February 2012
9 posts
5 tags
Wild Fire
Dry heat had marked that summer like dirty fingernails scratching the same spot for too long. The land had split open, each crack a mouth panting in desperation.
For days wildfires had been feeding on the forest in the distance, the pale gold sky was veiled with curtains of smoke and the stink of burning pine.
Hope’s eternal spring had slowed to a trickle that wouldn’t even wet a...
4 tags
Fireflies
La Placa del Sol held a scattering of students and smokers, laughing against the fading of the sun. When that curtain falls, the embers of their cigarettes will wink in the night like the fireflies I imagine you chasing as a child in the wilds of Pennsylvania’s august twilight.
That’s august like the month.
Distracted by the curl of your lips on the rim of your tiny glass of coffee a spark in...
3 tags
The Ivy Tower
The letter she holds is just a shade or two lighter than the rubber gloves that cover her hands. Tottering up the driveway, she finds a family cooking out on their back deck.
“Excuse me, but could you tell me where the post office is?” She calls.
A father, a mother, a son just shy of his teenage years look up, the father answers “six long blocks and then a right.”
...
4 tags
Pocket Cake
“Hey, man. I’m glad you’re here. Take this.”
I’d just sat down at my desk and here was this guy trying to hand me a piece of cake. Not cake on a plate. But a piece of cake in his hand, icing side toward his palm he was holding the fucking thing like one of those pinchers you see in the grab-a-prize arcade machines.
Put in a dollar. Get fucked trying to grab a small plushy purple whale.
...
5 tags
Stand Me a Drink
Kid, if you stand me a drink...
5 tags
How Oliver Lightwalk Stole Back Questions for the...
Bird huddled against Scratch under the support pylons of the Brooklyn Bridge. Construction had just begun so there was scant protection from January rain that fell from the clouds like a musket volley.
“Dammit, Bird. Give me some space to breathe.”
“Sorry, Scratch. I’m cold.”
Scratch gave a long-suffering sigh, but put his arm around him.
“Just had to do...
3 tags
The Furnace
Beneath my glass I found a cocktail napkin with the following on the back. For not the first time, I was glad I do not soil my whiskey with ice. A perspiring glass would have ruined that message in its blank ink that began with:
“By the time…”
Here is what followed:
” …you read this, I shall be gone or dead or something even more permanent. In any case, my voice...
1 tag
A Farewell to January
For everybody out there who was reading these poor words before, to all those who stumbled upon them during, and to all who may read them in the future, a solemn thank you.
Thank all you readers for being the eyes and the hearts to which we offer ourselves.
Thank you for your patience, your forbearance and your latitudes of understanding.
I am grateful. Without you, there would not be...
3 tags
