“Cimabue was Giotto’s master,” lingered for decades. What we recall — gauzed snippets of time strung together with random pieces of dialogue. We build from what we think we remember and then swear it’s all true. The tower we build grows,defying gravity,shaking as it ascends.Our response:Dramamine.— R JAMES SENNETT JR R James Sennett Jr lives, … Continue reading The Answer To The Art History Question
Today, in Nsukka, a songbird posed alone / behind a dark tunnel / fanning its wings / a sign to show, heaven is a home without an end. & nothing is too small for troubled oceans, not to swallow. Some days, I’d watch the kids roll out in their rainbow coats. Rucksacks, & streams of … Continue reading Imagination Flowers
THE SHOW WAS UTTERLY and unapologetically high-budget trash. That was practically its title. Its actual title was For Love Within Reason. The premise was that an elderly king had three sons, all of whom had married good and sensible wives. The king had ten grandchildren—played by attractive actors in their twenties—who were allowed a bit … Continue reading For Love Within Reason (High-Budget Trash)
The clouds are rubbing the moon’s bald head and wiping his tears as they pass, and the darkness all around us is haunted by the ghosts of hobos and highway men, just as the fossils of ancient, prehistoric sharks and whales vibrate andcall to us across time fromtheir resting places, and a black cat boneis … Continue reading Cop Cars on the Distant Horizon
PATRICK CARMICHAEL WAS USED to people staring at him. Back in his school days, kids routinely called him ‘the Beached Whale’ or ‘Jabba the Hutt’. But there was something about today’s situation, that he happened to be sitting in a modern air-conditioned waiting-room, surrounded by people of similar size and bulk, bad skin, dated, ill-fitting … Continue reading The Cancer Diet Clinic
The Ferrari California parked outside The porn shop on Broadway Is red like the roof of my mouth Poked by the jagged corner of tortilla chip Red like the cartoon heart Glistening and throbbing To the techno bass beat Drop top drop panties drop acid Washed jeans in the parking lotHeat shimming over concreteRed like … Continue reading Cupid’s Outlet/Rainbow Video
MY MARRIAGE WAS DEEP into a tailspin when the video of Bigfoot hit the news cycle and the world shit a brick. Drone footage — 46 seconds of incontrovertible proof. No digital trickery, no blurred imaging. No hillbillies tearing through Umpqua National Forest in a padded-out gorilla suit. Journalists and cranks flooded into the Pacific … Continue reading Now Is The Time Of Monsters
We destroy ourselves as ants build a colony as birds build strong nests We enjoy ourselves as winter presses onward absurd awaiting We depress ourselves watching the clocks on the walls seeing not learningfrom the evergreensand the redwoods I’ve heard of and know still stand talland mystery itselfand her great three-lettered name as our books … Continue reading I Bet One of Us Is Manic
IF YOU'VE EVER WANTED to know if you’re one in a million – just flip a coin. More specifically, flip a coin twenty times and have Heads come up consecutively; well, then, you’re of that rarified air. That’s how Eerum Upso saw it. And where he sat, comfortable but afraid, he couldn’t trust anything anymore, … Continue reading Sacagawea Tossers
THE EVER-PRESENT TEMPTATION to water down the Jim Beam flitted through Miri's mind as she turned the emptying bottle bottom-up. The sloped interior of the shot glass stared up at her, only half-brown. "Hold on, sweetie," said Miri. Her eyes did not roll but her voice did. Hers was a medium-low voice sanded down by … Continue reading The Fourth Shed