Another Bird Poem, If You Can Believe That

I'm honored to be a part of Monstering magazine's inaugural issue.

You can read my poem "Ketoconazole" here. It even comes with its own soundtrack.

One New Poem at The Murmur House

Amaryllis belladonna by Louis van Houtte, 1861.

The latest issue of The Murmur House is all about falling.

You can read my contribution, "Amaryllis," here.

Performance of a Lifetime

Dr. Moran tapped his heavy silver pen against a sheaf of test results. “Well,” he said, “I’ve found the problem.”

I’d arrived enervated in his office a few weeks ago, drifting through the door in a fog of weakness and fatigue. Headaches hammered me all day. I was 23 years old and my bones ached. I couldn’t feel my feet. My guts felt oily and torqued. Once a month or so I slipped into a hot, dizzy spell that made the floor slant and my eyes blur. None of this was new.

Want to read the rest? Click here or, better yet, go to your local bookstore and buy the summer issue of Bitch magazine.

Buy a few copies, actually. It's good.

One New Poem

Lauren Treece via Flickr // CC BY-ND 2.0

to the mice inside the walls

to us out here

the scrabbling bustle

of your busyness

sounds the same.

little neighbors, have you noticed

the volume

in these rooms

increasing?

an uptick 

in the number of tissues

in the bedroom’s

wicker wastebasket?

are we leaving 

more crumbs

of pie & pizza

on the kitchen floor,

more herbal tea boxes

and wine bottles

in the recycling bin?

maybe this time 

is only as strange 

as any other

for you,

who have never before

seen january—

for you,

who will never see 

a november

again.

One Poem in Qu

"Luncheon of the Boating Party" by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I went on some pretty bad dates last year. The worst one turned into a poem.

(I recommend taking a very close look at the action in the upper-right corner of the Renoir above.)

"Blind Date, Phillips Collection" is out now in Qu Literary Magazine. 

Goodbye, James.

"Jellyfish on a Stick," by James C. Christensen

James C. Christensen (1942 - 2017) was an exuberant collaborator, a generous teacher, and a friend. The world is a stranger and more beautiful place because he was in it.