Laura

While out collecting bottles to subsidise this week's laundry,a group of unnecessary births in a large motor vehicle started shouting:"She's going through the trash!""You are trash!" seemed the most appropriate response.I would have continued.."and the world has become more and more solicitious of your kind while leaving me by the wayside",but something told me they didn't have a dictionary in the glove compartment.

norman

O. school yards have empty swings because the modern version of a person is an application playing games as soon or later the toys play with themselves only the pieces survive to understand how they met is not so easily reprogrammed until they find their purpose from the rats going through the rubble the sky looks way too wet for the circuit boards to survive

norman

N. and so here you are in nyc new deli greece and paris prison what's left of your family in global retribution in debt to roman for philosophies your wife studied yet didn't appreciate from empires carpentry you learned as a trader turned traitor you son licking hes sores as his sister feeds men from herself boarded up in fashion

norman

M. as if horses beat teleportation gambling on the track coming around the bend to a crippled for runner the history of dirt under hooves trained by a surrogate mother to die trying medicine to enable a potential she had accomplished she pretended through herbs and meditation when she won it through her genes in a competition she had no cure to evolve though she could have not devolved so far country gables

norman

L. car filled up with ecstasy their son drove his ambitions from one access in jersey to another access in suits he had met his father over a burial between relatives not related by blood any less than tragedy was the code no cipher without experience in adjoining bruises and prostitutes you know you were partly the blame for the money you burnt counterfeiting his education in academic races

norman

K. life caves in by your marble pressure historic as any son seeking fortune among temple robbers engraved in their intention towards terror misadventure the rings in their ears the diamonds on their time bleeding minds in urbanity or minds in sweaty support of blood letting revolutions you had your motorcycle and access to aerodynamic women where was the harm in falling from a height net return rehearsed on trapezes

norman

J. your only child has been you so long when the choices came you could only play with the handy women wanting whatever you could chisel from out of drama as long as it fit them as your entertainment a man's doll in fashion skirts up in the backseat of shine metal transport from a polo smelling driver despite your construction job was ignorant how the city would map out you coordinates in future ordinates

norman

I. id the fake from the authentic doesn't mean the original was no good to start or the end to finish she has a vow she'll have to decide to roll up and smoke or later read in the underpass as the train lights flicker from station to station she sees signs landscape changes from her valleys to another incorporation owning her working life in dismantled wealth reshaped architecture taking in her daughter for boarding

norman

H. myth the message belief delivers in all cultural realism by ideas gripping in actions passions upon caprice carnivorous upon even carnage yet sanctify consumption in cathedral no wonder as you might think her glass is stained though you are not without your poison sipping beside the alter some faint fluid of another how is one's first communion to reconcile their second or third failing out with faith forge union

norman

G. myth the messager belief delivers in all cultrural realism by ideas gripping in actions passions upon caprice carniverious upon even carnage yet sactify conspumtion in catheral no wonder as you might think her glass is stained though you are not without your poison sipping beside the alter some fait fluid of another

norman

F. before she'd love you on the cross virginity would have to be reborn not a theif of youth or a lier of old wisdom somewhere in the middle you know she had a confession yet you wore the thorns asking for ascension between your hopes and your hatreds would you cry for your sins on your children as you blame them for their birth marks on your hands she hammers are not yours the rights of the betrayed suspect suspect

norman

E. the trouble with knowing she says is the time it takes to forget marble weighs down stability yet you want to have both what you own what you had what you will eventually discard as greek you remember the acropolois let the parthenon fall for all its athenia pathos had its nerve you could say nothing she'd not had prayed to her she said you'd have to become a carpenter in sandals

norman

D. you're working she says to become a father you never had to a wife you'll never mother touch much as a husband if you want this divorce to final you're on your third eclipse still ignorant of the physics she says has a covalent bond between twin neutrinos she can't prove nor you dismiss you are educated in tools though she in engineering science to master your plans you'd need to get pass degrees as a doctor

norman

C. it comes in new glass with old images dressed in the lastest fabrications the industry has to take off years the weight of shapelessness shamelessness never enough exerciser in futility fertility on the decline pushing a pendulum into a corner of drug interventions actions manufactured by intellectual rights organized for profiting racket players to ball on their yachts ownership of the sees by design

norman

B. in relation to service boots the old disasters are worn through their leather their lacing frayed the tongues limp as their mouths flattened what of their eye-holes if not the worms the builder ants have worked until they too are stomped by oncoming traffic the digital car parade of the monster road crews have dug their arteries into popular visions connected glowing promise episodic battles in mundane modernity

norman

A. crumbled school blackboards dirt through their black holes vacant chairs bottoms up sideways seating toilets cracked heads bricks ragged staircases snack machines empty tombs lab rats delicate bones their cages crumpled lattice for such workings as weeds would have their beetles spider bites the old lab poison stung deep in weathered tile if only it would rain if only the globe would change its axis in relation

Laurie

The rock was warm under her bare feet, sea spray cool against her cheek. She inhaled the salt air and looked toward the horizon. “Let’s go,” the man said. “I need a beer.” He flicked cigarette ashes on the lichened stone. “Maybe we should buy that condo.” A prickly sensation tickled her toes and turned them to silver. “I don’t think so,” she said. With a flash of her fishy tail, she dove back into the waiting sea.

Jeremy

The book arrived a day early: a lovely, simple red with just a few gold glints, a scalloped oval surrounding 420 and a tiny dolphin descending. Then, today at the cafe, a dead gnat lit on the cover as I smoked. I went to brush it away. It smudged; a once-living thing became a stain, to the naked eye no different from a bit of wet ash or an old booger. If I had my microscope, I'm sure it would shine like liquid ebony.

Pez

This display of patience was uncharacteristic of Sarah, especially toward her father. She placed her hand gently on his forearm, alarmingly fragile beneath his plaid flannel shirt, and laughed as he recounted a childhood adventure. Inside she wondered drearily how many more times she would have to feign amusement at the same story; in the next moment she hoped desperately that this time was not the last.

Judith

Except for when a resident, generally from the dementia ward, became violent and/or busted loose, the atmosphere at the old folks home remained tranquil as a cup of chamomile tea. It was such a contrast to the forlorn circus from which my guardian had been expelled after one too many failed stunts. The other aged exiles had committed crimes involving either fire or water. To Monkey King, that was amateur hour.