progress?

don't know... but here's another revision of a section. still writing stuff, so that's um.. something.

bobby's best friend stares at an image of a girl so hard
a village in the Congo, like this one minus the jeans,
bursts into flames.

he can tell from the way her lips crumble when she smiles,
they're made of ash.

from the way she disappears,
he knows that loving her would be
like holding a lungful of smoke,

but he wants to say none of it matters:
the sniper in her glance, the graveyard in her chest,
even the wrists she treats like an abortion,

because fire doesn't die, it sleeps deep inside,
waiting for a cup of monday morning coffee and a whisper
to tickle her awake, saying, "it's time. let's get to work."

pop quiz

have you ever found yourself digging yourself in a hole?

a really deep, dark hole?

imagine for a moment that instead of a shovel, you've been using a rusty teaspoon, and that instead of say, 20 minutes, it's been a few years.

now imagine that the light is getting dim because you've gotten that deep and walls of your hole aren't letting any light in and your spoon just snapped in two.

what do you do?

in progress, still

ok, so still working on that same damn piece, all these months later.

here's another section, in case you're keeping score.


bobby's little brother washes his hands.

he doesn't know how to spell aqueduct,
once guessed rasputin was a mixed drink,
dreams his home is a tinderbox and the rest
of the world is playing with matches.

he’s never known a time when people
gathered in barns, laughter like a roll of thunder
following the lightning of their songs,
spilled from lips dry as the fields, the ashes of their lives
mixed in a bowl of cereal, soaking through the soil of their skin.

his hands are dirty, so he washes them.

he knows what pressure sounds like, but not how it feels,
simply reaches out, and the thirsty mouths
of the rivers of the world open before him.

missing link

okay, so in case you haven't discovered kelly link, well, you should. combines intriguing and fun storytelling with offkilter mysticism that should keep you coming back. all of this on top of some downright poetry in prose.

really.

two examples that are from magic for beginners... available on amazon, if nowhere else. check it out.

short sample from the the cannon (and yeah, um.. it's about a cannon.. kinda):

after my brother is fired from the cannon, his two youngest wives will take his place in the cannon. they are wearing his luggage on their backs, filled with his belongings, his books, his golf clubs, his correspondences, his record collection, his toiletries, his identification. his wives will climb into the cannon and leave the cannon in much the same way that my brother will leave it, but they won't go to the same place he is going. men and women don't travel to the same place.

and a longer sample from the cannon:

q: why must the cannon be fired?

a: the cannon must be fired because that is the reason for cannons. ordinance must be placed in the cannon. ordinance must be fired out of the cannon. the cannon serves no other purpose. a man may accidentally fall asleep in a cannon, or take shelter in a cannon from a rainstorm, or hide from his enemies in a cannon, but in the end, the cannon must be fired.

i once fornicated with a married woman inside the sweet mouth. she was agoraphobic. i waid i was agnostic.

i said "yes, like that, don't wriggle so much," and she said, "how do you like this?" and "watch your head," and while we were fucking, her husband came up and lit a match, and then we were flying. we sailed out like grappling shot. my lover yelled back at her husband, "cock her up a bit, master gunner!" and we watched him get smaller and smaller.

i held onto her hips and the tails of her hair and fucked her as we passed over the countryside, and she wrapped her legs around my waist and fucked me back. when we were finished, we flew along side by side, and she remarked that she was grateful to me andthe cannon and her husband. the affair had cured her of her agoraphobia. we fucked some more, to celebrate, and then we came to a town and i grabbed on to the steeple of an episcopal church. she kept on going along. she wasn't ready to go back down again. i had a long walk home. i haven't seen her since.