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
I wonder if the problem lies with me or infinity. Each day is its own kind of monster. More and more advertising speaks directly to me. Hearing but not listening. Listening but not hearing. Hot breath in my ear while I try to pick the lock on these handcuffs with my teeth. I need to … Continue reading The World’s Most Powerful Microscope
Armored blimps circling while villains build home aquariums: Know that when everything is spider-cracked, when car washes and gas stations and banks oversaturate suburbia, no tablemaking demonstration can save me. I light a candle just to dip my finger in the wax. Envision my hesitationas an oil rig. Snowbroth.A lot of pennies scattered on a … Continue reading Simmer
The jellyfish take the 6:00 AM train down to the beach. Some of the jellyfish make it through the sliding doors, some of them fall off the platform onto the tracks. I am the only not jellyfish on the train. The jellyfishes’ electric thoughts paint the ceiling of the car, the windows lit with neon … Continue reading Untitled (Jellyfish Poem)
I’ve been dreaming in my room, not getting anything done. Dreaming about finding pennies from the Roaring ’20s. Picking up the phone all the time, then immediately putting it down. Dancing in a silver light threatening to turn gray. Waiting for everything to equalize. Dreaming and waiting and dreaming of a chance to dream free, … Continue reading Almost Rich
Here are Hidden Peak Press' 2025 Pushcart Prize nominees.
I finally got a refrigerator that dispenses cold, cold ice and water purified by a filter. Some people have these all their lives and some people never have them. I always go for ice now and I go for the purified water. My wife says it tastes better but I don’t know. What I do … Continue reading A lower middle-class laborer explains the economics
And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him . . . And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. 2 Kings 2:23-24 I … Continue reading Going to Bethel
Meg yells ‘whoa’ on the Ferris wheel but the spinning doesn’t stop. Harold chews one regret after another on a bed made for two. Jackie keeps walking the dog the opposite way it wants. Joe continues to converse with an enemy he imagines. Marge says her husband is a hell-of-a-man and hates him for it. … Continue reading People I Know, But Pretend Not To
ascetics want to do nothing but peel in places where angels attach to an obsessive love but don’t eat their crust - they were first manufactured in the middle ages and, in today’s world, correspond to a warped mirror or an otolith scraped off the dung or a fracas of fern-like creatures or glow-worms made … Continue reading Ascetics