Twenty-First Century playtime: 5YO: I have to take care of this puppy because my mom got this puppy with her husband but then they broke up. They were married but they broke up and now I have this puppy because my mom’s on vacation and the puppy’s babysitter called in sick. ___________________ Last weekend the … Continue reading All About That Broth and Indoor Bug Canopies
After writing about martians yesterday, I remembered two of my favorite extraterrestrial quotes in the old Mysteries of Mind, Space, and Time collection: Truth is denied to the constipated. That which is known as cancer comes through the teeth. While these are my preferred translations, the editors graciously offer a variation on each. Constipated for … Continue reading Trust No One Constipated: More UFOs and the Loch Ness Eel
Citrus Smokestacks(found poem–pg. 21 of Eric Schlosser’sFast Food Nation) The town out on the edge nicknamed “Citrus Smokestacks”had just sixty inhabitants. It was the last stop.Tourists and migrants jammed cheap motels.A local motorcycle club, “Airborne Angels,”celebrated families and small children and Marlon Brando. They supplied a new yin and yang. The Hunterwrote of shoplifting culture. … Continue reading Little Billboards #84
The 7YO begins to poke at her breakfast toast, a nice deli loaf slice shaped like a long oval. She makes eye-holes and puts it on her face like a superhero mask. 7YO: I’m Toast Ma’am!ME: Where did you get that from?7YO: The toast.ME: No, is that from a video or something?7YO: It’s from the … Continue reading Toast Ma’am and The Tractor Made Me Do It
This is a conversation that I heard about but didn’t hear. 5YO: Do you have any kids’ shows on your TV?Grandma: Nope. 5YO: Why not?Grandma: Grandpa and I don’t watch those shows.5YO: You don’t even have the channels?Grandma: Our TV doesn’t have those channels.5YO: Why not?Grandma: Grandpa and I don’t need them.5YO: But didn’t you … Continue reading Almost Overheard + Goodbye, Eunoia
After a library visit, we were driving by a very popular taco joint near us and I commented on its popularity. My youngest improvised a song: I sat down at the taco placeand asked them to feed my face.I ate it all and then got scared,‘Cause I farted myself up into space. I thought it … Continue reading To Boldly Go
A few friends of mine have worked through the “Favorite Films for Every Year I’ve Been Alive” and it looked like fun. Zine-Queen Delaine Derry Green posted hers on Facebook and digital slayer and general maker-of-things Trey Lane made a rad Storify version of his. My Favorite Film for Every Year I’ve Been Alive 1977: … Continue reading Might as well….
School is incessant. Essays pile up. Standardized tests becloud the horizon. My feet are unfailingly wet. Either my children have hydrokinesis and practice on my socks, or they are careless around water. Despite the times, Friday saw the release of Jasper Lee’s Mirror of Wind LP. Jasper’s most well-known music is on the score for … Continue reading That Time of Year You May In Me Behold
I’m reading J.H. Prynne’s The White Stones for the first time and while enjoying it, I often find myself feeling lost. I don’t find that a negative response; I have often felt that way with works that have become favorites. There are themes and images that connect across the poems and I’m just barely getting an overall … Continue reading to be warm and tired/without some impossible flame in the heart
Stephen McClurg 