Monthly Archives: June 2011
The Things He Cherished: A Sestina
In my cottage by the sea, hours spent admiring the garden, I wait patiently for my children to return home, direct from the city to cherish this place. Its uniqueness and beauty. Flowers, surf, majestic beauty— sharp, blue sky against … Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
The Men’s Mayhem Movie Club (Excerpt)
Up until around 2009, my job was a breeze. I walked into doctor’s offices with the wind at my back, with the collective weight of the world’s largest pharmaceutical research company driving my pitch. I wasn’t Dominick Praeger, I was … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
Refracted Light
I. Coda That light loops endlessly. Older than sound it happens long ago. It doesn’t affect anyone now. II. Kitchen, 2 a.m. The bottle sounds like a bell when it bumps against the tumbler You say it’s water I say … Continue reading
BLOOD ON THE FLOOR
“You aren’t…you never listen,” Liz says. We are in the middle of the argument, the place where she always begins to lose her words. Her eyes dart up and down my body like a ferret looking for open skin to … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
After the Ink Fades
Somehow, Early Times Whiskey and Sam Kinison and Matthew’s company did not prepare my heart for your voice. And if I was older or better, at least, this would have been easier to see coming. At least heard. Kinison hated … Continue reading
The Balsa Wood Box
A man came into the store today and bought the balsa wood jewel box. He was an old man, with deep wrinkles of the kind that a man can’t shave inside. Gray stubble grew from them like grass in sidewalk … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
Translation
earth and air in the word brief inhabitance necessary the shift of line the shift of light the instinct of breath how it meant winter, spring, the calendar of a child transparency of mind and hand a way to be … Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Bartenders
Five in the morning always comes quick when you drink at your work after you get off. You check your watch and say I’m just going to have a couple when you start drinking at two thirty but then it’s … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
CIVILITY BE DAMNED
An exemplary citizen with a Jimmy Carter smile observed all the rules. He never littered or tossed a butt or gum wrapper from a moving car, he’d even pocket a banana peel that mother earth could easily conceal. Agreeing with … Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
To Whom It May Concern (Excerpt) with introduction by Lauren Cummings
The editors of The Whistling Fire are all too familiar with the necessary evil of balancing a day job with our writing; as well as the difficulty of balancing that with our work here at The Whistling Fire and everything … Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
