My New Yorker Life, April 24, 2017

A connection at first touch.
Learn more.

What if technology could help
on the stink highway.

Name & name
a mushroom.

Stay well.
What is your succulent?

Rarely the one you expect.
Trespass when it comes uninvited:

Brand. Brand.com
Artists of the south,

the great glass elevator: the world.
This tableau is positioned to contrast

the man behind the mind.
A sturdy stance and a blurred head,

the more ways to wear,
live your life

heavy metal.
Towering sets, ornate costumes,

thanks for finding us.
To evoke a single arc

for an original mix
as spare and unconsoled as anything

overgrown with facial hair,
she makes narratives out of gestures,

half-buried in a mound of sand.
Every spit take and sight gag,

what would that sound like?
Blows the stuffing out of seashells,

the temples of the southern state.
Who purchases a book will receive a rose,

the heart of a puntarelle.
Start planning

alarm at what they say, shock
like a woke hieroglyph.

Trigger the question
in my childhood bedroom,

smell even better in the future.
I wish my life was that free

with the culture, the attire,
the most precious vehicle

people want to see.

My New Yorker Life, March 27

This is the second installment of a project I started on March 13.

Where to go, what to do. A couple embarks on a marital experiment. They must explain. Let the lipstick fly! Reconciliation, however well meant, turns out to be an elusive ideal. This pre-Depression world is dominated by the wealthy. This show is about stage magic itself.

This is the final performance. This bilingual group slugs through brawny no-wave shows with little concern for personal safety or noise-induced hearing loss. All those women flinging themselves around in great swaths of fabric. It’s a method that can be dissatisfying, when the strangeness and desires turn out to be humdrum. A downcast female figure in profile, walking in low heels—she appears both illuminated by acid-yellow light and bathed in lurid red. Oh, yes, I go there all the time. Master an art that improves every realm of your life. I like things done in an orderly manner. If only everyone could have access to this! The bread would be tasty.

This whole thing of making bronze statues to last five thousand years—if everyone did that, there’d be no space left. Snowmobiling is popular, and people leave their car doors unlocked while they’re at the grocery store. It requires constant vigilance. This is not a drill. He owes it. It’s a magnificent place, with eighteen-foot-high ceilings and a working fireplace. Both crave attention.

It’s outrage of the hour. We’re not sure if we’re middle class. We put all our focus on the wrong problem. Like a giant vac with nine nozzles. The warning is clear. Both apply for a job in management. Can I give you a piece of advice?

We’re these two bug-eyed kids who’ve been told to stick to the conductor like glue. You don’t see the poverty, but it’s there. A kamikaze candidate abandons the usual talking points. In my view. I’m happy going through my life without saying anything to anybody. A cat has value. The whole family is very determined. Intensely secretive and filled with people with Ph.D.s, it has been sensationally profitable. Their brains are almost too strong. They’re just sheep. She reads every story, and calls when there are grammatical errors or typos. Things that she thinks put lead on the target.

Packingtown Review: Volume 8

I helped found this Chicago mag back in 2008. It has taught me how to edit serious literary works. It's been introducing me to writers from around the world, and it's teaching me how to code. Volume 8 is up.