Category: articles
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Pulse
How do we read stardust in fine print? How can we find silence within a constant chorus of speech and penitence? I hear only the uncertainty of two a.m. I see only the life of a dauntless troubadour, searching through the shadows and singing in riddles. You, the seeker of yes, a purveyor…
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Big Stick
Golden carambola – star fruit, appropriately enough – thrive in my southern uplands, their sweet flesh swelling with anti-oxidants for my colonists. Higher grow the Yangmei trees, their scarlet fruit bursting with healthful juice. Fields of teff spread across the plains, swirling into bright green waves when caressed by winds from the southern…
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One Man In His Time
Clever child, he put on the coy smile of such-a-good-boy, then the scrunch-nose and broken glasses of the spelling whiz, later the mirror-love of the adolescent athlete. As the years gathered, he tried on the glam glitter of the rock idol, the moping scowl of the short-bus kid, then black mascara goth with a snake-phallus…
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Starry Night
enchanted village sleep gentle, nestled in a valley of wishes. rest protected by your giant cypress sentinel, caressed by swirls and gyres of azure and white. breathe deep of magic starlight and float beneath a child’s golden moon illuminated by sacred stars, each a tawny crayon sun. my jaw drops at the mystery of…
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Jacobi Fuji
The Simmons public library was a melting pot of the haves and have-nots, a mixture of homeless people and the wealthy older residents of the nearby neighborhood. This was no surprise to the woman sitting in the plush red armchair. Her hair pulled into a ponytail so tight, it might tear off her…
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Vector
I’d be careful, carrying those secure, refrigerated, code locked boxes in the trunk, the dry ice filled to the brim, I’d pretend I was in the movie Mad Max. I’d look out for spies, for bio terrorists, for anarchists. I’d wear hard clothes, not leather but fake leather. I’d wear sunglasses but look…
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Little Fifteen
She wants to see with your eyes. She wants to smile with your smile. She wants a nice surprise. -Depeche Mode Talking to my daughter about moving to New York When I try to tell you a story about when I was twenty-two I see my own anxiety outlined in your arms and…
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8 Weeks
ONE – October 3 Late-summer flowers are almost gone. Phlox, brown-eyed susans, the delicate, weedy daisies that no one can bear to pull up by the roots—all of these have begun to fade. The herbs in the garden behind the Quadrangle Club, too, are dying. Picking basil, I find each straight stem beginning…
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Waking
The desert heat held us apart, Two strangers forced together By circumstance and sand. The traders’ stop behind us, We hurried on. Ahead, an oasis We’d heard of From travelling poets; Soft, wet soil Darkened by life. Waters to gorge on and Lose our memories Or bathe in and become immortal. The moon…
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Wax
Icarus was soaring at the moment of his fall. Wild-eyed ape-godling Rising to glorious damnation. His demesne below; Naked frothing flesh Jewl’d with a thousand fertile isles Where many fruits grow From a single tree. Not enough for this creator’s son, Who dared to rise and strike at heaven. Gaining, in apotheotic descent Immortal…
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For the Win
I scroll through new names for the band, a list eight entries long on the notes app on my phone. Almost Roses. Athens Attic. Saturday’s Missing Pages. My head is bowed like I’m praying, but really I’m just avoiding eye contact with Tyler. “I don’t want you back,” I say, finally looking up.…
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Railing harrow grid
And I want to cage myself As a Father whose enclosure has fortified his dreams within this great church of wills And prays And I want to cage myself As a morning bird whose singing enjoys its very own sound Screaming all the happiness the day along aims to deserve And stretches And…