Feb 22
SERVICE DOGS FRANK FLIES MOVED into a luxurious apartment at the top of the only nice-looking high rise in a sea of dumpy apartment buildings. It had an elevator, carpeted floors, great views, and indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Frank looked younger than his age (52) but the other tenants in his new building were …
Feb 21
Cento 2025 (based on a quote in Timothy Snyder’s book ‘On Tyranny,’ which comes from a German Jewish newspaper editorial dated February 2, 1933) Do not subscribe to the view that… Will implement the proposals circulating in… Will not suddenly deprive… Of their constitutional rights… Nor enclose them in… Nor subject them to… Jealous and …
Feb 21
The People Upstairs Maybe their preemie no longer needs incubating or maybe their laundry needs hanging out to dry. Maybe it’s time they stave off hunger with dim-sum sunshine and oatmeal. That’s the song I mean to sing for them: Sunshine and oatmeal and all the seeds of sorrow tossed in the wind. The path …
Feb 20
Struggle Bus Revolution Being in therapy has brought me to the realization that I’m terrible at life. I fumble across a spectrum of struggle buses masking their way through rotary after rotary. I’ll never be the most reliable voice in your wallet but I’ll always be stretching the limits of steel and rubber, I’ll always …
Feb 19
Observer Effect III Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it.—Vladimir Nabokov This poem won’t make sense to you the first time you read it so let’s pretend this is the second time and jump straight to the next stanza. The words in a poem never change. They are fixed, immutable, …
Feb 19
a minor writer if you want to be a famous writer you kill somebody, he said, and then write a fucking opus in prison. he lit a cigarette, blew smoke into the air, and continued. or kidnap the mayor’s daughter. I can see that working, I can see the headlines emblazoned in gold and outlined …
Feb 18
The Polish Hammer Poetry Corner The Ballad of Extended Adolescence Twenty miles away from where I’m sitting right now writing this column, my twenty-two-year-old son is sitting in a rented house staring at a computer screen of his own. He’s not writing a column or working on a novel that’s only going to fizzle out …
Feb 17
I Am Luis I am Luis. I am not an alien. I came from Mexico. I am Cuauhtémoc too. I was born in the 60’s. I speak Spanish. I speak English too. Why am I condemned? You cannot conquest me. I remember the place where I came from, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles, and …
Feb 16
Resistance how much you resist is how much you are alive say the women of rojava there the women ground the moon men fold into the kitchen their mothers protectors of the village where power is neither beholden or given in the commune of my mind i live with them fighting but reality barges in …
Feb 15
Naked Wishes You started as a reflection in the mirror behind the bar. After you sang you came down, sat, and we made eye contact. Gave you mouth to mouth outside where the smokers stand. The cab window a shaky Polaroid with grins and telepathy. Suddenly awake in your walk-up cozy pillow laden lady lair. …
