How much does it pay to be encircled by dragons? Fears of changing lines. Erasure. Forfeiting when all you ever wanted was to win Never considering how winning too has a cost How maybe weakness isn’t a sin How differences are enriching How it’s ok to be a freak So here we are Me with […]
Ha ha. Charade in a graveyard mall
People
Crowds of people
Virus murdering Mercury jab.
Oh, you are so near.
I want to know you better.
I want to plumb and close your depths,
Feel your latitude,
Touch you because now I can
inhabit your skin
Let us trade lies and proximity
All that we love, all we disdain:
Giant gumdrop drinking fountains
Handfuls of rock candy mountains
Sustenance from our very marrows
Juice of our juice in a vial
Disease vector have-a-nice-day jab
beyond this lonely desert stretch
people flower, rows and columns
burbling human bouillabaisse
surface still, sound incandescent
Desire. Delight.
soul-dragged, decadent, and oh so jabbed.
Your useless lips too cracked to open
words too mean to say
words mean too much to say
words feed empty air
you are so hungry, so lonely, but here you are
Jabbed.
Oh my! Did I jab a skewed pattern in lipstick
There on your forehead counter—
Sixteen skewered by a wisp of smoke?
Stiffen up.
Yes you believe in my make believe.
Love and suffer more.
And I marvel at my lips for milking your soul
Jabbing it dry.
So jabbed now
You are so broken and so jabbed
Pumping flaccid bicycle tires
That nozzle so deep I have to tease it out
What is that spatchcocked against my teeth?
Sphinx shining with sniffling vindication
Strikes a pose but that sucker can pump
Back and forth like jerking it off
And you laugh because you are jabbed too
Jabbed (Mar 2021, two months before I expected) Read More »
Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world: (ed. my stanzas and line breaks which are probably not right) When day comes, we ask ourselves Where can we find light in this never ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We braved the belly
Amanda Gorman is a rock star poet. Read More »
Here is a powerpoint presentation I created depicting the writer’s market in 2019 for authors to make informed choices. PDF: PDF Version PPT: Powerpoint Version Enjoy!
Powerpoint Presentation for UCF Writing Class Read More »
(for Damon Knight) Though Riley awakens only two hours after falling asleep, her alarm will not negotiate peace. By the time the coffee’s aroma pervades the kitchen, she realizes she will never shake off this hangover in time to confront the office smilers where she interns at Life Inc., America’s premier self-help conglomerate. She sighs
Bad User on Device Read More »
I haul groceries to my fourth-floor studio one landing at a time. My bottle of discounted rum, a 5 lb. sack of potatoes, and a rocket-shaped golden squash—so irresistible at the market—anchor me down like sandbags. Around me wafts the dinners of my neighbors. Sweat drips from my face and armpits. At my door, I
Just a Little Touch of Mojo Hand Read More »
Some days the sun beats down like it never will rain again, and everyone tastes flakes of rusty earth upon their tongues. My mother and I are hanging sheets we have just washed in the Rio Doce. I yawn into the sunlight. “Shola,” my mother says. “Did I see you staring after Akin this morning
Eagle Longings in Contrast Read More »
Cherry knew Fester was having an affair. All the signs were there: late nights at the warehouse, his secretive phone calls at odd hours of the night, and—worst of all—how his feelings towards her had blackened. For days she had denied all the evidence, but today she discovered a new wrinkle, one that defied rationalization:
Finding Out About Fester Read More »
After last night’s rains, the morning sunshine and blue skies are a pleasant surprise. The air is clean and bursts with life’s electricity, as Jazz, my 4-year-old son, and I arrive early in Washington Square Park with my guitar and harmonica, setting up between the fountain and the arch. On days like these, I can
Dispelling the Magic Read More »
Liddell Gibson looks up from the job application he studies and flashes a grin to Jazz, the man seated across the cafeteria table. Jazz returns it with serenity, and Liddell notes his concrete jaw, wide brow, and hint of stubble the same hue as his long Viking gold locks. They were about the same age,
Nothing for the Follicles Read More »
It’s no wonder Mom couldn’t live with you. You always think you know everything, but you can’t learn common sense from a book. “They’re not crisis actors,” you, my younger brother, said. We sit in Mom’s living room, in the tiny house she bought after fleeing your home in Florida. I leaned forward and pounced.
From its inception, Gothic literature provided a vitrine for presentation of taboo subjects, especially forbidden love. Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, for example, tells of Manfred’s pursuit of an incestuous relationship with his ward. Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, written during the Victorian Era of adamantine sexual repression, features a steamy same-sex relationship, veiled as
“You Must Come With Me, Loving Me, To Death”–Sexual and Gender Tropes in Carmilla Read More »
As I ponder Walpolian and Radcliffean female characterizations, in an Airbus bound for Los Angeles, a prospective couple in a seat behind me attempts pairing. After casual chit-chat, the y-chromosome bearer asserts to a candidate for a computer science master’s program at University of Southern California, how surprising her success is, given that women are
Falling Faster Than a Helmet From the Sky. Read More »
The Gothic is a wide umbrella, able to encompass stories as varied as Anne Radcliffe’s The Italian, a passionate romance of young lovers set in “exotic” Italy against the backdrop of a corrupt Catholic hierarchy, and Bram Stoker’s epistolary Dracula, a horror tale where undead bloodsuckers are repelled by Van Helsing’s little cross. Common to them is an obsession
Some Gothic Impressions Read More »
I already want to make a ton of changes but I have a Brönte paper to revise and the first act for my script to finish.
Coda’s first novel’s rough draft is done. Read More »