Why the river called to my young son / I do not know; the river is cold, and / Will not tell me. Maybe it had grown / Weary of the silver it stole / From the mountains
Several million words per year hit my screen. Far, far fewer will ever hit yours, to include those words I throw at this log of events and other unconventionally-published meanderings of a strange organ locked in a bone cage.
Why the river called to my young son / I do not know; the river is cold, and / Will not tell me. Maybe it had grown / Weary of the silver it stole / From the mountains
More rapid than eagles his curses they came, / He whistled, and shouted, and damned them by name: / “Now, Nug! Here, hoary Nodens! Loom, Azathoth!
“Does it talk?” “No. She, not it.” “I heard it used to play with—” “—She don’t play with anything except her food. You play. She corrects you.”
I caught the trees asleep at dawn / Final brown fruits… no wind has blown / A late harvest: the hard snap came / Ice built its home. Diadem boughs / Met a new sun, leaves fell like rain…
Copeland Banfield had bare seconds to beat the first drops, minutes to beat a downpour… perhaps half an hour to open and close the scene before it washed entirely away.
I remember when my mother made a hill of soft, loose dirt for me to lie upon, a place where I could grow more slowly than a grove of oaks; a place where I was safe from the eyes of gods and men.
Thinking / I will bolt, / I am shown the rope / To judge / Whether I find / The braid / To my liking. / Hide and hair, / Sinew and / Fiber: / Lariats created / For barter and raiding / And war and the / Quelling of beeves…
Conover, Nebraska, 1986… As summer break winds-down, Lee and Rocky Keller inherit a joy-buzzer from Grandpa Steve’s service in the Pacific. A war trophy, the buzzer acts the part—the horror!
Lee Keller’s life is hell—a hormonal brother, troubled parents, oblivious grandparents, a girl-friend, football practice, the first day of middle school… oh yes, and the Boy of Smoke, harbinger of the Faceless One.
Oh… yes, of course / Take my turn, honey / Take my place in line / It’s fine / Take my copper money / Sip my box of lemon-lime / Make me last / Make me last.