Archive
Alligator Heart, Part 2
Sure, you’ve reasons to weep,
who hasn’t, but, please,
you still have me, with shelf
upon disorganized shelf of inventory,
so what if the sun sticks its thumb
in your eye and the ATM refuses you,
so what if the guests leave
for the wedding and never arrive,
from somewhere there’s loud
and incoherent hammering,
rockets with bright tails
tilting toward the void,
another solar system built just for you
out of love and cannibalized parts.
by Howie Good
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
It’s True
Music by Paul Millington
Lyrics and vocals by Norman Ball
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Invisible
Delivery trucks line Financial — that half-street stunted by train tracks
and Board of Trade barriers. Vehicle signage announces Document
Destruction, Evian, Ajax Security, Minute Maid. I walk swiftly
from condo to office, as pigeons scatter slowly at my feet, completely
assimilated, scavenging leftover Goldfish and Sun Chips.
Men push dollies laden with soda to the back doors of sandwich shops,
up loading dock ramps, bound for vending machines and refrigerated cases
where they will sit next to bottled water and cups of sliced fruit.
The CEO decides to refocus the firm on first principles, which results
in the obsolescence of an entire division, which empties a floor or two
of a Louis Sullivan building, which means fewer workers buying coffee
and bagels and yogurt, which bankrupts the old man in the lobby,
which means one less delivery truck on Financial, which means Carlos
must take a second shift to make up the lost wages, which is why he stumbles
from lack of sleep and spills soda cans on the sidewalk before me.
I walk around the cans. My boots crunch
on the salty streets, my face aches, fingers are numb, nose runs.
A train curves shakily round its elevated corner, delivering the next wave
of office workers to the newsstand, the nail salon, the flower shop.
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Time Capsule Chronicles
If you can’t see the video, you may need to download Flash (blocked by some companies on employee computers).
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Of Asphalt
Black rubber, black road, white stripe, grit of gravel,
music interrupting the assault of wind on a half-rolled window,
in the distance, suspended above it, the world melts.
The bounce, bounce, bounce of balls
calling each day,
echoing into its flat resistance.
Offering its peculiar tarry incense
to the child lying on her back,
killing time.
In the still, headlamp lit night,
the dark ocean around a big box store,
the loneliness of the freeway blowing by.
Knowing burnt rubber
and the knees of children.
Knowing sky.
The quiet of a hotel pool in winter,
the space inside the mouth,
wrapping up the earth.
by Lisa Jones
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Approaching the Nuclear Facility
The vase is thrown
with greyish clay, sculpted
to stack like bracelets
laid to cinch near the middle.
Livestock graze the grass.
Clover sprouts unbothered.
From the hilltop, the bracelets form
the elongated neck of a Ndebele—
foreign, disembodied
in the pasture’s lap,
facing who knows
which direction.
Tree
Limited edition digital print
Image 9 1/4″ x 10 1/2 “; paper 11″ x 14”
(Click on image to view at larger size.)
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
End Times
The silo, empty, has
shifted toward its
obsolescence.
Built like a barrel,
it rots like one:
mold-softened planks
dissolving, wood & iron—
now just rust—
meld and powder and at last
subside. Termites
and carpenter bees
dismantle the rest.
It once held grain enough
to feed a herd of cattle
gone, no lowing sounds
along the muddy creek
where the silo stood
full, upright
as a carillon tower,
a hymn of silage
amid mown fields.
What is contained
when the container’s
abandoned? Something
that pulls
the structure
over, the specific gravity
of absence
the hollow meaning
of after.
the deepest part
Diving into the deepest part and
even looking at it on a map.
Its dark blue stillness commands a
respect. Like a Dietrich or a
Marlow.
It lures you by its
perhaps danger, you take a swallow
loud like thunder.
A universe, not littered by stars,
smooth, clean.
Its amethystine reaches call—
soundless echoes, vibrations
no lungs can make.
This must be the distant song
of sirens shielded by its opaque depth.
Tristful moans that lure me
out of bed some nights.
Whales on a beach
so appear tramontane
and epic—
no longer royal—but
deflated blue-grey sacks on colorless sand,
that our hands fast push back
towards the deeper part—those ultramarine pools—
They prepare a faint.
by e. moya
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
qarrtsiluni 