shudder
In cluttered puddles
Dead and brightly colored birds.
L. Noelle McLaughlin…
...continue reading
He sat perched in his old place, where he had sat a thousand times before. From that lofty height he turned and gazed upon the green patched floor. He saw all that there was to see; there the smoking chimneys and there the willow trees. Nothing could escape his gaze, there was nothing there he did not know. He knew the lanes, their bends and straights. He knew the hedges, farms and loam. He knew each cheerful homestead and each happy family. He knew the little streams and brooks, he knew each bird and tree.
This is my home he thought to himself, quite contentedly. Why is this not my native land, where all my life I’ve been? I could not leave, I never could, for other pastures green.…
...continue reading
Remote, in this sparsely appointed corner,
We project our way upon the sky,
a firm plateau of gray beneath us
and a bicycle turned upon its side.
The lead-wheel upturned,
it splits the air
and raises piles of ice cream high above.
Greater and richer,
the pillar grows,
stacked by the wheel’s uplifting power,
until sparkling bits of chocolate
like unimaginable raindrops
fall before us there,
the exquisite tower toppled over
by a silken contingent of clouds.
– William Mullins…
...continue reading
The job was easy. No cutting line, no wading swamp
water with moccasins and alligators. Suburban work.
Boca Raton, mouth of the rat, more rich people than
most places, though how many more was, was
something I didn’t know. This neighborhood was not all
millionaires, but well off, complicated pension plans. We
had no assets. Long haired county surveyors. We were
tanned, in decent shape, young. We wore yellow safety
vests, jeans, no shirts. These suburban folks were wary
of us, but the logo on the truck gave us license to be
there and made us seem a bit less dangerous. We liked
to fuck with people now and then, so as we painted
targets, a grid for aerial photos, and they’d ask what we
were doing, I said the county decided this neighborhood
was getting overcrowded, so they’re going to eliminate
one household adjoining each of these circles.…
...continue reading
The accomplished feat echoes in a maze of hysteria.
The stratosphere vast continuing dissonance for that attainable.
A gypsy dances the midnight hour and writes until his fingers cry crimson.
Dramatic realpolitik operas and spiritual indelibility; partnered atrophy and
God.
Lay tongue to contemporary whoa man’s dispute with universal concurrence.
Doors of perception magnify relevance; our lives as spiritual beings closes near.
The crimson covers the paper and trickles down the side of his arm in lengthy vibration.
Sound is formed, a thick gelatinous blob of atmospheric time travel.
A palate of absurdity met in recycled light.
Drips from washed-out tunnels of dharma subconscious in streaks of nostalgia.
The gypsy furls his legs in rainbow knots.
The lotus hums.
We are re-entering the universe, a path in which holiness engraves ritual.…
...continue reading