Archives

Libera me

Late November peppers the sky with cirrus clouds, blackened underneath, and suggestive of cold rain. Rain which may fall sometime soon – but not today – then, presently, a screeching-halt sunset descends, assaults, roads curving into evening, lined with empty see-through buildings illumined by the practiced forlorn of nightfall. How it skulks along the edges […]

Read More

The Eighth Sea

The eighth sea brims with absurdity, while mangled mangroves just ashore absorb it. The farce exudes itself plainly – though not particularly, in that it is not so recognizable at first. It sinks in, over time, and through the twisted roots coils upward. All the while, underneath, as the eye is unmindful, the core soaks […]

Read More

Skylab

At this, the end of the world, I feel more English than Zadie Smith – not because of white teeth, but because there is no way to write the stories without insult. Surely there is recognition in every word, written unravelling to rest closest to the truth, otherwise clouded with nostalgia, imagined nuance. The price […]

Read More

Rio Grande

Irreparably, autumn deposits itself onto the last days of summer, ombre strands still flying stubbornly, unevenly. Inseparably. Tinged with the imminence of next summer, overwashed neon letters peel and hang ungracefully, yet refulgent, from see-through tops. Shorts, tighter now, look seat-worn, even up against the distance of a cloudless, color-blocked blue sky. Two tiny girls […]

Read More

Tikkun Olam

The world is sad, unjust, tormented, broken – but sunscrubbed hyperbole will never mend it. Isolated, singular refrains of trumpeted exegesis are inadequate, ineffectual in our muted universe, if the purpose is one of repair. We must love the words we speak. The world is joyful, righteous, untroubled, perfect – but vitriol will never break […]

Read More

End of Shift

Inflated insensitivity clocks out at 7:30, hoisting its Michael Kors bags on twin, still-painless hips, and smoothly bouncing past a faded blonde, head in her hands, crouched on the curb and muttering prayers to her feet, because death – even when anticipated – is vulgar and unexpected, isn’t it? They cross the driveway to the […]

Read More

Manhattan Has No Safeways

On the cliffs of the Palisades, it is never sure whether what is heard is the sound – or the unsound. Thunder or the blasting of rock. The rumbles are low, and often dimly-sensed in the background of an empty morning’s distance, the growling stomach of a half-starved afternoon, brimming with bare truths. Truths which […]

Read More

Thunder is Thunder is Thunder

Stealing your thunder – I can do that, you say, while evenly flicking rubbery drips off the side of a bottle. Dark and syrupy drips, sweetly sad with indignant envy, that thunder bounces and beats behind me – and I ignore it as best I can – but, nanosenconds apart, it’s upon me and inescapable. […]

Read More

The Middle

Having it both ways, manic agitation glides into an obligatory forced dichotomy of thought. A quivering bipolar blanket of murky gleam and glisten suspending a sightless surge. Above a muddy underline, an urge of plainly brown tide shades before the undertow out ahead of a broken wave, anticipating the impending draw. Contrary? If you must […]

Read More

Labor of Unforgiveness

Late struggle lumbering – can’t breathe, can’t swallow – shallow skin, shiny and taut with the anticipation of a thought caught in the throat like a knot. Choke on that, won’t you? Smiling, swiftly slit in the back of my mind, is what I would say – and mean it – no, really, MEAN IT […]

Read More