It’s Complicated An assemblage of opposing little lines—hyphens, dashes, minuses, backslashes and underscores arranged into a chevron or the slightly more intricate herringbone of an ascending and descending set of stairs, a veritable Escher etching. Against a current going both… Continue Reading
Angel Angel was Lionel’s child bride. Her skin was brown on brown, draped in clothes that were handmade, with brown beads and wooden cross around her throat. If she had stayed on her island, she’d have been carrying jugs of… Continue Reading
My natural charm here it is and all: it’s Friday and a girl in a shop smiled at me today but for some reason that charm won’t chase the feeling of something more. I’m back in Dublin again, no more… Continue Reading
A Styrofoam cup skips down Jackson Boulevard followed by The Chicago Reader, a choreographed separation of pages. The top floors of Willis Tower sway slightly. On the lake, waves rock small boats. At sidewalk cafés on Printers Row, napkins rise… Continue Reading
Sofia in 1993 I only have my time, I know my rights. Cool, cool are the sun-baked streets, shady is the hot city. Untitled I was living in an ancient city. The city had disappeared, only spring remained. … Continue Reading
Index Where in the manual of life— ———–given piecemeal, as demand demands ———–unfurled like a sheet to settle off-kilter onto some bed of experience —does it advise as to the intricacies of expression? in order to ascertain an approximate answer… Continue Reading
Chicago Sewers I casually flush my toilet in Chicago, water rushes through the lateral sewer of my abode to join storm water from rain or snow that flow into the intercepting sewer below, to the deep tunnel 300 feet underground… Continue Reading
Dear Lisa from Somewhere in My Evolution Yes I was an ant in a previous life: a brief crawl from the nest and then a brutal stomping. But not into oblivion — not when I had wings and could fly… Continue Reading
When Ben visited we ate cheese from the rind and he stored his guitar. For weeks it lay such that my door, flung open, missed it by mere mm. Tonight on a whim (ineptitude be damned) I played Ben’s guitar,… Continue Reading
the death knell sounds a few miles off if I could, I’d turn to kiss you, or wait for the opportunity that never comes keep me in your hands, near to your breath atheists worship with daily devotion swallow me… Continue Reading