I will defend the city of Philadelphia/until the day I draw my last breath/go birds/so I am ethically obligated/therefore/to wholeheartedly espouse Philly’s native son/filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan. Unfortunately/M. Night Shyamalan can’t write dialogue/and I am not optimistic that this state of affairs/is ever going to change. I suppose peaking after your first film/must feel a … Continue reading My Doctor Says I Have a Special-Needs Placenta, and M. Night Shyamalan Can’t Write Dialogue
AN AUTOMAT AT NOON. A comely redhead in a cornflower blue dress sits by the window, showing too much cleavage for 1958. A man on his lunchbreak at the next table, eying her hungrily as if she's the meatloaf special. A room with no other occupants. This painting must be worth eighty million, Howard says … Continue reading Art History
The crows settle in the field outside noisily fighting over the things I left them. One flies right past my window, a cheap necklace studded with tiny glass beads clutched in its beak, another bird tight behind, contesting its claim. They squawk and caw in frenzied delight over old glass rings bought at yard sales … Continue reading The Offering
IT WAS JUST OCCURRING to me that Dirk and Charlotte thought I was from Thailand, or maybe even that Thailand and Vietnam are the same country, and that was why they’d taken me out for Thai noodles, when the big, racist waiter arrived. To be clear, I am not like the waiter. I am … Continue reading I Am Godfather
My yard sits on forty feet of fog minus the dimensions. Now, I can see the exceptional letting go of things: The woman down the street, upset, choosing not to groom her Scotties. The man walking along his pole barn, returning to slam the door. Bracken drips. Jays over-soar their puddles. All objects camouflage disgust. … Continue reading Picture Window
SO I STARTED BRINGING MY OWN, in my own damn aluminum bucket like the ones the steak house used to have, when they served peanuts, but not the same kind of bucket exactly, since mine was to tote beer around in and had the “Miller High Life” logo painted on the side, but the logo … Continue reading They Stopped Serving Peanuts At The Steak House
A canoe, turned, turns to siege ladder in the branches of a river bank. Branches like the spearmen of ground’s castle wall, while honeysuckle maidens, fair, hang their silks from tower windows in a kingdom so shrunk it fights only for a steady foot in the flowers. To not be trampled by size 11s, or … Continue reading Moat
THE PIGS WERE LINED UP on the platform of a little wood-framed stage, each one inside their own tiny pen made of clapboard and metal, some pressing snouts between the short, thin bars that were soon to be raised, jerking necks and stretching wide eyes colored jet black in the fluorescent-lit night, while others raced … Continue reading Night in the Ruts
Wee hours dark-house walking stumbling more like, when you jam your toe hard. You’d think you would know better and land each step with stalking-cat caution better yet, flip on the damn lights obviously. But reality: You’re gonna stub your toe a dozen or more times in an average lifespan just the way things go. … Continue reading These Things Happen
An ungreased swing singing dunes of cloud across a blue sky; it’s the common line. Our differences lie in the songs we don’t sing; a measure of rust on the chains that hold us. Or that some of us hold the chains. Like how all five senses hold the railing at Niagara. And like, when … Continue reading Any Playground In America