Fifty-six years later, James Baldwin's words remain true: "To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious, is to be in a rage almost all the time. So that the first problem is how to control that rage so that it won't destroy you."
You can know the Star Spangled Banner by heart
You can know what happened to your kids
What happened to your town after the flood, after the tornado,
after the life was kicked out of you
You can know a little or a lot about American history
You have to wish me a happy birthday,
Claire says after her analyst says
“look what Duchamp has done
with his individuation process!”
"And now?" Gregor asked himself, looking around in the darkness. He noticed the motion of a small insect reflecting the sudden light of his cell phone, having received a text from Gertrude, his occasional lover, asking to see him tonight. She has news. The insect flew beyond the screen when it darkened on its timer, the locked phone's setting being short...
A cabinet of curiosities lined with mirrors,
my arm enters, my hand grasps a rattle
that was laid next to a pewter fire witch,
crooked hat, eyes wide, hands up,
before dust encased the objects
and spiders made their home.
It was more than casual, The Desire. And it wasn’t “desire” strictly speaking, he had to grudgingly admit. Larry’s girlfriend Liz, on her way from Brooklyn and stuck in LIE traffic, texted him during the traffic’s ebb. He was sick and he’d told her he was sick, making vague reference to a weird virus going around Long Island and moaning about back pain as he lay on his...
i inevitably repeat myself and i suffer
i say that i’m the reporter of myself and others with
some extra neurotic variant and that makes it okay?
He could barely grip the doorknob as he staggered into the house. Inside, the darkness was thick, heavy, grim. It took a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to the various hues of blackness, for his thumping heart to accommodate the shadings and gradations of fear and dread. The smell of Jack Daniels escaped from his mouth in between hiccups, like puffs of...
I never met the snake, but the wife did.
The wife saw it, not me. I know
that there are no snakes. There are no snakes,
at least not here, not in our garden—
this is what I told the wife God knows how many times.
There are no snakes around here,
I told her, just as there are no angels.
So, what’s new? ‘Some wankers are doing shit to the place where I live and I can’t do anything about it’? Okay, how about:
Signed an executive order that began to dismantle The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Restricted funds for global health assistance groups that provide abortions. Promised to cut funding for the NEA, NEH, and PBS, Minority Business Development Agency, Economic Development Administration, International...
In a galaxy far, far away, Larry lay dope sick on his parent’s couch.
This was before addiction had taken hold, flu-like, in the early years when he was immune to addiction — he was born free of the congenital disease — his immunity built by witness, by inoculating revulsion to his own family members’ personal struggles with the condition. He was a dope head romantic.
Statement of Record