I am awakened by a smell, sweet and smoked. Clouds brisketed above the lake. Startled and unsure, I close the windows. Check first on the children.
do we live here — wedreamstories
scenesbutwedontlivethem (Notley) — or here — ppleatcronuts
frankoceanieatbusily
betweenyourlegs (Chang)
To even be suspected of treasure—to be indistinguishable from those who possess treasure—is to become a target. This is the lesson of the oyster.
The opportunities my personal tragedies presented to me calcified around the time I emerged from Cornell with a degree and the minor acclaim I received as an undergraduate.
There was one literary magazine that made you write “THE END” at the end of your story, to signify that when the writing was done, when there were no more pages or writing, it had ended to these idiots or robots.
a continent, seedless and deep
ashes that fertilize nothing
but ashes, ashes that hold
the cool river of the mind
then sink it into ashes
I hang myself out of a self-inflicted predicament
I see the world from a new perspective
and don’t cry for me when you see me on the floor
Meanwhile, husbands everywhere felt vindicated. They flocked to the pubs to gloat. I told you I married an idiot!
To squabble over genre would be to take away from the very potent delight of these kinds of tales: a capacity to traverse an enormous affective range, to play lightly at the surface of life and to sink to tragic human depths.
This incessant, near compulsory recycling of the Midwestern flight narrative makes one thing clear: the story, the real story, begins upon departure.
If nuclear advocates are incapable of discussing who their chosen fuel sources have harmed and might harm, they are either ill-informed and not the experts they claim to be, or they are dishonest.
As early iterations of Guided By Voices began to play shows around Dayton in the early eighties, they were largely met with crushing indifference. They took it to heart.