THE GODS OF FIRE NEVER LEFT THE EARTH

Pugnacious Icon of Fertility

STRUCK BY A WHIM, Erovan sniffed the banana patch palm of his hand, thereby enchanting himself (again) with a moment from the recent past.

He was not a flying spider. He was not an exiled cabinet member. He was not a soggy, half-helping of spinach in an abandoned milk carton. He was an unannounced recipient of a divine gift: a color nobody else in the world could see. This relationship between his rods and cones and the heavens above acted as a magnetic attraction to all things untethered. Continue reading “THE GODS OF FIRE NEVER LEFT THE EARTH”

ANDROMEDA LATKE TEARGAS PIE-POUCH PARADE

Art by Tricia ClineTHE SUN VEERS SPRINGWARD and somewhere, a plutonium server is wiped clean of fear. Underground, five million pearlescent roses rise to the light in 6/8 time. Crooked, red, rivers dry into golden banknotes, and are inhaled immediately by tiny, watchful, godzillas.

Elsewhere, an overworked barmaid explodes into spirit confetti in the balmy Peruvian sky
while her lover watches
from a corkboard crucifix
weeping tangerine vodka
wishing he could give it all

one more try Continue reading “ANDROMEDA LATKE TEARGAS PIE-POUCH PARADE”

snapshots on film, folder 5-14-773

THE DELIGHT I FELT WALKING MELTING STREETS

summer sun searing my shoulder blades

pitch
kissing the soles of my shoes

jumping in petroleum puddles
popping tar bubbles
on my way home from school

blue bottles of glass on white window panes

chamomile
growing wild in the driveway weeds

a curl of smoke from a burning cigarette
orbiting the steering column

the flutter
of a luminescent green eyelid
a smile from the very first girl i loved

translucent
honeycomb bleeding
sweetness through your teeth

the wet flower heart of an artichoke

the low
warm
glow
shining onto a lover’s face
as the blanket you’re sharing begins to burn

the safety and truth of a planetarium
so simple to leave the earth far behind

and
the way the tapestry on the ceiling fluttered
in the candlelight when i was a child