In Conversation

The Workhouse The morning chime reverberated through the room. Time to get up and go to work. Every day, the same thing. Routine. Boredom. Pain. Ten seconds later came the harsh demand over the speaker, “Work or punishment.” Worker 373 slipped on her coveralls and left her room. The other workers in her sector stood …

One Flew Over the Chicken Coop The world is slam dancing on the edge of the mosh pit of mass insanity, my friends. Maybe Iran is an inferno of burning oil fields. Maybe Israel is a smoking crater. Who the fuck knows, and who can you trust to tell you? I can say with certainty …

Here on Earth (New York Quarterly Books) by Tony Gloeggler Tony Gloeggler’s Here on Earth (New York Quarterly Books) is a collection that refuses distance. These poems don’t observe life so much as remain pressed up against it—breath, illness, memory, regret, tenderness—all unfolding in real time. What emerges from the selected poems is not a …

I Danced with My Mother my mother came to me last night in a dream but she was no longer an old woman she had become a young girl again and she laughed when she saw me and some music started playing she touched my arm with her delicate fingers and then we were dancing …

BLACK DECONSTRUCTION PAPER I. piles to shred or burn evidence of what once was dated documents damning dead- end paper trails confiscated in Ex- raid II. misleading message words redacted, retracted censored sentiments love letters blotted-out- black erasure poem format III. potential pen pal edited my manuscript with black hi- lighter once a novel idea; …

New Orleans Bob at Tower Records We walked toward a man, mid-forties maybe, waving bills at passersby. His words blurred, his intention precise: a jazz journal. Not a record or CD, but something denser, a quarterly thick with modal theory, footnotes marching down the page. “I’m Bob”, he said, from a wheelchair. Needing nimble feet …

The American Standard is a Toilet in Wauseon, OH *American Standard Co. is number one in the United States for brand familiarity in toilets and bathroom accessories the American standard is a scripted wrestling match that is made only for entertainment purposes it’s a five-year-old headless hula girl still shaking her hips on the sun-faded …

Night Business I used to intentionally piss off the hot heads Say things to the crazies only they could hear so when they freaked out the whole bar would be behind me for their going off on me for no apparent reason I used to throw guys out I didn’t like the look of jerk …

A Legacy of Rabbit Chasing I’ve always been fond of telling my co-workers “If you stand by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float on by.” Apparently, it’s an unattributable idiom. I suppose you could point to Sun Tzu or Confucius if you absolutely must take your crackerjack philosophy from the …

[fine] hand to mouth day to day tightropes and loose ends claw-marked walls no big wins in this life-sized hole just an intermittent series of small victories and a million ways to continue holding on until it’s over. Edward L. Canavan is a Los Angeles based poet whose work has most recently appeared in Paper …