Come whatever may, this is what is: static shock and foster homes, 15/16 scale models of every significant sickness. You stare at your hand for an hour or two and pray for movement. The numbers won’t line up or tell their secrets and certified mail stubs only gawk at you from their position above the […]
Recently I undertook the monumental task of driving from San Diego to somewhere north of Seattle and back in roughly four days– and despite gas prices, Oregon cops, awkward reunions, dodgy motels, and a heat so oppressive even Jesus would have been soaking his robe in wine coolers and wearing it as a turban, it […]
Minor details in a minor key—Bandoleros throwing chubby young women over their shoulders; the view of Africa from a balcony; the longest of nights, darkest of days; months by the pool. I look and look, but never see your face. If decorative bottles and tins of pills were currency we would be rich, […]
I want to write you a letter but I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand. There’s something within me that has a tendency to twist and manipulate words. Another part easily misinterprets action and language. Another part never knows which direction is down yet screams for me to find my way to some arbitrary […]
It’s World Cup time again, America. I know it’s hard to miss because you don’t really understand or like ‘soccer’– football to the other 95% of the world that could give a shit about Terrell Owens and Coors Light. But I do have a problem with the scant few moderately knowledgeable people that […]
Everyone watch the blonde fondle a horse.
The table is set for six hundred.
The ancient symbol staked on parchment paper;
light from tiny candles; cattle farms
Cascading across the most beautiful tracts
Of small-town repetitive West.
Just try to peek inside the tent.
It’s like a lost world in there
with the blinding flashes of a photo booth
Spitting passport pictures of women
Stamped […]
—But where did it go? The lake had dried almost overnight and within weeks everything was dead, the few resilient beasts concealed in the clay of the empty river bed, gummy membranes retaining water. The last tribesman wanders the dusty expanse, squinting before the harshness of the sun, searching for rain clouds across […]
This reviewer recently had the unique misfortune of catching the early matinee performance of the ‘Song Birds’ at Third Street Elementary, expecting an uninspired but nevertheless professional performance. Make no mistake—though it sounds cute enough, this show was simply awful– there’s no musical precedent for how pretentiously nauseating these blaspheming 8 and 9 year […]
I
As I look out the window this morning
I see your faces in newly pressed snow,
sheets of ice on the barn door,
patterns of fog on the windshield.
I see shades of your eyes in burned-out stoplights,
urging me forward, forcing me to stop.
II
Let’s get one thing settled: I know it was your fault too.
I just painstakingly […]
For the past four weeks I’ve been obsessed with music. I haven’t slept much. I haven’t eaten much. Surprisingly, I haven’t drank (too) much either. Honestly, I’ve just listened to music. This recent obsession coincided with a deeply troubling existential funk that arose like a wide, black cloud as a […]