Driving into a storm graying a cloud-mottled sky, mist climbs the building towers, umbrellas shudder below. A broken water line arcs an icy sidewalk, stoplights fail, freezing the intersections. The side street crosswalk cop spins and whistles, pauses cars as he passes the ladies on. Buses bounce a pothole lane, side panels milky with engine-melted ice. Street breezes worry […]
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In this small, blue room— overheated, clenched by melancholy, I sit the night, guarding carnival goods, blood potions, the knife thrower’s serrated blades. Two buskers beach-walk a tune, harmonies muffled by wave’s insistence. A mathematical conceit of stars burning to earth enriches water’s lap against pier beams, a night sailor’s crossing. Taken on as apprentice, the alchemist insists […]
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I take a 12 month chip, a copy of The Iceman Cometh, drape myself in Union blue, cultivate a salesman’s grinning grip. A Valley trip lies ahead, road miles registered in a company car. Spring becoming summer, there’s a ghost in the garden, a feral cat, sensuous in the drying grass. I light a Tiparillo, block walk the […]
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I. As suspicious of the morning as I am thankful for the night, I no longer follow bird flight, the sinking of the violated sun. Mouthing a dialect of short checks and charity wards, I stare at a wasting life, unhappy, aging, unhealthy. Sympathies have been trained out of me. The elegance in a sniper’s logic is what remains. […]
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In the turn from wide to narrow streets seams in the street shudder my tires, loosed leaves flutter through the fog. Police on patrol secure the corner the five-columned church commands. Blocked by brush-wide blurs of contrails, the sun settles behind the storm. There’s a death in my house, a dearth of charity, a chastened child unwrapping his […]
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I stayed late in the street tonight, felt the breeze chill come up, saw the ice sky form, fog-dense. Shirt tail out, I rock back in my boots, scan the silhouette corners for bar room stagger, a skater’s weave. From a rooftop nest, long minutes of a heron’s call are quieted as a diesel Mercedes, a Fat Boy Harley […]
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