My every chug of wine is utterly medicinal. I accept you won’t believe me. I wouldn’t buy it either. What I will  buy comes swaddled in a paper bag— sheltered by the progeny of the woodland. If trees confer their blessing, who am I to differ? I’ll be completely candid— it doesn’t cure what ails me. I will still be limping to the door when FedEx beckons. Mourn my mother’s rot. Kvetch when I am worming out of bed. Oy vey is just a cultural annexation—too good to leave absconded

They say that it’s so cold here folks will gorge on ice cream to warm themselves up. It’s the kind of day a puck will feel relief— freed from being thwacked because it’s adhering to a glassy pond’s veneer, like a sucker that is stuck upon a seat— engulfed in someone’s slobber. No one’s drilling holes upon the lake, juddering with their poles like masochists. Trout are forced to bore beneath the silt, assent to muddy quilts of hibernation. And no one can bait with worms, since

Not everything should be Legoed. Rockets, sure. New York’s Chrysler Building. The workers with their lunchbox & their hammers. Stuff like that. But you mustn’t put one out of Bergen-Belsen. Lego could say it needs to keep our memories alive. History that’s forgotten never happened. But I would play the cynic; think it’s just a grab of grubby cash. They’ve had decades   of causation to unveil it— and all that time they didn’t. I’d say it’s Eurocentric. Where are the limbless k

There are times that the snow looks pristine enough to eat. Or possibly drink.  The meta- morphosis of melt. Everything will be clean that final day. And then there are times the buds will stay clasped as a purse, unwilling to divvy the touch of maquillage; a huddled sort of beauty, like scallops in their armor, refusing the egression from a mouth— till the buntings trill their octaves to the stratus, hoisted beyond what auricles can hear— the limit of our lobes—   before the

Those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. —Matthew 26:52 Sword must be the mightiest word in the world. See it for yourself: word is already contained, its double- daggered w left unsaid, mistaken for a pair of muted v— fleet-footed samurai set to slice; on tiptoes like the shrouded a in stealth. It’s the hero’s weapon of choice— unsheathed in half-a-second— the honour that it brings, a rod for Thorian bolts, epitome of Herculean effort.   Conan was its servant n

In space, no one can hear you scream.  In space, there is no need to. Only humans make us shriek. Well, the occasional bear and shark, perhaps. But they’re not up in the cosmos. Silence does not speak louder than any word. Silence can’t even speak louder than silence. If it could, you’d be donning earbuds in the forest, banging to Iron Maiden in order to drown the din of leaves, the streams of rock, translucence. The way a hummingbird stays aloft. We cannot make a plane that

There’s a man so attuned to the Earth, that whenever it quakes so does he. The doctor assumes it’s Parkinson’s. The priest? Seismology stigmata. Perhaps it’s empathy gone amok, juiced like Barroid Bonds. His mother thought it strange— as a boy he keeled to the carpet, as if a bullet struck him through— blubbered for dear Old Yeller till the set was off for good. He’s much too sensitive. His father will straighten him out just like an iron.   It’s obvious that he didn’t— concu

My book has been in your TBR pile for an awfully long time. I notice it’s getting bumped within the queue, that tome from Poet X still toasty to the touch, the one you boast is a 21st-century Rumi. I get it. You said you’ll do a blurb. Posting it up on AssFace when you’re done. But Gray’s Anatomy—really? Just look at yourself in the mirror if you’re unsure where everything is. Robert’s Rules of Order would be commendable— if you actually showed up for meetings. I’ve never eve

Your great-great- not-so-great granddad swiped Adolf Hitler’s paintbrush. In the annals of injustice, it’s small potatoes, yes. I tell you tubers are a nightshade under the surface. Part of family Solanaceae. Every eye is blind before its birth. You show me courtyards rendered on canvas. The sublimity of flowers. Hitler’s, not your granddad’s. Splendid if not for the brush, frayed like the face of a macaque. It kept him from the Academy.   Within an amended timeline, they mig

I don’t note an ocean  in the seashell that I’m pressing to my ear but a puddle. It’s clear but laced with silt. The streetlamp will be rippling in its sheen. Some creeping sort of bugs will flit within, as though a stagnant pond. If I were nano- scopic, I’d coast along its arc in a catamaran. A person has been running for their life— the shell, discernibly perturbed— squirming in my hand as if a baby armadillo. In 3.14 seconds, a shoe will splash this entire shallow world up

The adage goes the beholder will determine what is glorious. The line of shine/penumbra on our evening’s ghostly orb; how the craters take on depth we never notice in the day. Everyone else is focused on the stop of coagulated red. Your eyes are never more lovely as when they’re fastened. Spirited, stirring worlds   beneath your lids while you are dreaming. I tell the tour guide that Rodin was overrated. The rock had been the master throughout his chiselling of The Kiss. Jus

People have said what’s dreadful comes in threes. For me they come in twos— the proverbial second shoe, plopping from the ceiling , when I try the sneakers on and the right is tighter than left. Both will be abandoned to their box. Have you ever seen a human leave Adidas with a single cleat? The time I lost a glove I kept the other in a basket— where it baited, suggesting that my fingers could take turns at keeping snug , while I saunter the downtown streets, looking like a

I was given a harmonica at the age of five-and-a- half. Needless to say, there was no harmony involved. An accordion would not have been worse. At least it would have been saliva-free. I’d take a thousand Walter Ostaneks any day. The shrill of my dentist’s drill, boring into my teeth while I listen front-row-centre. The screech of Yoko Ono— well, let me get back to you on that. I’ve digressed. There’s nothing worse than dissonance fused with spit. Your DNA that’s launched int

And today an earthquake will level the suburbs of greater LA. No one will be slain since thoughts & prayers will work for the very first time. And today the bosom of ICE will thaw in piercing sleet, the needle in 99 trillion sheaves at last pinpointed. Mexicans will be assembled to share a cake, provided reparations for 1848. And today no soldiers will be needed. Either in plastic or in flesh. Hasbro will give its profit to grieving widows. In every single country on the plan

You tell me long ago the wind had rung your doorbell. No human could have fled so spright & nimble. And that winter sends its greeting via the window’s condensation. You say you were alone, that someone came and drew a smiley face, which morphed on its own accord— a mouth that drooped and runnels from the eyes which soaked your hands. It’s quite clear the elements are our ghosts, unveiling their every thought through what’s unseen— a barometric pressure’s sudden plunge, a sea

Our day-old bread was bought for half the cost. It’s acquired twice the wisdom since it was pulled from its hellish kiln, warm & plush as a chick, that’s emerged from underneath a mess of feathers, in that infantile innocence where you sense that you are loved. The baker said it’s prone to going stale come Sol's ascent, locked in its routine of sitting in its bag and doing nothing. That would make anyone go insipid.   I beg to differ. Tell him in the night it heard the story

The first time that it happened I was half-court in the gym. Rimless like LeBron does in his sleep. Only the custodian present, failing to pivot his head at the sound of the swish. And then my twirl of a silver dollar on a desk. Rotating as a pulsar, like a skater’s Biellmann spin that garners gold and 10.0. Price of arriving early with no one there.   Third you shrieked yeehaw!— from the apogee of your lungs — slamming the door behind you. So much for my Burj Khalifa of card

A baby never chooses to be born. That much I can tell you. If presented with the option, I would have turned & climbed up the birth canal— if I’d seen  the copious dolor which awaited, fanning out its talons, seducing like a salesman, ever- willing to beguile, with the lie of love and life,   how much sorrow you can take,   that you’ll bounce right back like the balls in every lottery there is,   the one you’ll never win,   like a worm that arises to the surface,   failing to

I’ve started to blame autocorrect for everything. When the officer pulls me over, blowing past the stop sign at the corner, I tell him it told me shop, with the plaza just beyond it beckoning. If I forget what you told me to get, I’ll gift a flower to remember me by, that the flour I should have snagged is clearly unromantic. You’ll ask me to order pizza 2-for-1. I’ll explain autocorrect  only offered 1-for-2, pepper supplanting your belovѐd pepperoni, sneezing out our candle

Grandpa never learned to read a book—and yet he knew of layers, the uplift of the rocks, that the summit was once the planet’s ocean floor. We thought he spoke of Noah, the sediment from the Flood. Ain’t no Ark, he’d say, versed in Earth’s tectonics. Everything he spouted was the wind. It’s been here since the start. All of us inhale an exhalation. A Messiah’s it is finished   would have drifted with the stratus. Twirling back to earth with love your neighbour.   Watch it in