Terrestrial Bliss
Heaven is a two-concourse parkway, I know,
I saw it through the glare rising off the parking lot asphalt
And also the glare bouncing off every window
From buildings in the office park or the cars still between the lines
Tag: writing (Page 24 of 37)
Goodbye, Joy.
I’m moving next month so we won’t run into each other. I blocked your number today too. It’s a relief not to have to press the ignore button anymore.
<Press> Ignore?
<Press> Accept?
I (don’t) say that to hurt you.
I want you to understand why I’m writing you. I want you to understand because when I’m done writing, I’m shredding you in my memory.
I kept all the silly love notes, the mall pictures, the ticket stubs. I couldn’t shred you before when you broke up with me. I tried. I scraped and pulled, nails clawing at the memories. Chunks out of my skin are missing trying to find and dig you out.
The Jeweler
by Gonzalinho da Costa
Afternoon is a jeweler
Setting hours in gold,
As silver glinting waves
Slap the garnet shore.
Gonzalinho da Costa—a pen name—teaches at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business, Makati City, Philippines. He is a management research and communication consultant. A lover of world literature, he has completed three humanities degrees and writes poetry as a hobby.
COUNTRY BOY RETURNS TO UNIVERSITY
The night stars, I’m going to miss them
light up the dark sky, like Dante’s god.
From here, on this cold hill, it seems
the earth is dark but heaven is bright.
Lindie lit an Old Gold, letting it catch on her upper lip as she peeled a tangerine. Her long fingers slowly pulled the skin into a snake, one she could mold into a hollow sphere and use as an ashtray through morning. With the ritual complete, she set the fruit on a napkin, next to a tube of peach lipstick, a plastic unicorn lighter, and a Styrofoam cup of coffee, dramatically lightened with powdered cream and sugar. With the cigarette still hanging from her mouth, the ash bending to gravity but never breaking, she leaned over and unfastened her sandals, deliberately emphasizing the length of her legs.
Lindie knew the man was watching from his room. Where else was there to look? The motel, constructed during the Cold War, had no windows facing out. From within its walls, there was no way to view the medians stuffed with palm trees and crab grass, the causeway beach, narrow and crowded, laid out beyond the lines of interstate. There was no bar, no pool, no cabana or casino. A giant echo, all the motel rooms above the second floor looked down onto the sundeck, its surface a smooth, brown rock at the bottom of a well. Lindie pressed her toes against the tiles, each oval a turtle on its back, the smoothness cold and slick with morning dew. She set her sandals on the glass top table, along with most everything else she owned, and pushed her sunglasses closer to her brow.
. . .
Panic Scenes in a Green Room
Lately my nights are gripped by research
on Christine Chubbuck’s suicide, hers the type
of public spectacle that pits a noxious smell
in the stomach, which I find to be a far-out,
wholly alien emotion responding to the difficulty
of a strange death. Freshly attuned to my own Continue reading
on Christine Chubbuck’s suicide, hers the type
of public spectacle that pits a noxious smell
in the stomach, which I find to be a far-out,
wholly alien emotion responding to the difficulty
of a strange death. Freshly attuned to my own Continue reading
While the daggery brush held its color, evergreen and everbrown, cottonwoods leafed out above their heads, patterning yellow and occasional red against the sky. Ahead of G, impatient and unconcerned with minor scratches, A drank in sunlight as strong as bleach, trying to tell time. Ten a.m. at the leafy, dry confluence between Hackberry and Devil’s? Ten in the morning, and the obvious signs of place: campfire circles and cairns. Couldn’t the others move faster? A. Could. Not. Wait. But she found a sienna-dun bed of leaves and nestled herself until the rest of the group caught up. C came first, sitting on a rock, now that spot looks good too, unzippering trip directions from inside his pants. “Todd’s hiking guide says go right.” A closed her eyes.
B stomped through ankle-high weeds, sat between A and C and relaced his boots; one by one, E, G, and the others came into the clearing. A stood first, looking at the sky again. If she’d known them, she would have said Let’s go, but the group was B’s friends, not hers. She waited, shifting from boot to boot. “Gotta pee?” asked F. Continue reading
BODIES/BALANCE
by Leah Cappelli
Languishing in a state of dire straits,
he contemplates the rate of his life,
the ways of his strife,
the days and the nights.
An abecedarian learning to speak again
in his most recent reincarnation,
walking fine lines between monstrosity
and virtuousness.
(A viewing room at a funeral home. An open coffin, subdued lighting. Enter DAVID, age 44. He approaches coffin with trepidation. He comes to at ease by degrees. Finally………)
DAVID:
Well. Well well. Just look at you. All decked out in your astronaut’s garb. Dressed to kill, aren’t you? Was this how you planned it? To do your exit as a starman? It does become you, you know. Really, it does. So tell me, are you braced for tomorrow? Have you dialed in your humble mode? You know they’ll be sending you out as only the Air Force can. Full military honors. A flyover with the missing wingman. And they’ll retell how one time you flew so high, you clipped the chinwhiskers of Zeus himself. And they’ll retell how you throttled that demon out at mach seven. Yes yes, I know it’s all true, but remember, the order of the day is humility. They’ll want to see your aw shucks side. Not funny? Sorry. I’m trying to be clever. Guess I’m not very good at clever.
The streets are clogged
with heat and horns
the crash of sliding metal gates
sidewalk steams where it’s been hosed
in the paper
I search for mention of people I used to know
the sun bakes my face
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