troglodyte femme fatale she’s a midnight hoot all the fang-boys love her silky mane, fingernails an orange sherbet clunky green boots, ripped fishnet stockings malodorous pheromones, a psychic turn-on she’s no momma’s girl & daddy’s long gone Marlboro lights and BV chasers, her a.m. pick-me-up she sucks at miniature golf and laser tag digs Bukowski, Patti Smith worships Ted Hughes she loves honky-tonk polka, double four-time met herself a fine young Liverpool lad— snuck …
Did you take it into your mouth feel its roundness and warmth did the rays shoot up and out from your eyes and didn’t everyone see that didn’t they comment on it and didn’t this go on for years like the sun would linger just above the horizon until at last sun kissed land and land swallowed sun and didn’t the temperature drop then as a changed light drained from your eyes and hasn’t it come now night deep and uncertain has night truly come? Bill Hollands’ work has been …
I have a problem: I don’t feel sexy when I shave and I don’t feel sexy when I don’t. Sometimes, I shave anyway so I can look at myself better, feel how smooth I am to touch. Most of the time, I don’t. Don’t want a full bush, a gorgeous woman on reality TV once told me, or else men get lost down there. (I’m queer, but that’s beside the point.) I do, I said to the TV screen, wishing she’d get it. I like feeling feral. I like it when my body hides. I like how shame, waiting patiently to be …
I like my poems fresh— my phrases picked early in the morning, before the sun ripens my sentences, wilting words in the heat. Lately, I’ve been trying to find a sharper knife. I want something gleaming, infallible. A serrated mind, more severe in its offerings. I like when words burst in their fullness, like summer fruit blushing towards its yield. I’m stewing the adjectives so they surprise you— languorous in their slumber, dawning purple and rich in your mouth. Pickling makes my …
I walk our high school track under the noonday sun as young Carter the Punter goes about his ritual in the end zone 75 yards away. I work where Carter is a student and venture outside whenever possible, the mountain air has a way of breaking my fatigue. Carter talks to himself as he stretches; his voice resembles a muppet and carries well. In good and ill-tempered weather, he will be here with his duffle bag of tools: a small pump, ten footballs, exercise bands, two pairs of cleats, and a …
I make my coffee in the dark in order to prolong the delicious weight of sleep. The sun will rise soon but for now a thin tangerine light glows above Flat Top, where pitched roofs jut from the skyline and the radio tower blinks with red devil’s eyes. Yesterday’s flowers, the first of late winter, have already dropped yellow and purple petals on the sideboard. I move slowly to keep my dreams alive in my brain. An email, there’s always a dream email, with instructions I don’t understand. An …