The Artist’s Winter

dust covers every key on the piano spiders have taken over the easel no one creates here anymore rain pattering window’s glass even on a sunny day the doors stay closed no one comes to knock or call newspapers stacked outside the door recall how long it has been thus a cat wanders this floor’s

Broodwood

Part One. Now’s when you tell me why you killed me, the man says from his resting place, slumped and halved and bleeding against the wall of the cabin. The walls and floors and roof are cedar, and they smell fragrant in the summertime, but in the winter they smell like the bitter, indifferent cold

Hammering the Bored

“I have problems,” he says “Oh yeah?” I say, “Tell me.” “My wife is driving me crazy,” he says “You should fuck her more,” I say “She doesn’t like to fuck,” he says “You should tell her to get a hobby,” I say “I also hate my job,” he says “You should quit and be

Of Turtles and Birds

They walked to the pond and the sun was warm, it encouraged them to sit on a bench and they sat awhile and talked. A turtle sat on a log that lay like a waiting crocodile in the pond, while herons tred in outward arcs in search of primordial nourishment. “True enlightenment,” he said, “is

It’s How (and If) You Play the Game

This isn’t my game anymore I was told to go home I kick the ball around once in a while still But I stopped playing the game They don’t want me in Unless I follow the rules And make a line for the pros But it’s not my game I’m no pro I don’t follow

A New World Will Rise

After the bombs, the riots, the protests, and all the rest of the excitement finally subside, all that will remain will be rats, roaches, and ruin. That, and those winos on the corner. Still trying to scrape together enough for a bottle – even though the liquor stores’s gone. When the shakes from detox subside

Our Proud, Blind Youth

“Getting strangled to death was the last thing in the world she imagined she would be doing Thursday night, the day after graduating university.” –BSB

That Which Takes the Dark

4 a.m., and sleep seemed a thing impossible. The mottled face of the ceiling was like that of the moon, pale and barren, and offering nothing. His eyes moved to the orange strip of street-lamp glow cast across the bedroom wall by the window. He watched the steam from the sewer drains wash and dance

Who Couldn’t Love That Smile?

His cheekbones pronounced, his slight bristle of stubble, his brows immaculately-shaped, he positively glowed from the picture frame. He could have modeled. Perhaps not on the runway, for his demeanor was too humble, too approachable. He lacked the stark, cold angularity usually reserved for runway types – those exiguous flesh mannequins, paid to shut up

Just a Bukowski Tonight

let’s cut through it I’m just a man, nothing more and the way you did your eyes tonight is sexy the shape of your face reminds me of a girl I used to know someone who used me not her fault, I deserved it she was sexy too so is your face I can’t tell