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
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)
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.
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