May 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Tomorrow
Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun will come out tomorrow. After all, it’s only a day away. But what happens to dreams when you don’t wake up tomorrow? Ambitions orphaned like poor little Annie. You’ll finally tell her you love her, tomorrow. You’ll finally use the fine china, tomorrow. The diet starts Tomorrow. Where does that leave us? Fat, secretive, bottled up with emotions....
1 tag
Experimental Chronicles -- X -- I Am
Our shadows held hands Stretched like giants against the earth. The moment was thick, our motions muted— Absorbed in a wintery silence. A year ago you told me “I’m a million contradictions” And I loved it. So much nuance— A foreign film I mysteriously Landed the lead role in. Without a script, I became as surprised As the audience at the sudden plot changes. The reels like photobooks of Everything...
March 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Experimental Chronicles -- VIV -- Shine
Light me up, make me feel alive add the spirit to these skin and bones, put the dance in another aimless pop song, make today more than just another Tuesday. These soldiers of joy, these perfect smiles from unknown faces, they come from places that aren’t so far from where we stand— from where we’re born, in this moment. Shine like only you know how. Raise your hands to the...
1 tag
Domino
“And I’m confused,” I said. “So completely and utterly confused.” It sucked, everybody. It fucking sucked. If I have a question about who the 12th President was I can look it up: Zachary Taylor. If I need to know how many pints are in a quart I can search that as well: two. But you and your world are subjects I’ve studied for years. Every word, every move,...
February 2011
1 post
Nick
There’s somebody that I’d like you to meet. Somebody that I knew a long time ago but was killed By a murder inside of a clock. His name is Nick and he’s eleven years old, so sit right Down and let me tell you about this boy. Let me tell you About what three in the morning smells like in a small Iowa town. Let me tell you how many sunflower seeds You can eat in a summer, how many times you can play...
January 2011
1 post
For You
I write these words for you. I write these words for you and every single person you’ve ever been. That you’ll ever be. I write these words for you. There are a million things I’ve seen, a million breaths I’ve breathed and I might not have seen them all like I see them on this cold day, but I know they’re there. In my chest, near my heart, I feel them pumping in and...
November 2010
3 posts
Experimental Chronicles -- VIII -- Who's that...
Who’s that girl living my life? A unique fashion, a posed stride Through the crowd. Eyes shielded Behind dark lenses move side to side. Short, sharp breaths, under layers Of diamonds. She can’t be the one Who has stolen my world. A thief Who has taken a one-way ticket, Wrapping it tightly around her finger. Who’s that girl, where’s she from? A phoenix birthed from secrets. A film negative of the...
Focus Street
Grey scale backgrounds and afternoon drizzles. Dreary Thursdays and sun soaked Saturdays. You lead. You follow. You travel. Rain, tears, spit, and spill. Absorbing wear and tear with the rest of us. You persist. Cracking and crumbling, busy and completely alone. A true friend—you’re there for the journey. The impossibly solemn summer nights, prayer filled winter mornings. The arrival....
Photograph
It goes beyond masked maple scent, auburn sun streaks and shadows. Lifetimes before posed smiles, fabricated bright eyes and painted presence. It’s one heartbeat, one moment in a timeline of natural motion. Locked gears in time, without breath, without hope. Sterile and lifeless. As the snow freezes on tounges in mid-air. Thick sweaters warming bodies frozen in space, in time. Magic finds...
July 2010
6 posts
Experimental Chronicles -- VII -- Dangerous to...
Some secrets need to be kept As buried treasures in a sea of guilt. Message in a bottle not thrown to sea— Buried, miles underneath the earth. Decomposing. Each thought like a time capsule, To be sent to no one, to be opened never. For each word spoken, a thousand thoughts Forgotten, a million feelings aborted. That’s dangerous to know. There’s no safety in a kiss like this. Faces pushing...
Experimental Chronicles -- Underneath this Smile
My world is slowly caving in. I knew it would. Colorblind yet responsive. Sure of yourself. Red to orange, to yellow, to pink. Incredible discovery. No shadow of reason. I’m hanging on instead of letting go. Why quit now? Defend yourself to the very end. When you’re stuck. Knee deep, no hope, no point. Outrageous claims. Never a doubt. I’ve been hiding out for miles. Underneath that smile?...
1 tag
Marathon
You can do a lot in a lifetime if you don’t burn out too fast. Surfing slowly along the timeline, hurdle waves until your last. Straight lines of time and distance from the past through years ahead. Before the age of resistance until the oceans have turned red. We float along on a tiny place in time known as the moment. Moving every second in space until our minds start to own it. A...
(Ex)Change
We each pay a fabulous price for our visions of paradise. Running feverishly from shore to water, each stride getting more strained as the levels rise above our waists. No sooner has the water reached our mouths we surrender. Keep going. We each sell our wildest dreams for small desires. Hoping that the holes in our hearts can be filled in the meantime with empty promises and hopes of tomorrow....
Get Back Home
Torrent winds shred inked plans, Reduce our maps to tears and pieces. North torn and buried under Eastern Latitudes and imperfect directions. You can get back on. You can get back home. Morning begins on the back beat, In an unfamiliar time signature. Rushing Through the chorus, you miss the break— Speed through your solo, your shining moment. You can get back on. You can get back home. ...
Anything Can Happen
Heavy, humid, slow and steady through
Midwestern summers so wet
You could hear yourself dampening
While you watched the sun swim through
The horizon so slowly you’d think it was
Your mission to save it.
You, on the other hand of the meridian
Carefully balanced yourself in that cool breeze.
Seeping, sleeping, low and lazy orbit.
Rocked to sleep by a magnetism.
So tight the current through...
August 2009
3 posts
Hockey
Swishing, sweating, swooshing Across the masonry of ice. A clouded dance floor of crowded traffic changing Lanes at breakneck speeds. Clicking, clacking, collecting Scars and stories. Whirling through Winds and adversity. Flashes of light And speed. Of love and pain. Dripping of sweat, blood, and respect We spend hours hunched over, trying To look into a mirror without reflection To see children,...
Show me the way
The sun attempted to pull The linens from a humid Midwestern Morning. I stood on the banks of the lake Prepared to challenge the day. You lay asleep like the city, unaware Of my battle. I had left your side in an effort to fight Time. The firestorm of heat and minutes Battered my body and my mind. Unable to resist, I because porous. Condensation Breached my comfort. Tears escaped like so many...
The Thoughtless Gift by Matt Galbraith
The look of surprise on your face,
When I gave you the green button,
Was not a surprise,
You had a brown coat,
But you accepted it anyway;
The way a mother would
When a child brings home a rock, or grasshopper.
When I explained to you the significance
Of that green button,
You understood me,
Better than I understand myself at times.
My parents, grand parents, and great grandparents
...
July 2009
3 posts
The Chronicles of H.D. -- II -- Do You Want Me?
I’ve got scars on my heart and they won’t go away. I didn’t mind, I didn’t care. I was the light that fell from the sky. It wasn’t some carnival or a candlelit meal at some fancy festaurant. In fact, I’m not sure I remember anything about that night. A face so pure, so flawlessly untested, a body of water without a pulse. It was me who skipped the stone. My eyes...
5 tags
The Chronicles of H.D. -- III -- Weird
I want to talk to strangers. In a world where I comes before E Except after C, I think about what is truly Weird….that in weird the I comes after the E. Maybe I think about it too much, maybe I spend Too many nights awake, dissecting reasons Why I feel so tired in the morning when I should probably be in slumber. I love the way your feelings slip. I love the way you say hello. I always feel like...
5 tags
The Chronicles of H.D. - IV - Hide Away
Breathing dark, heavy air through a gleam of sunshine— Sinking into an emotion. A gasp of life in your heart. How do we know what we’re really after? We collect our puzzle pieces, and put them together In the dark. They fit together, but are they truly a fit? I guess it doesn’t matter if you’ll never see the end. Why are we keeping a secret? I want to make you believe, what I say, I want to...
June 2009
7 posts
5 tags
Back to the Innocence
I was only eight, maybe seven
The day we were forced to leave.
I remember the dim lit dining room
And the distorted reflection of my
Face in the tin foil around my TV dinner.
There wasn’t much conversation that night.
Mother had a troubled nervousness about her,
Sliding her wedding ring up and down her
Trembling finger.
My sisters and I were ushered into
The TV room...
6 tags
Everything
I’ve heard that death gives advance warning of its arrival. I guess I find it strange that it always comes as a shock. Death of people, death of feelings, death of hope. I guess I should have seen it coming. Throughout it all I can’t help but find that I don’t check My hair in the mirror as often. Don’t clean the sheets either. I can’t remember the last time I made a...
6 tags
The First Goodbye (first appeared in "Scream" by...
Her face appeared to be broken from age old concrete. A life that spanned generations reduced to a plastic bag slowly dripping lunch in the form of liquid memories, each splash, each breath, taking one more sepia image away. Her lucid glare moved without effort from the monitored hourglass to a tilted frame hanging on the wall. Her eyes met a younger shell of herself, the stare seemed to dissect a...
5 tags
Music Box
The woman dances. Music pouring out. Silence, then melody. Not playing because we opened the lid but because our hearts recalled those precious notes. Winding harmony from an aged cube. Whisper of my mother. Whisper of my past. My daughter’s smile, her white pearls luminous, the sunshine of the song. Echoes etched in a timeless moment. The laughter fills our worlds, the sound familiar, the...
7 tags
Patrick Bateman
Three tables down you are patient, striking, deadly. Your combed back hair, confident as you drink your poison. Mergers, Acquisitions. A convincing life, the new sheets, stained, covered in cran-apple; Your attempt at a reason: the carelessness of a snack. The brooding reality of a body, lodged somewhere between hardwood and heaven. Next Thursday you have a meeting. Prepare, put on your best suit,...
3 tags
The Good One
Uncovered pages discovered beneath
a trunk of dust, forgotten—forgiven.
Footsteps washed away from an uncharted
shore. The moon keeping its eye on
erased embrace. Swallowed pride.
When the sun is off and the lights burned
out. I pour myself into a mold of slumber.
Everything thought, felt—vanished.
Clap your hands, stomp your feet,
anything, yes anything.
Hands of time are...
To John Waite
You’re not fooling anybody.
Even though I don’t believe a word
you say, your face still haunts my dreams.
My eyes flickering beneath their sheets,
my hand, reaching out to stop you from
dropping the phone again.
I follow you down that lonely sidewalk.
The scene where you flip your head carelessly
and keep your hands in your pockets.
The chorus clouds my sleep.
Each flicker...