Wednesday, June 30, 2010

dis integra tion


It was while drinking an ice-cold glass of lemonade and staring out the open doorway into the street that I realized how easy it would be to just let go. Let go of everything and go crazy. I must have stared out that doorway ten minutes - listening to the crunchy ambiance of the winded leaves, the Brownian movement of birds on branches, ground and air - before the flash of a Caddy snapped me awake. Then. In that awkward moment of waking. The constructs of normalcy struck me, one by one, as strange props erected of math and color and idiomatic speech to lull me into acceptance. But now, with this dumbstruck state, I looked upon them anew, and they seemed nothing short of a malicious suitcase of lies.

I realized something else. In conjunction with this, I was suddenly floating in open water with no landmarks to guide me. Almost immediately I cycled through buoys of the old routine, the same old ciphers that reinforce the fundamental construct onto which the rest are placed like children's blocks. Now, however, they seemed like the cut-out dance steps of a ritual and stilted waltz. Frustration. Fear. I wanted to be dancing, not thinking. I tried to UNthink, to pretend I wasn't being carried down this current of disintegration. But all attempts found me carried faster, sinking deeper into the concentric spiral. They say quicksand takes you faster the more you struggle.

Friday, June 25, 2010

A Tale of Twin Cities: The Saga Continues

A Tale of Twin Cities, a collaborative chapbook of poems about the Twin Cities was rejected by "Hot Off The" for the Soap Factory publishing initiative. The collection is still looking for a publisher.

More as the search continues...

Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Strong Hands in Seat 4-C

Last week I saw the race of man exposed in a casual gesture. It was like watching two maces tenderly wielded so you would forget what they're for. An athlete or a soldier, and I blushed at the way he used them to steel through the red hair of the woman beside him. Her eyes said clearly that she loved the suggestion of power they possessed. They were more than any of us, and I held them in a kind of bored contempt.

And, just like that, it was over. I felt it, even before the plane lurched into a dramatic pause, then into a future full of terrifying poetry. When the masks dropped from their holes like an toy accident, I couldn't help but laugh, because every part of this was together we were suddenly the same scared flesh with a common goal that would never be realized. And as I watched those strong hands in seat 4-C shake the air like dizzy maracas, the race of man changed inside me. Even now I am convinced they could have done more to save us.