Donna asked me
to run off to the farm,
raise goats and sheep and turnips
with her. Seventh grade,
and I don’t know, don’t go,
though china doll Donna
with her hair
like a central Kansas night
is still a Helen
in high school,
every guy wants her,
and I’m no different,
though I love
what she writes me
in her letters
as much as her looks.
I kept that one
about the goat farm,
take it with me
when I travel,
and sometimes I write back,
cursive script
into the past,
letters to the girl
from that boy
back in junior high.
And she never
writes back.
– Kevin Rabas…
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Ryan W. Bradley has pumped gas, painted houses, swept the floor of a mechanic’s shop, worked on a construction crew in the Arctic Circle, fronted a punk band, and more. He is the author of eight books of poetry and fiction, including the story collection Nothing But the Dead and Dying. He received his MFA from Pacific University and lives in Oregon with his wife and two sons.
In this episode, Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum speaks with Bradley about balancing life as a writer and graphic designer, reflections on a scary run-in with a white supremacist, and thoughts on Twin Peaks and the new Queens of the Stone Age LP (among many other things).
– Ryan W. Bradley…
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The ‘sixties went by in a blur for Jerry and Mike,
remembered in fragments, bright and discontinuous.
Phil Spector shadowing them in the studio,
his head swiveling like a bird of prey.
The Dixie Cups, Jewish Valkyries, setting up
harmonies that made Mike’s scalp cringe.
Hearing in ’64 The Beatles’ version of “Kansas City,”
knowing then something of the curve and contour of time.
Jerry at dinner with Motherwell and DeKooning.
Jerry wrestling with Mailer by the bar at Elaine’s.
Mike at the Village Gate hearing Stan Getz
blow long and long into the coming dark.
The stone-faced Customs man at Heathrow
who liked to say: “If you’re Stoller, where’s Leiber?”
These were not, like the fifties, the time of their time:
the days in diminuendo, a falling away.…
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I’m in my old neighborhood
shortcutting though yards
never past the witches’ house
once it rain frogs
& packing popcorn we thought
was snow
snow of course was snow
enough
snot on mittens
bombing the cars
on Grand Boulevard
hiding behind evergreens
thick with ice daggers
most of the houses
stayed dark inside except
for one room
old people lived there
couples or widows
and now I’m not sure
how much of what I remember
is made up …
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It always starts with something: that glance across party rooms, an awkward handshake, your mutual friend’s introduction, or, increasingly, some popup on a screen. Those smooth bits of digital code hold out a kind of promise when you’re in a new and unfamiliar place. It says you’ve been noticed, it says you’re all right enough to someone who is willing to take that most human of jumps and spend an evening of their life with you in hope of something greater still.
London: an internship and foundation grant, 10 weeks sharing a Docklands Light Rail car with seemingly half the population of the world and a cramped youth hostel with a group of New Labour professional types. I’d switched over the location on my long-unchecked OkCupid profile for the occasion, telling myself that I didn’t think much of it, but really holding out a weird kind of hope that everything might just work out this time.…
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1.
Clustered before fiery steel barrel
hands knotted oil rags of talk and beer bottles
warmed like fur-lined gloves
in crisp night air standing
next to the rained on, pissed on,
had sex on three-legged recliner
sitting in the back parking lot
of the corner liquor store
2.
We see him as levels of brutality
his grime, a second sweaty suit
eyes crossed like missed answers on the test
Gray plaits betray his gait as he pulls the squalor
of two garbage bags up on the bus like Sunday’s
chicken dinner placing them on the seat like giant
platters of mustard greens and fried corn
on finely polished wood. He looks around,
takes a seat, pulls out a book…
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In my head, a mental timer ticked – eleven hours fifty-two minutes
A half dozen times over the past two weeks I begged, “Nothing special, please.” And today was no different.
“Why so sad?” she asked, dancing across the kitchen floor, a light hum spilling from her lips. After sixteen years of marriage, she was still stunning, and the tactic of using the hum to drown out my pleas. Well, I’m familiar with that ploy. But unbeknownst to her, I spotted the iconic yellow Post-it notes. And when she wasn’t looking I dug them from the trash. Written in her familiar handwriting, were names, numbers, and a recurrent date. That date was today. So, I knew she was up to something. And who could blame her, it was a special day.…
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