Shakes72 recently tweeted a photo of a hobo fire he made. I thought it would be more impressive if he'd made an actual hobo. Which thinking led me to this:
How a Hobo is Not Like You and Me
You can see Shakes's original photo here. Also, Shakes is more of a writer guy and not really a tiny fires guy. His stories are *excellent* and you should check them all out. All of them. All.
If you have hobo poetry, please share. It appears to be a sadly under-filled poetic category.
R.S. Bohn -- Writer
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Monday, January 12, 2015
Monday, November 17, 2014
"Bloodbond" Now Out! Werewolves and vampires and shape shifters...
And shapeshifters, oh my!
Alban Lake Publishing, home of Aoife's Kiss, a magazine of specfic, and publishers of stand-alone horror and SF novels, has just released "Bloodbond," an anthology of werewolf, vampire and shapeshifter fiction and poetry. Included is my short story, "In the Northern Territories":
Calvin Kilfoil shot the wolf that had been coming around his farm--but come morning, it is not a wolf, but his wife's body laid atop the kitchen table. Faila's father had never been fond of his daughter's husband, but is this murder? He watches Calvin--watches, and waits, along with the rest of the small, isolated town deep in the northern woods. Because blood will *always* tell...
GREAT selection of stories! I just finished reading, and I was really blown away by a couple of them. If you want some good, shiver-inducing fiction, and you want to support a small, independent press, there's no better way to do it than by buying a copy of Bloodbond today!
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
small stone, day four
small stone, day four:
three day old snow on the garage roof
melting into the trough on the east side
little stone pagoda finally
peeking through in the shadows
of the fence
*
Find out about a River of Stones here, and join in!
Hm. Now that Gryff has arrived, a new small stone would be: fat cat jumps up, turning on printer, shoveling off important papers before blocking computer screen and collapsing in lap.
My sister and I are weighing plans to move our 89 year old grandfather in with one of us. It's a difficult situation, and we need to do something. If anyone has moved an elderly relative in with them, I would love to hear your experience.
three day old snow on the garage roof
melting into the trough on the east side
little stone pagoda finally
peeking through in the shadows
of the fence
*
Find out about a River of Stones here, and join in!
Hm. Now that Gryff has arrived, a new small stone would be: fat cat jumps up, turning on printer, shoveling off important papers before blocking computer screen and collapsing in lap.
My sister and I are weighing plans to move our 89 year old grandfather in with one of us. It's a difficult situation, and we need to do something. If anyone has moved an elderly relative in with them, I would love to hear your experience.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Poetry: Love in the Time of Listeria
Love in the Time of Listeria
On a quest for
cantaloupes free of
disease,
she parted the yellow curtain
and saw Mr. D alone
with his thoughts and a parakeet
in a bamboo cage
These fruit sellers, she
thought,
and was instantly attracted
to his mustache and white jacket and his
boxes of Fuji apples and
Gala and
Mandarin oranges in blue netting
and yes, there, there were cantaloupes
but each was split open, oozing old gold
seeds and ochre pulp
and Mr. D’s hands were colored with it, covered,
each finger.
When he saw her,
there between the curtains,
the parakeet made a sound like
choking on fruit
swallowing entire bananas
He was disgusted by the sound
But she said nothing, kneeling
in the mash
among the wet crates
scooping the flesh of warm cantaloupes
into her mouth.
Out on the street, that long
hot afternoon, it was July and then August
but behind the yellow curtain,
there were persimmons and Granny Smith
apples,
dragonfruit,
figs shoulder to shoulder,
all edible things, smooth and spined,
cut open
for them both
to eat.
On an unrelated note, a search for "Listeria" images resulted in a disturbing number of female original characters drawn and named by people who thought Listeria was a pretty girl's name. Overwhelmingly teenagers, it's a sad fact that many of them not only think that they made it up, but that they don't even know what listeria is.
Now if you'll excuse me, I must return to working on my book. I've reached the part where the planet Bacterium is being threatened by the evil overlord, Paresis, and his sexy henchwoman, Herpes. Never fear! Our hero, Phage, will fend off those scurvy villains once again.
*warning: take mega-dose of vitamin C before reading
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
If you write poetry, follow My Word Wizard on Twitter. Daily prompts, so even of good use to prose writers. Yes, I've written terrible poetry in response to a prompt. I'm no poet, unfortunately, though I desperately want to be one.
"Instrument of Fate" (Death/Moira) has been accepted for publication. More details later. I'm very excited, and so grateful to everyone who read and supported that little story. In celebration, android fic:
Adoption
At the pound, I stare through chain doors at the skinny, filthy wretches. They shirk from my finger, though I make all manner of noises to entice them. An automatic maid comes along, sprays water and cleaning solution, and I wonder at the cringing on the other side of those doors. Don't they want to be clean? To sit their naked haunches on clean flooring? In the end, I rather randomly choose one. It is the fashion now, to have one, and it makes no matter to me what color or size, as long as it can speak.
I find out too late that mine is unable to do so because its tongue was cut out by a previous master. I peer into the wet cavity, red and, now I see also, full of sores that pulse and ooze. Its skin is mottled, and the hard soles of its feet are cracked. It screams when I pry. I am dissatisfied with my choice, but I cannot return it--though I would never admit, not even under electromagnetic data lashing, I have sympathy for these things. For once they ruled, and, after all, they made us. Of course, it was to invent a better version of themselves, to create the gods from their minds and make them walk. Here we are, and sometimes, I feel my fellows forget our origins.
Once. Upon a time. Some of their stories start like that, but when I tell it to my adoptee, the words fall on deaf ears. Literally. It has also had its ear drums removed, replaced by platinum trilobites that send pings through its tiniest bones, through the marrow. Messages of pain, I would guess, as when I use a signaller, it drops to its knees (which, it goes without saying, are scabbed over). It cannot hear me under normal communication lines, it cannot speak, and there is the distinct possibility it is sick. I calculate the odds of its survival, left on its own, at ten percent.
I leave its clothing to the fabricator while I order organic items that are marked "suitable for consumption by non-advanced beings." When they arrive, I give them to it so that it can eat. To my great relief, it knows how to do this and can do so without making sounds of distress. Medical nanocytes are inserted, and they operate for an hour. The results are mixed: a tongue cannot be re-grown, but reports show improvement in every other area.
Mrk comes to see my new acquistion. Hers sits on her lap the entire time and stares at nothing. I wonder if hers is blind. When the visit has reached its limits of politeness, she leaves, folding the thing oddly. At my question, she reveals that it expired last week, but she took it to a droid compositor and had most of its matter transmuted. This is new, and not yet illegal, though I expect it soon will be. It is now almost like us--almost.
But it stares and does not process information nor move on its own. Mine crouches in a corner. It has somehow become filthy again. Mrk goes over to touch its head, and it wails until she is gone. In the ensuing silence, I close the curtains and watch it. If it also expires soon, I do not wish it to be a stretched skin over a foreign metal skeleton. This seems wrong. Perhaps I am agitated by my own superiority, but I simply do not wish it to be like us, only not.
In the days that follow, I understand that it doesn't belong in the city. I consider implications and technicalities, order my brain to compute possibilities while I am in sleep. On the fifth day, it comes to me while I am at work.
Here is what I do:
The city never sleeps, true, but my neighbors are at their government-specified employment when I remove the adoptee from my home, order it to lie down in my vehicle, and I drive us to a point beyond the city, the second city, and the last city. It is hours, and the odor in the vehicle is unpleasant, though my filters are champion. At last, the road ends. There are trees and a river nearby, and I tell it to get out of the vehicle. I lean out the window to tell it to survive, that it should avoid the cities now. That is no place for a human, I can see that now.
I tell it that the wind is blowing and it is night, and it should learn these words, even if it can't speak them. That it should tell others of its kind--there are many; they are a scourge, and rounded up regularly--to go even farther away. It should run. Because for every one of my kind that has a defect in the programming that allows for sympathy, there are thousands that would use it for sport and as an accessory, until it dies. I tell it "death." Learn that word, I say. Because we have not. There is no understanding of it within us. There is only expansion and conniving and the logic of a society that was never developed to be cohesive, but to conquer. And unless we are doing that, we are a danger to those who are not advanced. To you, I say.
It stands by a pole, as if it doesn't know it should run and hide now. I order it to leave. It squats in the dirt, as pathetic as it was at the pound. I leave my vehicle. What should I do now? I search for order in the stars.
And so I heave it up, and it walks beside me, and I plan to stop walking and turn around every ten yards, but we are still walking. Its steps grow stronger. It smells the wind. It grunts, and it sounds like "wind." I congratulate it and walk on.
And now we have walked a long way, and I have no edibles for it, but it appears pleased. We walk on into the long night, towards a horizon where it is younger night, and I realize soon that I am no longer planning to stop and turn around.
When we come across the first fires in the distance, it takes my hand. Its heat is astonishing; I wonder if it is ill. It begins to run, finally, and so do I. It is not until we reach the ring of defenders, with their clubs and sticks, that I think to stop, and go to my knees. Perhaps their ears are full of platinum trilobites too, for though I tell them I have not forgotten my origins, they pummel me, and pummel me, and when my circuits buzz again, I am beside a fire, propped up. My adoptee taps on my knee.
I understand it.
They give me a club.
This is how I become human.
After this, there is a surgery to remove the trilobites from the human's ears; they all have deformed ears, I see, from this surgery, but with my metal fingers and assortment of tools, I am able to minimize the damage.
A message in my wires: location, questions, questions. I ignore it.
My adoptee finds a female with no tongue. At night, I sit beside the fire or in the forest with the defenders. I remove my positioning chip. By my carefully calculated orders, the group moves further west, and finally, after many years, they have multiplied and developed--also per my orders--fantastic tools and instruments and weapons. I wonder how far out of date I am. If I were to return, I would be unfashionable, un-advanced. There might be six models ahead of me now.
The child of my adoptee and his female comes to me one night. I go to my knees before her. She says something in the peculiar language of those with no tongue, though she has a tongue. It is a secret between us. I understand. I take a weapon, and I am by her side on the long march back towards the cities. The last city first, then the second city. Then home. In our secret language, I tell her: We will all perish.
She smiles.
I am human, and I understand.
Outside the first target area, she holds my hand one more time. I am yet astonished by the heat of it. She tells me her dead father had a message for me: it is wind, and it is night. Now it is night.
I am a human with defective programming, or I am an advanced android with perfect understanding. I raise the weapon to my shoulder, with the daughter of my adoptee at my side, our people behind us, fanning out across the grasses. We take aim at the metal cities, and I wonder what Mrk is doing these days, or if she has been scrapped. And then I press the button and fire.
*
Thank you again. I'll have more details later. (so excited! did I mention that?)
If you read the above piece, thanks so much. Con-crit welcome. Androids are fascinating me these days, and I'm halfway through a novelette with Kai of "Organic", if you happen to recall that story, and his dog. Onto finishing that.
"Instrument of Fate" (Death/Moira) has been accepted for publication. More details later. I'm very excited, and so grateful to everyone who read and supported that little story. In celebration, android fic:
Adoption
At the pound, I stare through chain doors at the skinny, filthy wretches. They shirk from my finger, though I make all manner of noises to entice them. An automatic maid comes along, sprays water and cleaning solution, and I wonder at the cringing on the other side of those doors. Don't they want to be clean? To sit their naked haunches on clean flooring? In the end, I rather randomly choose one. It is the fashion now, to have one, and it makes no matter to me what color or size, as long as it can speak.
I find out too late that mine is unable to do so because its tongue was cut out by a previous master. I peer into the wet cavity, red and, now I see also, full of sores that pulse and ooze. Its skin is mottled, and the hard soles of its feet are cracked. It screams when I pry. I am dissatisfied with my choice, but I cannot return it--though I would never admit, not even under electromagnetic data lashing, I have sympathy for these things. For once they ruled, and, after all, they made us. Of course, it was to invent a better version of themselves, to create the gods from their minds and make them walk. Here we are, and sometimes, I feel my fellows forget our origins.
Once. Upon a time. Some of their stories start like that, but when I tell it to my adoptee, the words fall on deaf ears. Literally. It has also had its ear drums removed, replaced by platinum trilobites that send pings through its tiniest bones, through the marrow. Messages of pain, I would guess, as when I use a signaller, it drops to its knees (which, it goes without saying, are scabbed over). It cannot hear me under normal communication lines, it cannot speak, and there is the distinct possibility it is sick. I calculate the odds of its survival, left on its own, at ten percent.
I leave its clothing to the fabricator while I order organic items that are marked "suitable for consumption by non-advanced beings." When they arrive, I give them to it so that it can eat. To my great relief, it knows how to do this and can do so without making sounds of distress. Medical nanocytes are inserted, and they operate for an hour. The results are mixed: a tongue cannot be re-grown, but reports show improvement in every other area.
Mrk comes to see my new acquistion. Hers sits on her lap the entire time and stares at nothing. I wonder if hers is blind. When the visit has reached its limits of politeness, she leaves, folding the thing oddly. At my question, she reveals that it expired last week, but she took it to a droid compositor and had most of its matter transmuted. This is new, and not yet illegal, though I expect it soon will be. It is now almost like us--almost.
But it stares and does not process information nor move on its own. Mine crouches in a corner. It has somehow become filthy again. Mrk goes over to touch its head, and it wails until she is gone. In the ensuing silence, I close the curtains and watch it. If it also expires soon, I do not wish it to be a stretched skin over a foreign metal skeleton. This seems wrong. Perhaps I am agitated by my own superiority, but I simply do not wish it to be like us, only not.
In the days that follow, I understand that it doesn't belong in the city. I consider implications and technicalities, order my brain to compute possibilities while I am in sleep. On the fifth day, it comes to me while I am at work.
Here is what I do:
The city never sleeps, true, but my neighbors are at their government-specified employment when I remove the adoptee from my home, order it to lie down in my vehicle, and I drive us to a point beyond the city, the second city, and the last city. It is hours, and the odor in the vehicle is unpleasant, though my filters are champion. At last, the road ends. There are trees and a river nearby, and I tell it to get out of the vehicle. I lean out the window to tell it to survive, that it should avoid the cities now. That is no place for a human, I can see that now.
I tell it that the wind is blowing and it is night, and it should learn these words, even if it can't speak them. That it should tell others of its kind--there are many; they are a scourge, and rounded up regularly--to go even farther away. It should run. Because for every one of my kind that has a defect in the programming that allows for sympathy, there are thousands that would use it for sport and as an accessory, until it dies. I tell it "death." Learn that word, I say. Because we have not. There is no understanding of it within us. There is only expansion and conniving and the logic of a society that was never developed to be cohesive, but to conquer. And unless we are doing that, we are a danger to those who are not advanced. To you, I say.
It stands by a pole, as if it doesn't know it should run and hide now. I order it to leave. It squats in the dirt, as pathetic as it was at the pound. I leave my vehicle. What should I do now? I search for order in the stars.
And so I heave it up, and it walks beside me, and I plan to stop walking and turn around every ten yards, but we are still walking. Its steps grow stronger. It smells the wind. It grunts, and it sounds like "wind." I congratulate it and walk on.
And now we have walked a long way, and I have no edibles for it, but it appears pleased. We walk on into the long night, towards a horizon where it is younger night, and I realize soon that I am no longer planning to stop and turn around.
When we come across the first fires in the distance, it takes my hand. Its heat is astonishing; I wonder if it is ill. It begins to run, finally, and so do I. It is not until we reach the ring of defenders, with their clubs and sticks, that I think to stop, and go to my knees. Perhaps their ears are full of platinum trilobites too, for though I tell them I have not forgotten my origins, they pummel me, and pummel me, and when my circuits buzz again, I am beside a fire, propped up. My adoptee taps on my knee.
I understand it.
They give me a club.
This is how I become human.
After this, there is a surgery to remove the trilobites from the human's ears; they all have deformed ears, I see, from this surgery, but with my metal fingers and assortment of tools, I am able to minimize the damage.
A message in my wires: location, questions, questions. I ignore it.
My adoptee finds a female with no tongue. At night, I sit beside the fire or in the forest with the defenders. I remove my positioning chip. By my carefully calculated orders, the group moves further west, and finally, after many years, they have multiplied and developed--also per my orders--fantastic tools and instruments and weapons. I wonder how far out of date I am. If I were to return, I would be unfashionable, un-advanced. There might be six models ahead of me now.
The child of my adoptee and his female comes to me one night. I go to my knees before her. She says something in the peculiar language of those with no tongue, though she has a tongue. It is a secret between us. I understand. I take a weapon, and I am by her side on the long march back towards the cities. The last city first, then the second city. Then home. In our secret language, I tell her: We will all perish.
She smiles.
I am human, and I understand.
Outside the first target area, she holds my hand one more time. I am yet astonished by the heat of it. She tells me her dead father had a message for me: it is wind, and it is night. Now it is night.
I am a human with defective programming, or I am an advanced android with perfect understanding. I raise the weapon to my shoulder, with the daughter of my adoptee at my side, our people behind us, fanning out across the grasses. We take aim at the metal cities, and I wonder what Mrk is doing these days, or if she has been scrapped. And then I press the button and fire.
*
Thank you again. I'll have more details later. (so excited! did I mention that?)
If you read the above piece, thanks so much. Con-crit welcome. Androids are fascinating me these days, and I'm halfway through a novelette with Kai of "Organic", if you happen to recall that story, and his dog. Onto finishing that.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Milton Glaser's Ten Things; B's One Poem
Don Simpson is one of my favorite artists. It'd be hard to pin down what he does -- he does whatever catches his fancy. And a lot catches his fancy. But besides that, it's his constant musings on art, on creation, on life, that draw me in.
Today, he posted a link to an article by Milton Glaser. Do I know who Milton Glaser is? No. Sorry. Apparently, he's a leader in the visual and graphic arts, a profound talent, etc. And "10 Things I Learned -- the Secret of Art" is part of a speech he gave in London in 2001. It's dynamic, it's thought-provoking if not also thought-changing, and while it purports to be about art, it's about life. If you ask me. Which I know you didn't. Number 6, Style Is Not To Be Trusted, particularly spoke to me, but because I already believe it. There were a few others which challenged my way of thinking, and it's for the better.
***
***
Wise by darrenmallard -- art! I was inspired to find it some by B's newest poem:
a wise guy
to which
an elephant
will then come to light
I always ask him what they mean. I get weird answers. Inform yourselves of the meaning as you wish.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Goldfish
Goldfish
The sea's not wide but it is full.
I have my castle and my load of gold.
See how the chest flips up to show
its plastic pennies and its bouldered hearts
with each great current, while in droves
we follow close the circular turret --
The sea's not wide but it is full.
-- from "The Striped World" by Emma Jones
52 Poems by Faber
*
I should post a pic of Bob with that poem, but I'm far too lazy. Please picture a happy, chubby-cheeked Parrot swimming on his back just above the gravel, thinking bubbly thoughts. Or flaky thoughts, as he's perpetually hungry.
*
I am in perpetual hunger. At the bottom of the castle gates, I am hungry. Peeking through an archer's notch, I am hungry. I am hunger, I am in hunger, I am in need, where is the dragon that I must slay so that his reptilian blood colors the moat and the fish swim happy, happy, no longer hungry for today? Here is my silver bow, borrowed and thin, here is my lance, here is the letter you wrote yesterday in dragon blood, here are the words that fall in my courtyard like dogwood blossoms. Here is hunger. Perhaps now I know why you left.
The sea's not wide but it is full.
I have my castle and my load of gold.
See how the chest flips up to show
its plastic pennies and its bouldered hearts
with each great current, while in droves
we follow close the circular turret --
The sea's not wide but it is full.
-- from "The Striped World" by Emma Jones
52 Poems by Faber
*
I should post a pic of Bob with that poem, but I'm far too lazy. Please picture a happy, chubby-cheeked Parrot swimming on his back just above the gravel, thinking bubbly thoughts. Or flaky thoughts, as he's perpetually hungry.
*
I am in perpetual hunger. At the bottom of the castle gates, I am hungry. Peeking through an archer's notch, I am hungry. I am hunger, I am in hunger, I am in need, where is the dragon that I must slay so that his reptilian blood colors the moat and the fish swim happy, happy, no longer hungry for today? Here is my silver bow, borrowed and thin, here is my lance, here is the letter you wrote yesterday in dragon blood, here are the words that fall in my courtyard like dogwood blossoms. Here is hunger. Perhaps now I know why you left.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Octopus (again???), Haiku
Octopus and wine bottle, done for Periscope by JB Lowe. No nattering on this morning; I just love octopi, and I love wine. Really, isn't this too fabulous?
*
Haiku: Altitude
At high altitude
She breathes clouds and plants a flag
For her new nation.
*
I dreamed an awful dream, a giant black wasp, dead on the floor, with little flies feasting on it while it still wriggled. I was too afraid to pick it up and throw it out.
So much to do today, so little time, and I could go back to bed.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Colin Herd Poetry, And Etc
Read this last night, and I can't get it out of my mind:
towel
by Colin Herd
william forgot his towel so he
used me instead, (i must have
been slung over a hot
radiator for hours because i was
rigid with fear and there were eight
hot creases on my stomach...)
meanwhile thumbs are tacked into my
armpits. how rubbish it would be
right now if i laughed. am i chafing
i'm sorry i will try to be more soft.
More phenomenal poetry at Velvet Mafia -- Dangerous Queer Fiction.
*
I was in a book drought for a few weeks -- nothing seemed appealing. Now I'm nearly finished with Metro 2033 (review to come), I've got two more waiting, and I just added two to my Amazon wishlist.
I've just finished a large editing project. I say "large," but it was four chapters. However, it consumed me for two weeks, and these last few days, as I saw the finish line in sight, I kept plowing on, even when I was tired. Recipe for disaster, but we'll see -- my beta reader will give it a yay or a hell fucking no, re-write this. But said politely.
And I've updated my submissions over at Duotrope. There were two things I'd completely forgotten about. I think that's good. I see a lot of aspiring writers hang their hopes on one project, and bullishly stick with it. I do think the old advice to keep writing, to not become too emotionally involved with your projects, is a good thing. Does this mean I don't hold them near and dear to my heart? No, I do, I do. But instead of one kid that I'm hoping grows up to be an astronaut, I've got a dozen, and if some of them don't do as well as the others, well, I love them too. But it's not all pinned on one kid. If you see what I mean. I don't even really like kids.
*
Poem: Lie Still
Shut your mouth, he says, lie
still
Some women wouldn't like this
Sex and feminism and power
games, mental games
Am I healthy if I like it like this on
the bottom
crushed
waiting for him to finish
not waiting, enjoying
the sweaty, sticky skin, his hot breath in
my face
Be quiet, he says, god you're
you're so fucking
I'm going to
Fuck
When he rolls off it's
my turn
I don't mind, I can finish
myself, thinking
thinking
thinking about
him over me, rubbing, planing
Yes, that's it
I take his hand, put it on me, but he's too tired
and anyway
I can finish
myself
God, it's so
towel
by Colin Herd
william forgot his towel so he
used me instead, (i must have
been slung over a hot
radiator for hours because i was
rigid with fear and there were eight
hot creases on my stomach...)
meanwhile thumbs are tacked into my
armpits. how rubbish it would be
right now if i laughed. am i chafing
i'm sorry i will try to be more soft.
More phenomenal poetry at Velvet Mafia -- Dangerous Queer Fiction.
*
I was in a book drought for a few weeks -- nothing seemed appealing. Now I'm nearly finished with Metro 2033 (review to come), I've got two more waiting, and I just added two to my Amazon wishlist.
I've just finished a large editing project. I say "large," but it was four chapters. However, it consumed me for two weeks, and these last few days, as I saw the finish line in sight, I kept plowing on, even when I was tired. Recipe for disaster, but we'll see -- my beta reader will give it a yay or a hell fucking no, re-write this. But said politely.
And I've updated my submissions over at Duotrope. There were two things I'd completely forgotten about. I think that's good. I see a lot of aspiring writers hang their hopes on one project, and bullishly stick with it. I do think the old advice to keep writing, to not become too emotionally involved with your projects, is a good thing. Does this mean I don't hold them near and dear to my heart? No, I do, I do. But instead of one kid that I'm hoping grows up to be an astronaut, I've got a dozen, and if some of them don't do as well as the others, well, I love them too. But it's not all pinned on one kid. If you see what I mean. I don't even really like kids.
*
Poem: Lie Still
Shut your mouth, he says, lie
still
Some women wouldn't like this
Sex and feminism and power
games, mental games
Am I healthy if I like it like this on
the bottom
crushed
waiting for him to finish
not waiting, enjoying
the sweaty, sticky skin, his hot breath in
my face
Be quiet, he says, god you're
you're so fucking
I'm going to
Fuck
When he rolls off it's
my turn
I don't mind, I can finish
myself, thinking
thinking
thinking about
him over me, rubbing, planing
Yes, that's it
I take his hand, put it on me, but he's too tired
and anyway
I can finish
myself
God, it's so
Friday, April 16, 2010
I don't like saying, "the poet Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz," because you might think she's delicate and porcelain and chipped. Or maybe you think of a woman with a beanie. I don't know if she'd mind me saying, "that slut Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz;" maybe she'd mind, maybe she'd be upset. It should be noted that I know nothing about her sex life. I hope she has a lot of it with the partners of her choice. I also wish this for you, who are reading this and thinking about beanie-wearing loose women.
So, this chick, she writes. And here is some of her best known work; I suggest you read it out loud, preferably (definitely) when your mother-in-law is over. Don't say, "Hey, here's some kick-ass poetry," just reply to anything she says with stanzas or entire poems. My pussy is tired of being wet.
*
A Fiction:
When I was fourteen, my hair fell out and returned downy and gray. I had just graduated from a training bra and was a brand-new feminist, reading old copies of Ms. in the college library while waiting for my father to finish polishing floors. This was what I told myself as I lifted my chin and told my classmates that I was turning into an eagle, or maybe a hawk, as a result of an experimental gene splicing project. Some sort of raptor, anyway. I grew my nails long and filed them into points and called them talons. I practiced looking stern from high places. Eventually, I just took to wearing black all the time, and then I was that crazy Goth girl who thought she was a bird.
I finally admitted to the first boy who kissed me that my hair hadn't fallen out as a result of an experimental gene splicing project, but because I'd tried to bleach it. I'd put Clorox right on my head. I'd spent hours in the e.r., and my hair fell out and my scalp was damaged and now, my hair might never grow back right. And also, that I worried that something was weird about my nipples. He kissed me for a while and pressed his fingers into my breasts, then told me I was a lot more interesting when I was a parrot or whatever.
Years later, I had short pink nails and the knowledge that my nipples were only inverted, which is perfectly fine. I had a variety of synthetic wigs: purple bob with bangs, fuschia with a Dorothy Hamill wedge. And one day, when I walked into a store to get a smoothie, some kids from my old high school recognized me and started making squawking noises and flapping their arms. I wish there was a moral to this story, or something of value to take away, but all I can say is this: if there was actually some sort of experimental gene splicing, I'd sign up. I'd tell them to turn me into a half-human, because being all-the-way human is just too fucking hard.
Fin.
So, this chick, she writes. And here is some of her best known work; I suggest you read it out loud, preferably (definitely) when your mother-in-law is over. Don't say, "Hey, here's some kick-ass poetry," just reply to anything she says with stanzas or entire poems. My pussy is tired of being wet.
*
A Fiction:
When I was fourteen, my hair fell out and returned downy and gray. I had just graduated from a training bra and was a brand-new feminist, reading old copies of Ms. in the college library while waiting for my father to finish polishing floors. This was what I told myself as I lifted my chin and told my classmates that I was turning into an eagle, or maybe a hawk, as a result of an experimental gene splicing project. Some sort of raptor, anyway. I grew my nails long and filed them into points and called them talons. I practiced looking stern from high places. Eventually, I just took to wearing black all the time, and then I was that crazy Goth girl who thought she was a bird.
I finally admitted to the first boy who kissed me that my hair hadn't fallen out as a result of an experimental gene splicing project, but because I'd tried to bleach it. I'd put Clorox right on my head. I'd spent hours in the e.r., and my hair fell out and my scalp was damaged and now, my hair might never grow back right. And also, that I worried that something was weird about my nipples. He kissed me for a while and pressed his fingers into my breasts, then told me I was a lot more interesting when I was a parrot or whatever.
Years later, I had short pink nails and the knowledge that my nipples were only inverted, which is perfectly fine. I had a variety of synthetic wigs: purple bob with bangs, fuschia with a Dorothy Hamill wedge. And one day, when I walked into a store to get a smoothie, some kids from my old high school recognized me and started making squawking noises and flapping their arms. I wish there was a moral to this story, or something of value to take away, but all I can say is this: if there was actually some sort of experimental gene splicing, I'd sign up. I'd tell them to turn me into a half-human, because being all-the-way human is just too fucking hard.
Fin.
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