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I Am a Short Story, and I Am Good
Posted 3:50 PM, Jun 28, 2005 |
Most short stories I could do without, but sometimes they’re written so simply, and so easily, and the author doesn’t try to do too much, and everything, in the end, comes out just right, and you get that sense of satisfaction as if you’ve just eaten a fresh, juicy plum.
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The Politics of Things
Posted 9:25 AM, Jun 24, 2005 |
I
the complicated politics of things
mean i have to take your leopard-
print steering wheel cover
as payment for the time you playfully
kicked my shin but ended up making
me bleed. there’s still a scar
there, and for that i’m taking your
copy of bob dylan’s time out of mind,
even though it stutters on track seven.
the time you told me i had small hands simply
means i have to take your first edition
of the great gatsby and throw it in the harbor
so nobody can enjoy it.
and the time you said you couldn’t see me,
but you ended up going out on a blind
date with one of my loose-lipped coworkers
means i get to take the yellow dress you wore
to your cousin’s wedding and wash it with
the brand new red bedsheets i bought.
II
interpersonal relationships
should be easier.
as it is, though, i’m imposing
a tariff on first impressions
and an embargo on second, third,
and further ones. there will be a maintenance
fee on phone conversations, billed by
the syllable, with surcharges for contractions,
exclamations, and obscenity charges
for curse words. you’re not
invited to the summit
on the removal of accusatory questions,
but you know we’ll all be talking about you
while we bathe in spas and summer
on the french riviera, all champagne and mud.
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Mulligan
Posted 11:44 AM, Jun 21, 2005 |
i tried to tell myself not to bike
in the middle of the road, but my half-self
only looked blankly at me before getting
clipped by the station wagon and flying face-
first into the pavement, leaving behind
parts of my skin on the yellow line,
a pollock of paint and flesh and asphalt.
i rode on, looking back at my opaque, crumpled
self, and got home ten minutes before curfew.
i listened as my mother yelled
in the other room before i turned the light
on, the long cuts on my face like a prisoner’s
marks on the wall. in a memory only half mine,
i could see my mother mentally counting
the days until i was no longer thirteen.
three hours later, my face stitched like a scarecrow,
i laid in my bed and nestled into my split self,
wishing i could have listened.
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Untitled (Sound)
Posted 3:09 PM, Jun 16, 2005 |
this is the unfocused sizzle, the difficulty
of sticking to the middle of the road,
the frictionless asphalt pushing me side
to side, my sweat, the salt of my brow
along for the ride, saline lines in the creases
of my skin, like leftover marks of high tide,
a sign of how deep the water is where we are.
this life is a beach-gripped highway, founded
on sand and ungentle land, the ocean polishing
dusty grains into diamonds flush with the glisten
of a bead of sweat on the tangent of my eye.
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Two Pieces
Posted 1:13 PM, Jun 16, 2005 |
Here’s a couple fine op-ed pieces about America’s take on fact, fiction, and history repeating. Both from the New York Times:
One.
Two.
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(Hips)
Posted 1:38 PM, Jun 13, 2005 |
your hips are a parenthetical
statement speaking to me, that extra
turn of phrase, that cream-colored
irony, that twist of the knife.
your hips are typeset in two
halves, set together by what
lies in the space between, all
quiet words laced with meaning
like a poisoned drink with a slight
tinge of almonds.
your hips are offset by the question
mark of the muscles in your back
and the complicated curve of your shoulder.
your body is a printer’s nightmare,
an amalgam of inky smudges and arcane
punctuation. i lay awake, setting type
against a pale ceiling, making ligatures
of your name.
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One Revision
Posted 3:51 PM, Jun 9, 2005 |
Okay, so I’m backing off my claim that track 5 from In Case We Die by Architecture in Helsinki is a terrifically awesome song. It’s good, great, better than most, but everything pales in comparison to track 4. If you don’t love that song, you have no soul. In fact, as I was writing this, I listened to it, and now I’m going to stop writing this and start listening to it again. Adios, muchachos.
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The Chronological Urge
Posted 11:09 AM, Jun 9, 2005 |
I haven’t written anything in quite a while, and then just now the server was responding all slow-like, so I thought I wouldn’t be able to write anything, even now, when the chronological urge hit.
I’m still here, and was thinking about writing a poem about parentheses and women’s hips, and I still might, so you will definitely want to stay tuned for that one.
I’m also working on a crazy (read: probably not crazy) poem project that’s going to magically take 8 poems (maybe more) and mash them all together into, say, 262,144 poems (maybe more). It’s going to be a kind of choose-your-own-adventure poem except you won’t suddenly die from falling down a mine shaft or getting mauled by a grizzly bear. You also won’t be able to keep your finger on the page you just came from and go back and try again.
So that’s what’s coming up around here. I’ll talk to you later.
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This is My Heart
Posted 2:45 PM, Jun 2, 2005 |
when i woke this morning,
i couldn’t feel the slow thrum of blood
turning through my heart. a finger flat
on my wrist came up empty. my body
was a mannequin, a marionette. i put
my hand on my chest and ran up four
flights of stairs. sweat pearled on my forehead.
but still.
nothing.
there is now a cavity in my chest,
a room sealed by solid walls all around,
the air slowly musting, dust settling
on the walls. a slow breath
is a whirlwind here.
this is my heart, stuffed
in a jar on a shelf that smells
of formaldehyde and jack pine.
sealed in glass to the right is a gosling,
to the left a rabbit, both pale
yellow, my stark red heart
the deep color of a stop light in the dark.
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