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
The day the fox staggered into the barn my father didn’t own a gun, his whole life, a pacifist, with no desire to harm, or hunt, or defend with force. At the time, I saw this as a failure of character, as a listless boat floating without hope of shore, hated his inability to kill, … Continue reading The Politics of Violence
It was an evening out of Goya – foreground disarray, distant hills, Coal tar sky, the whole thing soundproof and sullen as a grease trap. I can’t say if I imagined the needles snapped off in my wrist. Tomas slashed away with a dull switchblade like a schoolboy Made to do lines, then explored the … Continue reading Sonnet in Relief
WHEN I CAME DOWN HERE I met Gage, and Gage showed me Einshein’s junkyard. Einshein is a large, slovenly man, with two signature looks. One is a chewing tobacco-stained tee shirt that says “I’m With Stupid” even though he’s always by himself, so think about that, and the other, in cold weather, is a flannel … Continue reading Blue Boat
To say I am sun obsessed and weary would be like saying I am a pharaoh who has crawled from the necropolis with a mouthful of hunger. I am the one who is afraid, biting the reins, crossing the desert before the wind takes my pale voices back to the womb. Say you cup your … Continue reading Queen of the Night (Night Blooming Cereus)
AFTER GETTING OUT, he tried to make a new life. He moved to Upstate New York and started a resurrection project, something that would bring him back to life. It wasn’t going to be easy because he was dead inside. Life had fled from him like a beaten dog. It came back the same way. … Continue reading The Resurrection Project
If you look closely, there in the narrows of Penn Station is a ghost whittling his tune in the gutter-water. He fiddles his song in the graffiti, if you stand long enough to listen, whistling along wires of yellow construction tape. In the silence of strangers trapped in separate oblivions, the ghost pauses and smiles, … Continue reading E Train (8 Avenue Local)
Here are Hidden Peak Press' 2024 Pushcart Prize nominees.