Oct 07
Big Angry Cocks 1. “Hey, Jesse. Uhm… What about it?” I was taking a chance leading with Jesse Stocstill’s usual southern greeting. Jesse leaned against the roll-around cart piled high with metal glands I intended to inertia weld to a rack of hydraulic cylinders. By the look of his glassy eyes and the set of …
Oct 06
How I Start My Day I piss but let’s not show that on the YouTube camera. I wake up hot because even though I’m naked beneath a fan I’m 52 and fat and female. I started bleeding when I was 14 and all these decades later I still identify as Sissy Spacek as Carrie. I …
Oct 05
Years ago I met Dan Denton. You can say sometimes things happen when they need to. We had seen each other at a couple different open mics in Toledo. If you had asked Dan what he was back then, he probably would have told you he was a factory worker. I guess Dan’s wife figured …
Oct 04
Admit It, Part Of You Wants To Live Forever No waiting. The E train pulled in as my feet hit the platform and I found an end seat, stretched out as it expressed its way through Queens to catch a Brooklyn bound G. Today, my hernia’s resting quietly and the AC’s a sea breeze. I’m …
Oct 03
Scapegoat One day, when I was 10 and out past dark but barely, I knew my father would be furious. My father worked all day in a machine shop. He came home evenings, his skin black with graphite, his mood molten steel. When my mother told my father to beat me for some infraction I’d …
Oct 02
—Pen in hand to trace the path. The sun shone through my window this morning, revealing a hidden map. Then, it was gone. For a moment in rejoice, I thought I’d found the way out. . . . Yet . . . Yesterday’s ghost lay boxed, forgotten in an empty room, and I heard memory …
Oct 01
Poet, Sleuth, and Scout: The Noir World of Clay Blackburn Owen Hill’s The Giveaway: The Clay Blackburn Story brings together three novels and a short story featuring the poet-sleuth-book scout Clay Blackburn—a singular character navigating the margins of Berkeley, California, where radical politics, literary ephemera, and existential mystery intertwine. This omnibus serves as both an …
Sep 30
Thoughts on Prayers Milt, my eighty-year-old live-in father-in-law snoozes on his catnapper Laz-E-Boy. A half-gnawed Slim Jim droops from his clenched fist. His chin rests against his sternum. During fits of wakefulness, he boasts that he’s managed to hold on to his hair. You can almost see it in the afternoon light streaming through …
Sep 29
Basic Bitch Economy Actually no you’re wrong about that you’re wrong about most things so sit your ass down in the hot seat and I’ll tell you why. My pussy ain’t none of your business and instant pussy is an inside joke but nobody lately is laughing. I can sell my pussy on Rodeo Drive, …
Sep 28
[a measure of anarchy] earthly and cumbersome we slowly learn the lay of the land wary of words so seldom spoken in truth if we realized this we might hold our tongue until a more advanced age becoming all the wiser without playing their game we can still choose not to fall into place, into …
