(de)Classified
In a Car, Quickly, on Cape Cod
In a Car, Quickly, on Cape Cod [Audio clip: view full post to listen] A note from the author: [In a Car, Quickly, on Cape Cod] is a selection extracted from a much larger work, a 33,000-word prosodic novella based on an 1,800-mile… more »
Unlikely Factory and Clothes and Papers
Unlikely Factory Carol: I never thought that parts of it are still made by hand! Ann: No wonder they are never uniform. The Inspector: This, ladies, is a bellows. They come in three standard sizes. Of course, custom orders are possible. Carol: Underneath that… more »
“What is broken, God Blesses” and Piranha Fishing
“What is broken, God Blesses” –Jimmy Santiago Baca Broken with the hollow and can never be sung; tomato vines, sticky gnats, yellow flower of bodies into nectar. Just to taste memory. Under my own steam away now to the place before… more »
Fructify
A truly Fringey creation -- poetry meets visuals through the use of Flash. more »
The Gerbil Will Not Leave Its Cage and Pockets Filled with Stones
To a listener of these sonic short fictions, I’d say, think of them as story-songs, or sound-word collages. more »
Blue Black Berries
Listen, I'm not supposed to talk about this. It's supposed to be closeted, absolutely. Unless, of course, you have at least one black parent. Except, of course, you know at least one black person (intimately). more »
The Secret Language of Flowers
View Holly Anderson and Sev Corsen's "The Secret Language of Flowers," an animated artwork created in Flash. more »
Perfect Teeth
GIRL: I smiled narrowly. Smile to indicate my interest; narrow to hide my yellowing teeth. more »
American Fried Questions
Would I go to a French restaurant in Juárez? Could it have been a mere coincidence that J. Willard Marriott, who owns what is presumably the kitchen most likely to get the contract, is a personal friend of Richard Nixon, a president who had a history of eating cottage cheese with ketchup (the "old Nixon" we've heard so much about) and has raised a daughter whose favorite recipe is made with canned soup? more »
Village 7 and Rustica
The nomad with the basket of fresh hams came to pay his taxes at the kiosk. The liar behind the counter took his twelve ducats and let him through to the marketplace. The dolers (as in “they were dolers of fruit”) were shuttling little relics back and forth. The eel vendor leaned back in his mini-hammock, his feet spray-painted a striking blue. The nomad opened up his basket, releasing a fly that had gotten stuck inside. Darnit, he muttered, hoping nobody had seen. Who would buy his fresh... more »
Young Mother: Three Portraits
Icarus You were ashamed in those days: forgive yourself. Boiling water, washing those babies, tugging at your heels as if allergic to themselves, gnawing on you like woodpeckers gnaw on wood… Your body was a big hole, pockets everywhere; remember pacifiers and pins – So you get… more »
Slamdance
SAMETH, 22, necktie, bare chest, surfs through the haze of a mosh pit, riding the hands. Black Flag plays above, behind, in the background, discordant and wild. The dancers in the pit sweat, fling their long hair in whiplash circles. SAMETH I held her… more »
Two Curtains
Toto pulls the curtain open and poof!, the enormous powerful head of the wizard vanishes; poof! to Dorothy’s childhood, poof! to puffed up father figures. Poof, of course, to the Technicolor of Oz. The curtain has revealed the gray behind it, and to this endless grayness she must return. more »
A Well-Received Story
I once wrote a short story that was very well received. All it was was an examination of the minutia of a man's life. The opening page contained a paragraph dedicated to the rituals that my narrator went through every morning with his sock drawer, how he organized and folded his socks in a certain way. He was very particular about his sock drawer, and he had a lot to say about it. more »
Shattered Beer Bottles
A las ratas con tres patas y a mis comadres Las Chillonas, Chingonsísimas Mujeres/ To the three-legged rats and my comadres Las Chillonas, Chingonsísimas Mujeres. Rated G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17: To all ethnicities, including white people. Breathe in out. Take breaks… more »
Breathing Book
If you are given one set of letters, you can write down the others. Francis Crick This is a book of beginning (words). This is a book of endings (books). This is a forgetting and a remembering. This is a book spun… more »