February 2012
Bobby Parker, "spinner's end"
(fragments of disappointment, alienation, babbling and resolve)
There were no cakes in the tin, but it was a very pretty tin decorated with rainbows melting into the electric image of people laughing in their adult world… And it was all a con. We wanted something sweet, and the tin was so pretty; however we couldn’t know for certain that it was empty… just had to reach inside for...
blind w/o seeing
yesterday i complained about money about not having money enough money to live the life i want but then i don’t really know what that life would be at 44 i am still searching and i find comfort in knowing i will never find what i am looking for but then there are moments moments when clouds gather and dust turns to mud when the orange blossoms of the coral tree fall at my feet and begin to rot ...
lunchtime black
She sits only for an hour. But, there is no golden revelation at the bottom of a snatched paper cup. No answer between nervous bites from a wilted balsa wood sandwich. Not even a smile to the sun, as she beats away the swarm of office edicts, will set her free. Just a hope that she is not another face amongst this conjurors’ madness of souls. That alone may see her through.
Phil Lucas
the rain
When the rain began, people rushed out to gather as much as they could. It was real. All denominations. Money. Wealth beyond avarice. Then came the day it changed. It burst into flames and scorched their eager fingers, sticking like napalm. They ran for shelter into buildings that caught fire, into churches, into their cars. They fled the city; took refuge where they could. They...
HOMEFRONT
Better stay on your meds. Or get some. Otherwise how will you ignore the pile of hacked-off limbs on the hospital lawn, the amputees limping or crawling away, as disability permits, their sacrifice worse than forgotten – misremembered? You’ll end up scribbling on napkins and the last remaining walls, and the scribbles, presuming they’re discovered, will sound when pieced together like a suicide...
Vera Pavlova, If There Is Something to Desire, 9,...
(via airwalker:
9
I broke your heart. Now barefoot I tread on shards.
17
Why is the word yes so brief? It should be the longest, the hardest, so that you could not decide in an instant to say it, so that upon reflection you could stop in the middle of saying it.
18
—Sing me The Song of Songs. —Don’t know the words. —Then sing the notes. —Don’t know the notes. —Then simply hum. ...
Streets, Naomi Shihab Nye
(via kathleenjoy:
A man leaves the world and the streets he lived on grow a little shorter. One more window dark in this city, the figs on his branches will soften for birds. If we stand quietly enough evenings there grows a whole company of us standing quietly together. overhead loud grackles are claiming their trees and the sky which sews and sews, tirelessly sewing, drops her purple hem....
Let’s Imagine Each Room Is an Entire World
(via rabbit-light:
This one, for example, The anonymous drapes and spreads, Dust-streaked windows Overlooking the heating vents— Each of us amazed To find it holds the other; Haven’t we slow-danced To the big bands of the ’thirties As the city sirens Cried the blocks? In childhood it was enough To throw a blanket Over the cardtable And pull the flap Slowly aside to enter On hands and knees...
“Imperfect memory, please, stay, tell me more.”
– Michael Davis, from “Villanelle on a Line from Macbeth” (via the-final-sentence)
Ensign
I heard your voice as it hitched a ride on the coat-tails of summer. At its slow inflection a world unfurled, bobbed like a painted sail. I cast off now in fear of the edge and in expectation of New England. Fathomed or landed on this squall’s fair side, a ship may fly where it falls.
Abi Wyatt
from 'Kerkyra'
In the garden of sleeping dogs begonias bear the snouts of mongrels.
Helen Pletts
Lorna of the Crows
I was also born in a crow’s nest in a valley at the edge of Friston Forest and on those nights when I’m not at home in my skin I shed it, slick back my black feathers and make for the graveyard where I perch on a headstone – I like the worn ones best, the ones where the lettering has been eaten away by wind, rain and time – and bathe in the moonlight, tapping my lizard-skin boots and banging my...
Doppelgänger
She is anywhere before me tying thread on significant twigs or following behind leaving trails of white pebbles like landing lights or paper lanterns marking a garden path I see her slant a flicker at the edge of vision when I’m alone a hint of shadow in company She scratches at my window when I’m working grins out from behind the eyes of the woman I pass...
It was a strange plaster on his finger
It was a strange plaster on his finger. A tangle of rough, dangling white threads, snagged into play by blunt scissors. The pink of the strip, false and fleshy toned but ever so different to flesh. Curling now. Giving over into white corners, grey with fluff. “I had an accident with the glass”. He was seated before her. Waiting for her. He had been waiting for her for days. And finally that...
desire paths
No – this way, this… Not the established, measured route but by way of the weed and the wild. There are orchards still outside the gate, allotments in the orbital, leaf-light patterns on the pale earth.
‘It is sweeter to remember than to learn,’ so says the sage. Ancient grass beneath the brickwork stirs as footprints search the hidden path.
Mandy Pannett
stand-up delusions
First She invented a man in a novel who died the way Her husband happened to die, later. What might Be called coincidence. Or rather, as one critic Put it, mercilessly, “No sooner said!” Who Believes a writer writes the world into being? Second In the restaurant I smile at her goodwife face — Furious soul who denies global warming ...