red flower wilting
in a glass
sunlight
on the white walls.
i remember
my confusion,
my rediscovery
of the beauty of nature.
the demons
sometimes they growl
at me in my sleep
i turn them off
i think of Penelope Cruz
of hippie chicks in 1969
before i was born.
the demons are quiet
now
biding their time
hiding somewhere
in the back of my head
like a tumor.
didn’t I take you to buy white candles
and salt when the evil spirits
were getting into your
underwear drawer
and moving your paintings around?
when the apartment became possessed
you left your beloved cat, Romeo, behind
and disappeared-
I didn’t see you for two years
my oldest friend, the witch
who always told the story
of meeting me for the first time
under the San Carlos Street bridge
nearly twenty years ago
roasting potatoes under an overturned shopping cart-
you were working as a chef at a high class hotel-
now I see you head low, hair matted
a sunburned face outside of Safeway
I hug you
I kiss your head
you offer me a handful of white pills
no thanks, I say
do you want to go back on lithium?
well, they are shooting lasers into my teeth see?
there’s a chip
its Revelations you know
I know
it’s all in the bible
I know
I will take you to the hospital right now
and then I will feed you and give you a shower…
feel that
my belly she says
it’s metal
where they tore out my insides
and see my teeth
those are microchips
see that TV across the street
if you go over there
I’m on it
How silent he was, my father.
I never remember him talking,
other than when he gave me instructions,
or reprimands about work.
How silent he was in prayer.
Every morning at first mass.
Every night before bed,
on his knees talking silently to his God.
How silent he was at work,
tending to his herd of mink,
like a sheep dog would tend his flock.
How silent he was at supper.
Eight voices clamoring, reaching, asking.
My mother filling plates like a short order cook,
begging him to “say something!”
How silent he was after lunch,
as he took his 30 minute nap
before returning to his mink,
his chores and his silence.
How silent he was with his rosary
woven between his fingers,
wearing his blue suit as we stood
wordless around his coffin.
How silent he was, my father.
I never remember him talking,
other than when he gave me instructions,
or reprimands about work.
How silent he was in prayer.
Every morning at first mass.
Every night before bed,
on his knees talking silently to his God.
How silent he was at work,
tending to his herd of mink,
like a sheep dog would tend his flock.
How silent he was at supper.
Eight voices clamoring, reaching, asking.
My mother filling plates like a short order cook,
begging him to “say something!”
How silent he was after lunch,
as he took his 30 minute nap
before returning to his mink,
his chores and his silence.
How silent he was with his rosary
woven between his fingers,
wearing his blue suit as we stood
wordless around his coffin.
Today a letter informs me
the collection agency is suing for
six thousand dollars
I do not have.
Hours later
there’s a phone call to say
a friend from long ago
is gone by cancer.
I look at his photograph
and it feels like a warning,
a harbinger of things to come.
Death has a hat the size of the sun
holding all our names.
I step outside
and the landlord says it’s such a beautiful
day, and I walk
past beautiful women
laughing at sidewalk tables
and stinking men asleep in doorways.
Everywhere love is stretched
as thin as a thread
and the sun, always the sun,
glorious and terrible,
shining down so
indifferent upon it all.
And all I can think to hope
is that at the end of things
we’ll have stored up enough joy
to balance out the darkness.
It’s the only victory I can still imagine.
— William Taylor Jr.
This is the second date. I’m thinking
of the dictionary and fellatio
and the fact that not much further down
on the page you find the word fellow
and this doesn’t mean much, but fellatio
and fellow don’t always go together.
I study his face, looking for some sort
of Geronimo in him, if only
he was a constellation of man,
someone to be counted on to do
something, but I’ve put him under
the microscope—
This is quite the expedition
we’re swimming here, small talk like
air bubbles. The walls of the restaurant
are periwinkle. I want to lean over
and say please don’t speak, I just so,
want a chance to undulate.
This date feels like a cell. I become
a spore, could sink. The intervals
of my breath float, midair, like pigeons,
the birds that people hate. He laughs
says things like “pussy
cat.”
Note: Interesting. He took to cats
after he watched one kill a bird, its bloody
muzzle is called charming. I pretend to laugh
sounds like a cackle, “Isn’t it funny,” he says.
He named the kitty “Killer.”
I think of the devil more often than angels. Sometimes it’s
easier that way, to walk with monsters, to laugh while the
girl on fire dances, because she is not hurt by the flames.
They’re what keeps her alive, and I enter into her ring of
fire like a mad dog jumping through a flaming hoop to take
the whip from her hands …
I bite her throat and hold on; I can feel her, sense her
spirit in there, burning me as I push down on her palms.
I am not immune to hellfire, but it is this pain that speaks
to me, tells me I am alive, a beast of the first origin …
I pick up all the books of poetry littering my lab and
throw them into her fireplace, academic and alternative
presses blazing together, Wordsworth and Bukowski, the
insanity of broken prose and overblown sensitivity burning
brighter together than the words alone, the words that
never held the magic to heal the beat dog inside.
Her neck wound heals as it always does. She’s alive,
eternal, blazing brightly, and it is a good fire.
— Bradley Mason Hamlin
I stole the frosted penis sugar cookies in a fit of rage.
Who are these asshole bakers? How can they get away
with charging six dollars a cookie for cookies that
people like myself cannot resist? People like myself
beg Mama for grocery money and when Mama says “NO”
we steal pennies and nickels from the console in Mama’s
2005 Kia Spectra.
My sister sends me a hostile text message.
“At some point in your life you are going to have to
take responsibility for your actions.”
No. Don’t want to. Easier to place blame
on penis cookie bakers and stingy mama.
— Misti Rainwater-Lites
Rusty Truck 