Monthly Archives: January 2011
Highwire Moon: Prologue (with introduction by Chema Guijarro)
As a final addition to my tenure as Guest Editor for The Whistling Fire, the editors of this fine journal have a surprise: an excerpt from Highwire Moon written by Susan Straight and a finalist for the National Book Award. … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
THE TRAIN
An iceberg drifts south; vacationing in the Atlantic. A willow tree sings of lost pleasures. Molasses stokes the fire. Trees drop leaves that shatter. Geysers of purple paint cover the moon. The moon struts; showing off its new look. The … Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Beyond Bonnie’s House
She’s the reason I’ve never liked the name Bonnie. When I try to picture her in my mind, I see her standing in her kitchen, torn, yellowing wallpaper in the background. She’s holding a spatula, swaying as she flips quesadillas … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
A Cerebral Nudge
years can go past then, all of a sudden there it is again a long forgotten riff plays on your ears touches your heart a smile lingers you begin to hum along all of a sudden you’re back thrust into … Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Mama, Baby, Man
This is mama’s eye, and this is mama’s thigh. Mama’s elbow, mama’s knee, mama’s ass. We are in the mirror. BIG ass, I say. Baby claps her hands. Two hands, I say, but we are in the mirror so there … Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
AND I KNEW YOU WOULDN’T LET ME OTHERWISE
Arthritis is like electricity, my mother says, taking my hand. Holding hers, I feel nothing. She says wait, keep holding it. I do . . . nothing. Moments go by. She finally looks at me, says, “I just wanted to … Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
I LIVED IN A MAUSOLEUM ONCE
in California. I’d write poems on my skin, because I had no paper and I had a Bible and would read it in the moonlight, my eyes aching. The homeless days. I’d come out at night and sleep on the … Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Waiting at the Gilbert
The old man is six feet away, but I can still smell him. It’s a permeating stench. A mixture of piss, dirty socks, unwashed body, and a bunch of other rancid smells I don’t want to identify let alone drift … Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
Witness, Me
I stood outside the Court and watched, as bobbies spat breakfast on the rounded brick street the smell of vomiting sweet to my senses Inside, unfocused images moved near the blood-tinted walls and meager furniture voices, whispering, “Oh, God, Oh, … Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
The Court Martial of Lance Corporal Jones
It all began during the Guam Independence Day Parade. First Platoon, that’s my platoon, was marching in front of the company, down Marine Drive. The parade was going to end at the southern part of Agaña. It was really hot … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
