wade in the water...

12 Degree High

2007-06-05T20:22:00.001-04:00

Caught a day off in passing and decided, afterhours mulling over jaw lines, to present myselfto the coldest day in spring.Teeth are set tight against the wind, and the heartopens to the perilous optimism of seasonal leaves.The chill follows me to the cafe, and dips into my coffee,as I feel paper voices lock in step with fingers thumbing the story.These are my thoughts. Slipping within your

March 1st

2006-03-13T10:02:00.000-05:00

There is a picture of you running down steps to catch the heaving city bus;your favourite leather boots keeling overcement ripples runningthe downgradelike it was layers insandstone;the crestfallen agesof clams and glass.Cavorting over the curb in giant strides,your pace breaksand the engine sighs;your red hat bobsalongside the big transit windows.

Early test results

2006-02-15T18:22:00.000-05:00

Lay on the kitchen floor. Mash potatoes, cook onions,until the salt in the mouth assuages into anger (gives you the heads);let symptoms shuffle 'round disembodied, like an anti-diagnosis.The hands of well-bred professionals will not stop your anatomy from bleeding obscenely.Sick as a dog,copulating with double entendres,fighting with lovers that are bemused by madcap schemes for sexthat can

Mission to Saturn

2006-02-09T00:39:00.000-05:00

Eyes of pitch and black vision fork at angles of several hundred degrees.Rockets touchdown onmoons of fair complexion.Titan, with a surface like gravel,is probed for stones of frozen gases,and there are brumes of Nitrogen, rivers of Methane,eons of ice that palm perfect rumors of science.

Awake and dying

2005-12-28T13:56:00.000-05:00

We are hangingon syllables,meters of sentences,ropes strung with platitudesgood enough for fortune cookiesfound in thehollow bonesof broken bloodrelations.

Three poems for Ray

2005-12-19T11:32:00.000-05:00

I.They lift your body from the bedlike a specimenuncovered by excavation.Your legs are tucked upnear the chestand your hands,so curled,it could be likeyou were holding flowers.II.Your left lungbears stars.There are constellationsof veinstumors that are improvizationson well conceived themes.III.The smell of the wardis of overcooked vegetables and stale bedpans.I brought some headphonesand the

Saturday Forecast

2005-11-16T22:52:00.000-05:00

Stuffing my bare feet into the front of your jacket you adjust suitably and pull the two sides together and wrap the entire bundle in your arms. We sit opposite each other on the back porch. The owl lanterns look solemn in the morning light, their eyes made of bright, hard plastic. They must have scared away the pigeons who do not come around anymore. I stare disapprovingly at the bowl of wet

Sea Legs (and the many lives of trees)

2005-11-13T22:55:00.000-05:00

There are harbors that collect stories,sailors that throw bottles,trees that know fates and bodiesand how boats and boundariescraft themselves. -development then becomes,salt lined piers,growth ringssweating on the thighsof fallen giants.They are bewitched by abstraction,splintered by their keepers,forever hounded by ghostly young fish,who circle mindlessly,caring nothing for mnemonic

Grey afternoon, some resolve, some dreams

2005-11-01T14:49:00.000-05:00

I'm curled on the sofa. My eyes still dreaming of Robert Jordon, the stiff language of love, and the charges set to blow it all to ruin. I pull the rubber fins of the hot water bottle over the curve of my neck. Pressing myself down into the heat in an effort to destroy the stiffness that has taken over the right side of my body. It always starts with a bad night's sleep.But overall, I'm

pub crawl

2005-10-30T16:05:00.000-05:00

Mary has forgotten my name again, so I tell her. I can tell from her eyes that she knows who I am. But she cannot remember any of the details. Her eyes teeter, looking electric, searching for conductivity. It doesn't come and her face falls back into that wide smile. Her eyes are bright and lost. I shift weight. I ask her how her friend in the hospital is. She died. "I didn' get to see '

Chaos Theory

2005-10-29T13:17:00.000-04:00

E. is sprawled across her old green sofa. Her skirt rides up high on her unshaved thighs. Her eyes are as bright as I remember them. Always intelligent, and often distracted by stress. She offers me crackers as we talk. I shift my body around constantly as we exchange information. I recline into the sunken springs of the couch and then lurch up, remembering to be a good listener. E. is

The Musicman's Daughter

2005-10-26T13:01:00.000-04:00

Your tiny hands pick fugues < de novofor the streets of europe found,absent and without,the weight of their men.Music falls out of windows like cobbles drop (ped)exquisitely into linen-lined pockets,notes plunged like applesinto soft earththe rumble resoundingTo coda:Clouds of dustboil up fromgirls feeats pounding tempos,arhythm of hearts braying in bodies of the

reflections of a two-headed girl

2005-10-25T12:54:00.000-04:00

When I was eleven the neighbors' golden retriever attacked me in a game of tug-of-war. She almost got the whole of my upper lip before my father could beat her off. When the doctor was stitching me up, I could hear my mother caterwauling in the corridor singing, "Oh my baby, my beautiful baby..", and the doctor winking at me as he consoled me saying, "Just be lucky that bitch didn't get the

bartender's lament

2005-10-24T13:05:00.000-04:00

Three hours to sleep-and I tangle myself inthe bedsheetsavoiding the stare of the afternoon,the industriousness of blue skies,and the alum-rim wheels of the day,a.winding-Three more hours: just.before the grind of the barstoolsand the grit of molars,lips held taut in the whiskey'd eyes of blue-collar'd men, and the undergrads who believethemselves to be equally hardworking.(I serve themweak

The simple joys of late-night convenience

2005-10-23T13:02:00.000-04:00

Today I went across the road to buy orange juice (-not from concentrate) so I could drink it straight out of the carton. When I paid Aayen at the counter I noticed he looked exhausted. I told him so. Without speaking he raised his arm straight-stiff out to his side and pointed at a young boy aged nine or ten sitting in the folding chair by the cash. The boy sat sleepy-eyed, eyebrows like two

Untitled

2005-10-20T13:16:00.000-04:00

Juggernautthough he was,he could always be counted uponfor keylime piemade freshthe day of the party.At the ladies church bizarrewe crooned,when hecame careeninginto the handicraft tablesstill juggling five copies of the Old Testimentwhile gallantly singing songsof the Jazz age. Hei Marianna ! yew got-tuh piana? Yeah, banana, noh.White-lipped and kleen tonguedhe

Airmail

2005-05-20T01:48:00.000-04:00

I am a young girl in a pink shirt and hand-me-down blue shorts skipping my dirty white sneakers along the sidewalk. I am prancing and hopping over cement on a spring day. I am going to see Mrs. Chersie who lives at the end of our road. Our road has high trees. The third tree on our side has a big rotten hole that ants and grubs and beetles live in. I stuff it with old dry leaves and orange peels

Into Space

2005-05-17T13:34:00.000-04:00

does anybody read this?anyone? please if you do,.. comment anonymously or send a note.I have no idea who is out there.please, it would comfort me.

Gin House Blues

2005-05-16T23:26:00.000-04:00

I pushed my cheek against the rim of the cold porcelin basin. Too drunk to smell the uncleaned toilet. Too drunk to notice the brown stains dripping from just underneath the rim. Over ten ounces in an hour. Before now I didn't realise that I secretly wished to die. I just waited for it to hit me, and now I'm here under the flourescent lights in my bar-mate's bathroom. She has decorated with a

Catch, Release

2005-05-14T14:15:00.000-04:00

L. just has to pass her hand over my right shoulder and I flinch. "God. You're tense", she speaks softly. She uses her hand to brush my aching muscle, the shoulder one, deltoid I think. We talk. We brew some tea and she tells me about the week she spent wandering around in the woods. I love to hear refreshing news of springtime. People climbing in trees, touching flowers with latin names. I

Kittie Canutt

2005-04-30T14:38:00.000-04:00

First Voice..

2005-04-29T12:26:00.000-04:00

Please stop. No. push-forward. Please. I am not trapped in a special breed of heartache. Nothing new here. You have felt it too (for various loves and lovers). Patience, patience and courage my love. Take my hand. We’ll mend our broken hearts together.

Spring Again

2005-04-17T21:15:00.000-04:00

When we leave the party it is already starting to get light. The chickadees are arguing over territory and we call to them as we walk arm and arm towards my apartment. Inside, we kiss in the hallway, wary of roommates open doors. I am anxious about what we are about to do. I think about B. and if she is thinking of me. I wonder if she too is about to delve erotic into the arms of a well-chosen

Dear Alice,

2005-03-26T17:12:00.000-05:00

When he comes he closes his eyes tightly, opening his mouth as if to drink. But coming down he is tight lipped. He wipes his eyes, saying only that he almost cried that time. She watches a super 8 silhouette, her own, on the sea-floor. Pulls forward towards mercury with open hands. Fingers spread through what is liquid and unfamiliar: she finds his O. His simple release. She watches that

buick

2005-03-21T14:49:00.000-05:00