we make art becauselife is an affliction a fatal accident frame by frame a flaming vehicle passengers screaming jesus life's iron maiden mangles with twenty twisting augers and the air's marauding tenant crushes insects into heaven with one casual thumb there is no hope unless we midwife children not of flesh but still alive to … Continue reading Saint Catherine Speaks Candidly to Saint Cecilia on the Occasion of Their Single Foray Into Town Together on Market Wednesday
Category: poetry
Semantic Bleaching
"Life on hold sucks!"read the bus shelter ad. They meant the pandemicI suppose But what wry, ironic understatementIf you think of The awesome reality ofLife on hold. Customers in the supermarketFrozen in placeGripping Yorick skulls of well-traveled lettuceInfinitely poised at the switch fromSucculent to wilting; Cash register drawersPermanently openAnd you with your hand always thrustIn … Continue reading Semantic Bleaching
Morning Prayer
don't worry about my soul, just give me back my stylus Prints Hail MinervaFull of GraceGoddess of Disappointment,Petty Theft andFlaked Tuna in Broth It's Dave.Remember me?Eighth floor? From the depths of my Shame and squalorLargely self-induced, but whatever,I cry to thee. Restore thou to meWhat I have lostGenerally, my innocence, butSpecifically, my smartphone,Which I may … Continue reading Morning Prayer
“Maksim Gorky Pretends to be a Dom at the Bathhouse”
A serious(ly gay) interlude. After a few sleepless nights of quasi-Christian prayer (by quasi-Christian I mean that I cherry pick all the heart-warming bits and the foodie miracles and the Late Night Talk Show on the Mount, and leave out: the whole crucifixion-resurrection boondoggle, sorry, not goin' there;anything icky like leprosy or raising from the … Continue reading “Maksim Gorky Pretends to be a Dom at the Bathhouse”
Skipping rhymes of Gen Z
These kids are the future. Assuming we have one. I’VE BEEN UNDERCOVER IN MY SAILOR SUIT AND adorable Hudson’s Bay dress shorts (available in Québec only in polyester, due to the current shortage of “pure laine;” nous sommes très très fucking désolés), chatting about Dr Seuss and reminiscing about The Friendly Giant with unsuspecting school-age Gen Zed-ers as … Continue reading Skipping rhymes of Gen Z
A convenient hero…
... and a broken promise. Frederick Douglass, from a speech delivered in Rochester, N.Y., 1852. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, A BLACK MAN who escaped from slavery in the state of Maryland and through monumental efforts of self-education and determination became one of the most celebrated abolitionists, activists, writers, orators and statesmen of the nineteenth-century, is celebrated as … Continue reading A convenient hero…
HARD DRIVE
I had blitzed your sectors completelyBut all this time you've surviveddiscretely Interred in my one-terabyte drive: Knight jonesing for escape, five fingersdismissingPassion, fondling my door handle,kissingGoodbye our too-easy improvisation. I conjure desperate devious strategies:Charms, supplications, jammed connections, elegies,Viral replications, heartfelt blackmail.Impatient, lover? Hanging in thedelusionOf my blue-screened doorway, our fungiblecollusion Of dull bruises, ragged tears? … Continue reading HARD DRIVE