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)
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The water tower dry, the name erased. The city: bisected, then again, then again. Pulsing lights. Chimney smoke. Rippling flags. There is order in death: a hall of power atop a mountain of stairs. Warping sirens. Garden beds. Sun-smeared glass. Decay has no allowance for chaos. Carbon: halved, then again, then again. All is putrefaction … Continue reading A Group of Vultures at Rest is Called a Committee
We expect her to be a diva or a monster, or merely fabulous; maybe she'll gyrate in the local co-op? But she’s normal and sad, it's said, of never being enough. When she turns up at the cricket club one Sunday, however, she’s eclipsed by rules even more never enough than her, a tea-time so … Continue reading Jennifer Lopez Moves to A Village in England
I went to Greenwood Cemetery with a bouquet of flowers The color of cheese and a jar of Maraschino cherries to suck and chew And spit among the many rows of unfamiliar names. This was February; the year was still in deliberations. I don’t suppose I’ll ever visit the graves of friends, refuse to See … Continue reading Sonnet at Greenwood Cemetery
The ire of summer heat through the glass of my car, driving past highway construction and what once was a deer, now melted into bones on the pavement. Trees mowed down in a scarred church lot, the sign for a new building with the wood chipper beside it. And then the driveway hedge, so alive … Continue reading Crisis
Step inside and smash the first round of contents down. Justwhen you think you can’t take any more shit you find more canfit. Your container will need to be filled indiscriminately.Trashed. Suggested ingredients include: unpaid parking tickets,dogshit, someone else’s syringes, apologetic birthday cards,empty bottles, bottles filled with flammable liquid, and a rope fora molotov cocktail. … Continue reading Self Portrait As Dumpster Fire
I sent my kite up high above the apple trees, their blossoms brimming with the nectar of the gods. In the Royal Dragoons, you never had a prayer of getting a kite up, what with the reins in one hand, a saber in the other, and the sky above the battlefield so still and full … Continue reading Kite
I have had worse summers. I have sprayed fuck police On the back of a bus that said Free Humanity on it and Slept with plenty of cops and I have sat on hot stoops Icing my forearms praying against everything. I think of my happiest moments when happiness was elsewhere And I begged the … Continue reading Sonnet In Anger
On the way home from Tina’s detention, air smokes like fire ate flowers, a whole field of wild, colors stolen for ash. “Why on Earth did you swallow those moths?” Tina’s mother asks. “You ate Lee’s entire science project. All stages!” she exclaims, before the car returns to silence. Tina remains numb like words were … Continue reading Luminous