Foothills Textual and Visual Magazine 2010
Phobias Edition
Notes on Decay (page 62)
1.
Hollow eyes blotted in a red fingertip cohesion.
An empty mason jar waiting for a choke-cherry
persuasion, ripe with anticipation.
The one to my right says, "I've never broken a bone before."
2.
Broken hazel marbles scrape the back of your throat.
There was talk of a silver lining,
a trachea for your troubles.
The one to my left says, "I've never peeled an orange before."
3.
Paisley sheets pressed against stained mattresses.
Through the mouth of a whore,
blue bed frames look so good against pale wrists and
translucent veins.
Chadron, 1893 (page 79)
There is a rusted ferrotype revealing family resemblances through turpentine eyes- chemical appealing.
They say mother, father sowed their oats, but I heard the dropping prism, felt the warm acidic splatter, packed a suitcase full of powdered milk and dried baby's breath.
Families document disquietudes in thick, leather albums kept safely where dust might hide them.
There is something in the reaction. Not all chemicals burn, I swear. Wiping rust with bridal lace is enough to prove that he's the type, or so mother supposed.
And then at the communion, mother would have turned a heel West, expanding stems, arching, writhing in the breath of baby's appeals.
They say glass is meant to magnify but it all depends on the violence of its angle, the milky flakes stick together like chains of unwed brides, clasping turpentine fingers look good enough to swallow.
There is something waiting here, a one-sided downward interpretation that reactions depress photons - ancestral feeling.
Laramie, 1946 (page 95)
There is something in the air, a hanging supposition that putting pen to paper reacts like oil on concrete - rusting rumination.
They say: splitting skin and tilling land are one in the same, but I have seen the orchards, tasted the spun-steel fruit, thrown paint at an infant and prayed for a miracle.
Crows have danced beneath pale paper lanterns putting quill to parchment and nesting on the novelty.
There is something in the root. You'd grow to like it I swear. Tearing pages with your cackle laugh is enough to hang the murder, or so it is supposed.
And then at the suspension the cracking concrete beside your eyes would unbend, crow's feet releasing, ruminating.
They say: the rust rubs away when the harvest come on, but only where the ochre roots, damp with infantile pigments, split the land and speak of such thing.
There is something buried here, a lingering premonition that revealing pasts cauterizes peach pits - rotting fruition.
Foothills Textual and Visual Journal 2009
On Lies (page 33)
On Lies One
What is the difference between a lie and lying (in terms of slumber)? It occurs to me that they share a reciporocal bond. Lying to get laid - lying about getting laid.
On Lies Two
He said he loved me. That was the last lie I knowingly believed. He was on ecstasy at the time. So was I for that matter. The next day he asked if he had said anything strange the night before. No, I said. I lied.
On Lies Three
Writing is like spreading sleeping babies on a great white linen sheet. The text is their small fleshy bodies, slightly misshapen bit nonetheless beautiful, meaningful. Each one is put down with care, pale paper corners cradling them close. I like to watch them sleeping, lying so peaceful and exposed for my eye to lullaby.
On Lies Four
I wish I could remember the first lie I told. I have a notion that it was something trivial like eating a cookie or accidentally popping a squat in my sister's closet (its true). No, the first lie I recall constructing, I mean really working on to make sure no one would know it was a lie, happened in the third grade. I tol everyone I was training to become a figure skater. It lasted a week before I realized that it was wrong to tell such a lie. So, of course, I lied and said I had to quit because I broke my leg.
On Lies Five
The word lie is at the root. By this, of course, I am referring to the unnerving number of words in the English language built on the structural integrity of three simple letters: lie. like. line. live. Even life is based on a lie.
Foothills Textual and Visual Journal 2008
Love Song of a Succulent Apple (page 16)
The half-eaten apple taunts me from my desk,
Green, staring and succulent.
"Consume me, feel me, taste me, love me," it pleads.
"I have my love," I reply, "but your bruises are bitter against my tongue."
It weeps juices upon the grainy wood.
It rusts under the warmth of my lamp.
Little black flies gather on its surface like funeral goers at the grave.
They nibble the brown pulpy flesh.
Their buzzing fills my head.
"Consume me, feel me, taste me, love me," they sing.
"Hush my love," I whisper real close.
I put the writhing fruit in my mouth.
My stomach turns as I hear them cry
"Let me out, let me out."
