May 30
Diminishing Way It was never a cleansing rain, the mammoth clouds brought to dark extinctions, nothing breathed back into a former life, just wet against bone, really: eating through threadbare layers, awake with the dumpster diving coons, a concealed blade for when the shrill of the world came shrieking, the cap of the bottle loosened …
May 29
Performances I envision a near future where every inconvenience or failure that the president faces leads to a false flag staged attempted assassination, bullets whizzing safely past by his ears or gunfire in his general vicinity every time the price of gas goes up, every time the Strait of Hormuz opens or closes elaborate plots …
May 28
Birthday -Tomorrow’s my mother’s birthday- I told her I picked up my beer and looked at the bottle -Oh she said she shifted in her chair -Are you going to go to the cemetery- I took a drink of beer and looked out the window -I don’t know I said -Sometimes I do but not …
May 27
I Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree my wife chides when I’m a wee bit churlish— Outright rude actually. She says it, knowing how much I hate her saying it. It conjures images of the man described by more than one, as the most stressful person they have …
May 26
Demon Country The simmering cold war that existed between Lovella Sampson and I escalated into a near white trash holocaust over a pilfered extension ladder. My ex-stepmother-in-law lived in the neighboring trailer. She wanted to recycle the ladder for the few bucks she hoped the aluminum would bring. I wanted to keep the ladder in …
May 25
California Roadkill2 by GenX Core from Mystic Boxing Commission GenX Core’s California Roadkill2, the follow up to California Roadkill from the same publisher in 2022, is not a comfortable book, nor does it pretend to be. It operates in a raw, unstable register — emotionally, stylistically, and philosophically –rooted in what the novel repeatedly names …
May 24
Bird By Bird: Listing and ranking every Avian reference in “Things To Say When You Have Nothing To Say” by Kerry Trautman Friends, I have a confession: I think I was wrong about bird poems. For all the mediocre bird verses out there, something about the new collection from Kerry Trautman just made me realize …
May 23
The Cricket and Me I took a shower with a cricket late yesterday evening. The Sun’s big eye was growing heavy with sleep. A consistent intensifying sting. I was thinking about the state of the world as I understand it. And about how little control I have over anything. The cricket had …
May 22
This Late Hour even at this late hour coming home from nowhere important after most of the houses have already gone to sleep I, still, want to drive through town instead of just going straight home slowly down main street where nothing much remains past the post office on the corner and the fire station …
May 21
Don’s Wisdom “Power isn’t always glory, but glory is always power” and “Foot the bill and you’ll top the billing” are among the flights of fancy Don writes on his arm. We try unsuccessfully to keep ink pens away from him at the facility’s workshop. The social worker suggests a pad and pencil to distract …
