radioactive moat / 2

Travis Kane Snyder

2010-02-28T22:10:00.000-08:00

...

Michael Varrati

2010-02-28T09:35:00.000-08:00

The Man Outside

There were five police cars in the lot when I returned home that night.

Not an overstatement.

Not an exaggeration.

Five.

The reason I am certain of the exact number is due to the fact that shortly thereafter, when I would encounter the lone officer patrolling my parking lot with a flashlight, it would leap out to me what a strangely tipped ratio existed in the pulsing red and blue lights.

I had been out of town for the weekend visiting friends, and to return to such a commotion was (to say the least) disconcerting . . . a feeling that was not set to ease in the slightest when, upon exiting my vehicle, the aforementioned flashlight was shone directly into my face.

Now, obviously, I had done nothing wrong. But I'd be remiss if I said I didn't feel a slight moment of guilt and panic to be caught in that beam. I'm not sure what is is, but there's something about police officers that inspires even the most pious of us to instantly assess whether we have any cause to be in trouble. I suppose, in our way, we all still fear being sent to the principal's office.

That's why, when I finally blurted out that I lived there, I'm sure I did it with less charisma than I'd have liked.

The stories around the police station waster cooler simply must be unparalleled.

I learned shortly thereafter, as my eyes were readjusting to the dark, that the occupants of the vacant vehicles that surrounded us had long since fanned into the night, beating down bushes, peering into darkened corners, and leaving their sole compatriot to mind the store in their stead.

"He got away," the officer said to me with little more explanation, "We're trying to get him and bring him back."

I waited for more, but even as the words had left the police officer's lips, it was clear I was already an afterthought. He hovered politely for a moment, but as he scanned an area of the lot over his shoulder (what exactly, I cannot say), he began to drift away. He spoke a final time, urging me to let him know if I spotted any strangers in the building, and then sauntered off into the night--an image that I would concede was cliche if it wasn't the honest-to-god truth.

I made my way up the stairs to my apartment, a trip I had made hundreds of times, but in the moment carried a certain ominous weight that seemed befitting--an evening where one is told a potentially dangerous, yet unknown man is lurking about.

Locking myself in, I took care to check all the closets and under the bed, a ritual I had not done since searching for the boogeyman of old, and was relieved, probably for the first time in a while, to find I was alone.

I found myself returning to the window often that night, peering down at the unmoving police cars with their silent lights washing my building in color, and occasionally catching glimpses of the officer I had met making his rounds.

I knew very little about the situation that was playing out below me, but I couldn't shake it from my mind.

A single sentence kept playing in my head:

"There's a man outside."

I knew nothing of this man, who he was . . . what he had done.

But he was out there, just the same.

So I stood there, in the quiet of my apartment, looking out into the dark . . . for the man outside.

And as I was perched there in my window, waiting . . . for what I do not know, I could not help but wonder:

Could he see me too?

* * *

They found Dixie Joe outside.

In the summer of 1993, my parents and I moved to a small Midwestern town half a world away from everything that was familiar. It was a postage stamp kind of community that seemed perpetually stuck in a golden era of television that never actually existed in life. Since it was the kind of community that would balk at having a corporate supermarket (perhaps they didn't even know such things existed), the majority of life's necessities could be found at the locally owned general store.

The store was owned by a character whom the locals referred to as "Dixie Joe."

Dixie Joe was an affable sort, a little strange, but had the comfortable position of being the man who helped get you the food you put on the table, so people put up with his eccentricities.

As an eleven year-old who didn't have the immediate forcible luxury of school to help him make new friends, a lot of my days that July were spent popping into Joe's store, dollar bills clutched in my hand. He was probably the only guy left in America who still sold slushies for fifty cents and I figured running with a blue raspberry tongue in the summer sun, even if I was by myself, beat helping my parents unpack.

Such was the pattern, until one day, in the most nondescript of fashions . . . the store was closed. I returned several times over the week to similar results. Word began to spread that Joe was on vacation, and even as the locals grumbled that they now had to go the next town over to get that night's meal, Joe's store and blue raspberry tongues soon drifted from my thoughts just as surely as summer soon drifted into autumn.

Joe's never did reopen, and I would discover, many months later, that Dixie Joe had traveled in the dead of night down to Florida to confront the woman who broke his heart, hoping to win her back from her new lover and return to town triumphantly hand-in-hand.

I guess Dixie Joe was a romantic like that.

Dixie Joe's body was a discovered weeks later, chopped into little squares and buried in Tupperware in the backyard. The woman and her lover long since gone. I imagine, being a grocer, Joe would have at least appreciated that they packed him for freshness.

I haven't had a slushie in years, but I must confess that when I am at restaurants and am served a salad with cubed chicken or ham on top . . . I'll occasionally think of old Dixie Joe.

* * *

We were sitting outside when we found out about the woman across the street.

In a new town, one with a corporate supermarket, my parents found themselves living in a house that had the beneficial feature of a rather spacious front porch. It was that very spot that, in the warmer months, became the site for ritualistic family gatherings . . . a way to appreciate nature without going out into it, and a find spot to share the details of one's day.

Across the street from the parental porch perch was another house, as befitting a suburban neighborhood, lived in by a quiet woman and her husband, who drove an old black Cadillac which was regularly seen fussing with during the daylight hours, whether is actually needed the attention or not.

Until one day . . . he wasn't.

My parents didn't notice right away, but as the weeks went on and the car sat unattended and the husband was nowhere to be seen, it became evident the routine had been broken. The quiet woman, on the contrary, was seen regularly outdoors. Snipping flowers, sweeping the walk, and always taking great care to avoid the hulking behemoth in her driveway, as if the Cadillac was a hated enemy who happened to show up at the same cocktail party, and her best discourse was to avoid eye contact.

I recall, very vividly, the day I plopped down in a cushy deck chair next to my dad on the porch as the sun was dipping down for the night, and noticing he was peering at the woman across the street as she entered her house, the screen door slamming behind her. Waiting a few seconds, as if he was worried she might reemerge to the outdoors and hear, my dad pointed across the street, waving his finger rather carelessly and state the most awe-inspiring six words I had ever heard in my whole little life:

"I reckon she killed that guy."

With one sentence, my dad had set the three of us off on countless afternoons of amusing speculation. Of course, he had his initial explanation as to why he said what he did. My father, a car enthusiast himself, didn't believe that a man who had taken such loving care of his automobile as the man across the street had with the Cadillac could possibly leave without taking the car with him. He also posited that if the woman had gotten the car in a divorce, we'd at least have heard.

But the details of the original explanation were inconsequential to the initial statement. I can't tell you how much time we spent on that porch, positing different theories about how she did it.

"Did she whack him with a shovel and bury him in the basement?" I wondered.

"Maybe she introduced him to the garbage disposal, piece by piece!" My dad proclaimed.

"Perhaps his body is in the trunk of the car, trapped with the thing he loves for eternity!" My mom declared.

Sure it was grotesque, and perhaps it wasn't board game night, but we had fun, and boy could it get us howling. If that lady only knew how much entertainment she provided, shed probably have felt like a saint for bring that much joy . . . well, minus the whole suspected murder part (Note: my parents have since moved from that house, so if you happen to be a lady across the street from them now, we don't think you killed your husband. However, if it just so happens that you did, kudos to you . . . because they haven't noticed yet.).

Months passed, and still the topic never ceased to be amusing. then one not so descript day, a car pulled into the driveway across the street, and a woman came rushing out her screen door to greet the newly arrived visitor climbing out of the vehicle, and embraced him . . . a visitor who turned out to be her husband, who was very much alive.

You can imagine how disappointed we all were.

* * *

She was the voice outside.

I don't remember the glass exploding in my face or the moment when the airbag ripped loose and burned a savior's trail up my forearms. What I do remember, however, was the woman tapping on my window asking if I needed her to call 911.

You have to understand that in the moment, such a question's validity doesn't occur to you. In fact, I think my initial response was revulsion and concern, because it seemed some crazy woman had taken it upon herself to come tapping on my car while I was sitting inside.

But it's like when you're in the theatre and they run that THX sound clip before the movie. It starts slow and builds to that signature pitch . . . I swear I could almost hear that as reality came flooding back, and even then, as I looked around at the wreckage, my own blood on the steering wheel, all I could think was, "Oh . . . yeah."

She eventually did call 911, though I can't remember if I gave my consent. I couldn't get out of my car, so I occupied myself with picking bits of glass of my t-shirt, and I remember wondering if the CD that had been in my player was going to be okay.

It may seem trivial, but I really liked that album.

The wreck itself was a blur to me, and remains that way to this day, though the details leading up to it are forever locked in slow motion in my mind. This is not uncommon for individuals who have been in bad automobile accidents. The seconds before seem an eternity, as if the universe slows down so that you can see it coming.

Maybe this is the ultimate proof that God has a sense of humor.

The minute details and fault of the crash are neither the here nor there of this recollection, but rather the importance, for me, is held within those few seconds that seemed an eternity. You see, in the moments that may potentially account to be your final ones, you find that despite how you may view yourself in life, that may not be exactly who you are.

That my final thought before impact was a rather deadpan "Here we go" is certainly not reassuring.

* * *

I don't really recall if I stood in the window all that time, though I suppose when I recount the story for others, I'll say that I did.

What I do know for sure though, is that eventually that car graveyard below came to life and one-by-one disappeared into the morning. I never did see the man, learn if they got him, perhaps they didn't. That's not saying much though, as I lost track of my lone officer after a fashion as well. The very story could have come to an epic conclusion below my nose and I could have likely missed the whole thing.

Mostly, I'd like to think they caught him.

Mostly.

I'm not there anymore, that apartment, but I think of it often. In the years since, wherever I am, whether it's home or a hotel, I occasionally find myself drawn to the window to look out at the night, and sometimes when it's too dark to see anything but my own reflection in the glass, I can't help but remember . . .

There's a man outside

. . . and he's waiting there still.

...

Jordan Castro

2010-02-12T10:22:00.001-08:00

@jordan_castro

i feel like a toddler in a shopping mall full of people on crack and
zombies who feel empty and lost

i feel like a retard playing whiffle ball with the 'normal' kids at recess

i feel like a shopping mall full of people on crack and
zombies who feel misunderstood and vengeful

i feel like i am being yelled at by my parents for being caught high,
while still feeling high

i feel like twitter is essentially life affirming

...

Joe Hall

2010-02-11T18:22:00.001-08:00

4.11

We were fleeing the killer in the mansion

Under the moon's sterile searchlight

On wet prairie grass between my fingers and hands

You were licking me in the stomach, yelling

Pokeweed, Lamb's quarters, Meatball

Sandwich, Meatball Sandwich, Nazareth--I asked you to

We entered the forest's weird rooms

And snatched as much Sudafed as we could

Every two trees a doorway, a thread of spider silk the lintel

Carrying the structure's weight, the nuclear sequence

Initiated in lady eggs

I let my knife into the leaf mold, it

Was something I had to do. Mathew? Mark?

Yes. Luke? No. John? Yes

You wanted to stop at the front door

To change your clothes, your mother was there

But the killer seemed pretty focused on you

You asked me to put you in a suitcase so I did

White Pine Needles, Soloman's Seal, Spiderwort

One version being a column of fire

Expanding the limit of your endurance--Nazareth

Butterfly weed, Mayapple, vital jelly

In an apparatus of poison, flowers

Made of blah blah blah, fire and the field

A lighthouse in the yellow fog

I kept pushing through the branches

On a reef made of ship bottoms, walking

Through mounds of sassafras and rising insects

Where constellations rust on long ruined axes

Lord Jesu thou didst bow Thy dying head upon

The tree, this not a prayer without your following

O be not now / More dead to me! Word

Without from which the word

I pissed myself in a blackout in the land of doors

They booted me from the library, that's alright

Morel, Puffball, Turkey Tail

Where does one find enough

Blood to turn back the fire?

...

Evan Chen

2010-02-05T13:09:00.000-08:00

midmarch, in which
we return to suburbia

"i hate the quiet places." - the velvet underground, "candy says"

my father has always been obsessed with things
that never sleep.

billions of pixels
bare down on me.

i awake doused in sunlight,
to the sound of still-fearless
children screaming
outside, propelled by
millipede legs, obsessive parents
overheavy, overstuffed.

the sky grows bigger here
than in pittsburgh--it chokes
the ground, blinds us all.

we have a neighbor
who is so fearful of fluoride
she only washes her hair
with perrier. i imagine
polyethylene dreams leaking into
the folds of her brain,
sharp deadly vanity failing her.

my father tells me
he likes how i am growing out
my hair, which i take to mean
he is sorry for burying his dreams.
i write about him. i try to sketch out his face
but it is too hard. there is a new line,
a new crease in some new corner
every time. i am reminded of the sagrada familia
in barcelona.

i wonder if they have drugs
for my father's face that are not derived from botulism.
we drive aimless in the hybrid,
trying not to feel guilty moving silent
through the fading streets.
we teeter on the precipice
of something and say nothing.

the spine of the sky
is a cellophane dream
we cannot break through;
spring is beginning
and we are trapped
in the boiler, knocked flat
by the weight of organization,
left to tumble from row to row
of houses, futile and stifled
even in the evergreen.

i am worried what we may discover
prying at the floorboards, what underlying
rot may make itself known as time crawls
forwards towards its silent, digitized defeat.

i breathe the carbon dust.

days tick by. time is far past
stale. i feel i am falling far too slow,
near too fast.

we become faded facsimiles
of our parents. wash the car
in the driveway on days off.
count the change out
in the jar. minimize number
of mirrors in the house. no
reflective surfaces. wash and wipe everything
twice. wash and wipe again.

try to sleep at night
ignoring the buzzing in your ears.
try and hope that everything
has been properly completed
in order, in rows
and columns, neatly folded
and stacked.

try and breathe deep
as you can. pretend
that death is not soon
imminent. believe in heaven
outside the narrow rows.
try not to think
of loose insulation, or the way
your hair curls at the ends now.

things used to be simpler
and louder.

...

Chris Moran

2010-02-04T16:18:00.000-08:00

Stone Cat Gaze

I have a bee's breath. My attention
is not great.

To hook the bee in a different image,
a decanter.

A 24 hour fast is like making babies.

A cat in a bee costume wants to trick or treat.

Sun showers, pyramid of light.
I have a complex psychological relationship with a cat.

* * *

Butterflies with human faces are confusing
yet strangely beautiful. The burning scroll in my mind

provides a new spectrum.

The depth of the hue is my body.

Language is a gleaming wand in my hand, a butterfly net.

Pyramids point up, like the wand in the magician's hand in the first Arcanum.

Rainbows are inflamed.

A chance to climb a mountain, I should miss this;
I view things coldly from a distance.

* * *

Stone eye gaze in the silver forest.
Vague, windy days ruin the sunset.
Sun-drenched skin will ease in the mountains.

To be bare, a portal, a horse skeleton, a sea of muck, a head without a body;
Or an astral crown foaming like a rose in ether.
A rain of flower petals.
Rainbows are inflamed in the night when they are invisible.
A physical experience of truth.
Vivid colors in a landscape, like mountainous rainbows.
And I still have not writhed in my home.

* * *

I love the way I feel a shower.
Boundaries disappear like a dark wall between us.

Spirit in landscape, a brooding dream. Keep it alive bro.

* * *

A crystal blade passes through me and my heart is raining out roses.

A cat cannot make the sound of laughter, but it can purr.

I would like to play trombone again in a marching band.

A rainbow of pure mind is in a tea cup. A decanter. A prayer for protection.

Or tear a hole in this vanishing facade while I sponge up the impurities.
I shout at the spleen brigade.

I make peace with the past.
The spring brigade shouts wine for half a century.

The chariot is drawn by sphinxes, like a bird.
I will slap my own face with a rose.

Panic, please. I am alone.

* * *

...

Jack Boettcher

2010-02-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

Mudman

He's made of more water than his body can hold. He leaks, he sings, he can sing like a creek but when he croons he floods. He lives about a poison bog. He splashes for a lady. They don't come. Mudman sags, drips. He can't hold a job. He puts forth much love to his fellows. His love cloys, it makes noise, it would bankrupt the company. He's not made of mud, but he enjoys its properties. No one will marry him because he doesn't have credentials. He lost them in a bog. When he splashes for a lady, sometimes a little girl shows up. He shoos her away. She holds fast to her blue shadow, watching for a moment. Then she unfastens her blue shadow and steps away into hissing cattails. Mudman feels her footfalls like the bawl of a frog at the soft spot under his jaw. Mudman loafs, dozes, and generally fails to understand his predicaments. In the backwash of the backwaters, Mudman yodels to stay above water. The taste of flat coke wells up with a hiccup in the semblance of a kiss with one's own mouth. One's own muddied, mudded mouth. The rats haunt Mudman. Then, just their eyes, skimming the night like swarmed roe. He'll never marry, but Mudman loves all the people that pass by his bog. To each other they whisper he loves like a dog. They stop, they chat, they seem to give him something he wants, and he loves them for it. Mudman loves like an old hound dog. To call it selfish would be wrong. All Mudman knows to do is give what they give right back, splashed.

...

Reynard Seifert

2010-01-23T11:38:00.000-08:00

a PaRTiaL LiST oF THiNGS i SaW
an excerpt from SOMETHING OR OTHER

I saw politicians glad-h& nacho vendors, taco sauce all over their smiling faces; blood pouring from their eyes, their tears became empowered from reading Xeroxed copies of The Pilgrim's Progress between reruns of "Lost."
I saw scientists wire electric boxes leading nowhere & to no one except for plots of l& littered with "for sale" signs rotting in the desert like fruit for famine shriveled from too much sweetness & sunshine.
I saw bucolic settings become backwards seeming, cracked with decay & trepidation & too much pasta salad with no wine to wash it down.
I saw myself in a carnival mirror & thought, You've gained so much weight! - then I side-stepped to find that I was, in fact, very tall & thin; & then again, I was just me, just boring old me in my boring old body, not quite short or tall, not quite fat or thin, just boring & old & me--it made me so sad I frowned & the mirror covered me in a reflective film, out of kindness I suppose.
I saw the ground pulled out from beneath our feet by the man upstairs, who fancied himself some sort of comedian.
I saw planes crash into buildings, not because they were angry, but because they had no place to l&.
I saw women getting horizontal with buildings while the men surrounded themselves with brick & mortar & pesto sauce a bit too salty for my taste.
I saw a logjam the size of Texas in the South Pacific block the ocean from its better half.
I saw birds pull splinters out of the logjam, splinters the size of Buicks.
I saw the ocean rise and fall.
I saw the spice flow & flow, from China, where most people live--striking.
I saw chaos & creation pulled to & fro by the h& of a giant open-mike night comedian, laughing too loud at its own jokes.
I saw pizza bake & bake in brick ovens, large as some isl& chains of the South Pacific but not quite as large as the logjam, which was the size of Texas & thus HUGE.
I saw gigantic chiggers apply toothpaste directly to their eardrums in order to drown out the sound of people starving because the oil fields dried up like raisins in the sun.
I saw laundry mat bums pick short change from their teeth wax with faux palm tree fronds next to every Coinstar machine I came across.
I saw Larry Rivers dig up pinecones for a portrait of the man upstairs he was painting with tomato juice & fresh ground pepper - when I asked him for one he punched me in the torso then broke my nose with an uppercut.
I saw a wine-o with no teeth hit on a manikin through a storefront window, rubbing his breasts seductively as if doing a strip tease for his own reflection.
I saw rows of rocks covered in occult symbols, the significance of which was lost on my eyes, although many claimed they were intended for child's play.
I saw the Internet - the whole thing - & concluded it was a means to an end with no beginning.
I saw a funeral & wondered why they did not eat the body first.
I saw a donkey show & wondered why.
I met a young lady named magiK Molly, who ate my heart.

...

Glen Binger

2010-01-20T21:09:00.000-08:00

Thoughts

There is this sound you make inside my head, zipping through the waves of liquid and words. They form sentences and phrases I've never heard before, but remind me of your voice. Commas squirming in my squiggle infested eye fluid, periods spreading inside of my abdomen, and question marks stamping themselves on the inner layers of skull. I can hear my father laugh in the bedroom. For a moment, I am distracted by it. But then I come back to you. Your velvet voice regurgitates beautifully back into my mind. In the uninhabited shadows I can see my own pupils screaming for help. But you can't hear them. There is this raunchy, vinegar-tasting word caught in the back of my throat. I can't pronounce it. The etymologic phonetics are scraping against my lower tongue and they keep me from saying anything to you. Then, suddenly in the light of my glowing cell phone, I become vivid. I become real. Your name is painted across the inside of my eye lids and your voice is swimming in my imagination. And as I look back, through my rattling eyes, unable to blink and see your name, I realize that these thoughts are only mine. No one else can see them or listen to them. They are empty to everyone; everyone except you. And without you, I can't think. So I will continue to let this sound echo inside of my head because it is the only thing that keeps me from losing you. Your voice narrates my thoughts.

...

Joe Hall

2010-01-19T20:52:00.000-08:00

4.7

I took a left this time, I didn't even know

I was looking at Megatornadoes ripping off a scab

Of soil--What allowed it was my

Stillness, his grizzled, bony face and sulfurous rain--See

The way she works it, up on the garden wire

The wild turkey creeping, eating

Some rocks, she leaned in, I could smell her

Something fleeing through the woods, leaving the road

Suspecting Nazareth was somewhere

In the burning slag squeezing its titties together, in bogs of

Red algae, drifting rivers of cold mud carrying

Gravel and branches, sitting on my porch

Taking pot shots at squirrels and birds, I found your icon

In the rotten chest, it was plastic but like pearly wax

A candle burning in a basilica of ice, I decided

To descend into the ravine rather than climb

The stones, the cacti huddled under their own weight

Like great rancid signposts or inverted

Nooses of thorns, even a green brain unwinding itself

In the indeterminacies of opening

Fissures, vast stony rents, fulminating

Towers of smoke coming, coming oh shit

I stood at the top of four water slides with my inner-tube

Gulls screaming circles around it like

It was a trash barge, the whale corpse drifting overhead

With a stillborn sun between its gray lip meat

My feet splitting, my cheeks splitting when I reached

The bottom, began to dig, just

Slipped my fingers in there, stroking

Some dead from some dead, her dogs

On fire, grandma on fire, her: on fire--Dig dig

Dig, the world hemorrhages, mummies of fascists

Take turns sodomizing the zombies of popes

While acidifying sea water fills Vatican treasure houses

Silver organs pulse in a clear, viscous jellyfish hood

Beneath the crystal atmosphere of a derelict iceberg--I dig

Though its night, I see because the hills burn

And I smell water, Lord, give it up

For the band, up to my shoulders in sand

I call that last number mo-pocalypse

I've ruined my pants

And even the fires in the hills die

Breathing in scorched air

...

Jordan Castro

2010-01-13T15:26:00.000-08:00

a poem for brooklyn, michigan

i tried to write a poem about our trip to michigan

something about your grandma
- the one with the arthritic hands or whatever
calling a bukowski poem "sour"

i think it was past tense

i stopped writing and thought vaguely about baseball

a poem for brooklyn, michigan (pt. 2)

seems like we have only been to michigan once
but it feels like more

like i remember smoking marlboro smooth's
and drinking canadian whiskey from a snapple bottle

but i also feel like there was another time or something

like when i was smoking marlboro 27's
and maybe your extended family wasn't there

or like,
now i definitely remember there being two times

the first, being whiskey and marlboro smooths
the second, being watermelon vodka and marlboro 27's

it seems that one was maybe in mid-august
and the other was around the 4th of july

a poem for brooklyn, michigan (pt. 3)

i want to be sitting on the bench
- the one with the peeling green paint
in the grass next to the lake
between two strangers' houses

not really being anywhere, but not really having to be

smoking menthol cigarettes and drinking cherry flavored coffee

with you

...

David Peak

2010-01-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

Burn Victimology

what is the worst
that could happen--

if I set myself on fire?

would it be worse if I died
or did not die?

seashell skin,
smooth and pink,
unrecognizable

is what I really want
to be unrecognizable?

or to melt

the frosted ground
of the winter cornfield
a light, ablaze--
a beacon in the dark

a signal to be put out

...

Meg Johnson

2010-01-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

pretending to read Time Magazine

1
In an agency waiting room
June 8, 2009
Sonia Sotomayor
common touch . . . uncommon story
I was actually reading it
until the tornado sirens
started blasting their hum
knee high tube socks
white with black rings at the top
I have attempted to look "young
& funky" for my three minute audition
four hour commute for three minutes
but still can't find anything better to do
baby face disguises wild card
don't you know I'm 26 years old now?
I want to shout above the sirens
finally seen, then out the door
into the supple sunshine sky
a pretty landscape
but I know rebellion
even under popsicle hues

2
I'm dizzy & my agent is calling
I think of a pinwheel of
red, white, & black
my cat white bedspread
I wish to be wrapped in
the pulsing color of my insides coming
out, the dark hair of Frank
O' Hara, the cheerful voice
continues as I feel the words
transformation & lonely
float around my body
cartoon style
the pinwheel spins

3
stomping around
piles of clothes
on my floor
in a see-through white tank
& lacy pink boy shorts
pop music is swarming around my body
but I'm still haunted
by Adrienne Rich & her Time is male
and in his cups drinks to the fair.
I'm thinking about bouncing little
girls, elderly ladies with glossy
smiles, all of them lovely
all seemingly content
calm & quiet, their contained power
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time is male
I pace intensely against these words
as if walking around at home in my
underwear could truly make a difference

...

Francis Raven

2010-01-05T23:28:00.001-08:00

Machine 10

...

Francis Raven

2010-01-05T23:26:00.000-08:00

Fraud

...

Francis Raven

2010-01-05T23:25:00.001-08:00

Into The Grass

...

Francis Raven

2010-01-05T23:23:00.000-08:00

Picnic

...

Changming Yuan

2010-01-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

The Artist and the Child

Seeing the sculptor work on a piece of wood
The little girl comes up and asks, surprisingly:

"How did you know there is a bird
Hidden in this chunk of wood?"

"I did not know anything to start with
But found it by following my heart, honey."

"Will the bird fly away when you cut open the cage?"
"Sure, you will feel it flapping its wings in your heart."

Home Defending

i [knock knock knock]
A: Who is it? Oh good morning, ladies!
B+C: Good morning!
A: You are . . .
B: We're just wondering if you've by any chance heard anything about the Jesuits?
A: Oh, sorry, I am in the middle of something urgent. This is not really a good time . . .
C: You read Chinese? Can we leave this pamphlet for you to read when you have time?
A: Sure, I will. Thank you very much and have a nice day!

ii [knock knock knock]
A: I am coming! [open the door but with some hesitation]
D: Good day sir!
A: Good day. What is it about, you are not--
D: My name is Angela and I am volunteering for BC Lung Cancer Society.
A: So you are here to ask for contributions?
D: Yes sir! Anything would be a great help to our parents . . .
A: Sure, sure. Here is ten bucks. It's not much, but hopefully will serve them right.

iii [knock knock knock]
A: What do you want?!
E: I do not want anything, mister! But do you want anything almost for free?
A: What is it?
E: A brand new product you can use on your home computer to--
A: Wait a second! Is this something for trial use? How long? Any obligation?
E: You are such a smart gentleman! All you need to do is just fill out this form now--
A: In that case, I'd prefer not to.

iv [knock knock knock]
A: Not again! What is it about this time?
F: Would you open this door first, please?
A: Not until you tell me what you want, first.
F: Look, I'm not asking for contributions, or trying to sell anything, or . . .
A: What is about then?
F: Just hoping to give you some brochures about the next election.
A: Why not just throw them in through the slot?

v [knock knock knock]
A: [ignoring the persistent knocks at the door]
G: Pizza!
A: [as if talking to himself] In this house we never order pizzas.
G: Pizza delivery!
A: Wrong house! [to his wife] Get the gun, honey!

...

Karen Sosnoski

2010-01-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

The____Trip

Driving Somewhere

Why am I in this car with you, lady? Who's this piggy sitting next to me?

Quiet, your brother's sleeping.

What's brother? . . . Tell a story, lady.

I'm driving. I'm writing a story in my head, but it's for big people. You tell me.

Once upon a time this lady had a daughter who looked nothing like her. She was beautiful and blond. After the lady had another baby, a piggy, the girl had to potty-train herself. She was only two. The end.

You know we've talked about this. Countless times I've said I'm sorry that you feel displaced. It's really just a feeling though. Moving on. Another story?

Wunz upon a time there wuz this ladeye from Tex--ASS? She lived happily with her byootiful blond daughter untill--

--Okay now, stop the same old, same old! And they don't talk like that in Texas.

It's not same old! This one's for big people. You heard the swear.

Same essence . . . You know, I could dye my hair your color--

What's essence? You ain't know how they talk'n Tex-ASS!

(if I wanted to)

How long till we get there, Mom?

There?

Grandma's!

Grandma? Who's that lady?

Getting There

HmmmHmmmmmmHmmmHmmmmm.

Hi Mom.

HmHmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . .

Hi Grandma.

Look. HmmHmm's smiling. She's happy to see us!

Rest Stop

Let me smell your armpits before I go to sleep. I will always be born first. I'm your baby cub. You're my mama. I can track you by your scent. Wherever you go, I will follow you.

I'm not sure that will always be good for you. And you know my scent will change . . .

You don't know what will always be good for me. Then I'll track you by your essence.

Ever After

Once upon a time this lady wrote a story, "The Alzheimer's Trip" about her mother's decomposition, her father's grief. She edited out the parts that would have offended her mother, those that could break her father. She cut everything untrue. At dusk she scans the sky for crows circling--will they?--won't they?--what remains?

into the night

I'm your firstborn. You're my mama____your scent____your essence____wherever you go.

...

Adam Moorad

2010-01-05T15:22:00.000-08:00

Sympathomimetic

It's morning - or you don't know. You're in a house eating beetle eggs smacking your lips and making grinding noises with your ankles and moving your arms around like horse flies. You think you're communicating something to someone in a covert parrot language and a voice tells you to go on a dangerous mission to infiltrate buildings on the road by the stadium. You worry about the pain you must be feeling and hope that after five scratch-tickets you can lie down and swallow your spaghetti arms and legs and it bothers you the neighbors are watching, practicing genetic experiments on a blond child on a miniature Weber grille. You look at the kid and wonder if it's murder and how nutritious it must taste then you ensure yourself that everything happens for a reason. You think you press the gas pedal against the floorboard with your legs flailing and see yourself riding a flying bicycle made out of antique feline skeletons. You count the ribs and jaws and wonder how many political assassinations made this ride possible. When you worry you worry the world won't stop looking wiry with insect wings and you spray a can of RAID wishing you knew something about Buddhism to control your senses. You try to stay awake watching a group of scientists dissect a desert tortoise and you look at them and they see you from the operating table on the ceiling. Then you go outside and check and see if there's maggots on your roof shaking a baby in an Indian headdress by the thorax and you see them and you think there's more than one and there is and you realize the porch light is attracting them from far away places and you shut your door and lock it then turn off all the lamps and hide them in the closets. Eventually you fall asleep near a chair and you wake up and look around and look around and wonder why you ate so many toothpicks when the weather's so hot and you think you can remove them later like a maintenance man who changes light bulbs on an airport runway. You lock yourself in the bathroom with a blanket tucked under the door so things can't crawl inside and you don't know why but you're convinced this will happen. You watch your fingers move and become green halogen cylinders and you think there's wood inside them so you punch the bathmat with your chin and make a hole in the world and the planet says, "You're Welcome." Then you catch a dog chewing on the ceiling fan so you hold it down and pry its mouth open to see what's inside and you smell pizza and gag and jerk your head from side to side and dig your fingers in the animal's fur for a while then put your mouth on the carpet and lick your tongue on sandpaper then foam from the corners of your lips and think you have rabies again but you believe you're immune and invincible like you can put anything in your mouth since you have a skull made of dead cicada shells. You touch your scrotum then move it with the bathmat from the crack in the door but you think someone else put it there and you wonder how someone found it and you begin to worry and start looking for your ashtray because you forgot you're not smoking but you still smell things incinerating and feel nasal congestion and sense the bungee cord inside your chest will snap if you move another inch. You check your shoelaces to make sure they are tied but you're not convinced. You recognize your feet because they look like canned tunas then you hear a chicken doing something in the ocean with a whistle and feel familiar tasting things between your teeth and you're pretty sure you have reptiles in your gums when the dog starts sniffing your paws in the light of a plastic killing machine that reminds you of a church steeple. The neighbors are looking at you from behind a mirror behind an analogue set telling you to use coasters with your cups and you smell expired mayonnaise and see a countertop covered in hardboiled eggs rotting and rolling off newspaper into an astronaut helmet full of cat litter. When you look outside then around the room you picture your daughter with no teeth in a Starter jacket braiding Garter snakes then you see your reflection through a window watching you watching a television watching you watching it wondering when it will be safe to close your eyes again.

...

Michael Goodwin

2010-01-05T15:05:00.001-08:00

I Lost The Nature Of What It Was We Were Supposed To Do

The tree in the backyard
Blooms with black leaves
And wasps colonize
A deadening yard

Beyond the yellowed grass,
Steep holes of mud,
Rotting structure,
And familiar abandonment

Two flowers appear
Out of sickly nature
Of tainted sunlight
And metallic sewage

I'm chasing after you
Like dreams of fireflies
And childhood nostalgia
With lost memories

Faded adolescence
Where fields of dandelions
And swaying tall grass
Distinctively outline

The silhouettes
Of our existence

The shadows
Of our experience

Apartment Issues

The water pressure,
when working,
excretes rust
and other
mysterious
particles.

The hole
in the kitchen wall
as a result
from a front kick
after the garbage can
was stolen
lets in more
cold air
than the
cracked windows.

The flimsy front door
no longer uses
the plastic piece
that acted as glass
for protection
from rain
and cold
because the wind
slammed it
into the deck rail
shattering it.

And never
considered
charging rent
to the mice
or the bees
but it's
an interesting
idea
for a large
amount
of disposable
income.

...

Howie Good

2010-01-05T14:53:00.000-08:00

Where I'm From

I came straight from work
to meet them on the corner,
but, of course,
they had already become
fine particles of smoke.
While I waited, I listened to music
for barbed wire and accordion.
The short days of winter,
had sneaked up on us,
the sky like a fogged mirror,
the frozen puddles like pale bruises.
I stood there for what
seemed like a lifetime,
naked by then and shivering
and with my hands raised
in the air, an unqualified witness
to an unspecified event.

...