A Low Lived and Cowardly Son of a Bitch

The boys were about a hundred yards into the timber under the shadow of so many trees that looked to them to rise up forever. Georgie was eight and his little brother, Theo, was six. They’d lost their way in the iron night of southern Missouri. There were noises in the wild brush that antagonized … Read more

The Wasteland

After all the people shouting at viewers who already agree and are galvanized like nails waiting to be hammered as if tines on a tuning fork yet somehow out of key locked in false times under their thumb. After all the people shouting from broadcast towers in places we’ve never been; people we’ve never met … Read more

Fuse

Jazz tonight…cold winter tonight…visions of Kansas bonfire nights tonight…hellish thoughts tonight…who says the tenants will be removed tonight…Langston Hughes rhythms tonight…want of alcohol tonight…if the landlord should return tonight…if the bill remains unpaid tonight…silent meditations of dreams tonight…apodictic speech to shadows tonight…if the proletariat gathers strength tonight…if the tension becomes condensed tonight…Emily Dickinson seclusion tonight…transforming … Read more

Grocery List from a DeSoto Jail

Felt like a field trip except for the manacles.Fresh air out the car window.Down a two lane highway through countryside to courthouse.Past corporate candy factory.Is that chocolate in the wind?He could’ve worked there instead of this.After all these years. Day two of the trial. Voir dire.Picking off jurors as best as they can.Attention wanders past … Read more

EVIKT

The streets are paved in the shadow of a hustle you can’t see, only feel. There’s a hole in the wallet where money falls out just as fast as you stuff it in. Fat-cat looking out of the tower doesn’t come down to pick your pocket. He sends word down through a memo to his … Read more

Notice

The shades pulled low in the Rundown. Janitor scrubbing the towers top to bottom. Disinfecting seats of power and of defecation. Wiping receivers of oily prints. Evikt imagined them in the daylight; the drones with their prints all over the scene of the crimes, on keyboards and dry-erase porn; what she called the mailroom stockade … Read more

Noir Blanks

Street lamp. Buzz. Flicker. Highlighting rain.Clicking heels on steps. Stares. Stubstoes, cigarettes. Smudges lipstick. Lighter flicks.The nudge. Twisted neck in the crick.The river’s fresh till.Raging current. Swept under.Push and shovel. Driftwood oar. Faint waftof burning dock. Tragic pile-ons. Evidently evidencewill only be spoken, not photographed.The river’s fresh till.Mistrial and error. An air of mysterybare in … Read more