I’ve tried all my life very hardnot to cheat it wasn’t easy Iwasn’t entirely successful and here comes this childangelic charm and cunning smilehis hand on a discardedcard he needs asking could Ijust not constantly watch him and I imagine
Dolores Haze’s Love Letter to the World
The crepe de chine of my floor-lengthgown dusts the corridor through whichI pass, en route to the governor’s ball,glass of Crémant d’Alsace in myfusilladed hand. Were this anopera, the flautist would bepoised, instrument aloft,in the orchestral pit:as it stands, it’s
Love Letter to Galileo: Saturnalia
—New Orleans, LA We spilled notes on bar napkins, novelists bussing awayour empty pint glasses, everyone waitingfor that moment when the frycook would bring his slide guitarto the back bar, spit blues as the roosters begin their call.We all have
Performing Anxiety in the Name of Gasp
(Before the choke-song I askmy elders for permission to speakour dry-tongue family slangfor the non-believers.) My mother pressed hervoice against my earand whispered “baby therewas a time I tried to get outsidemy breath and when I couldn’t I (Gasp from
Sleep Hunter
who is narcissus to charge forth, a bull, fear of blood miming his limbs? we refuse to give up our skin for his armor, we who are smaller than the seeds, we who are not dead. we know everything—will contact spirits
} Atrophied Prescript:
} ATROPHIED PRESCRIPT: The eye pulses the white slug with a million million woman’s breasts into itself. Two slugs rubbing their milk flood on one another asexually. The slugs sharking each other with no teeth: is that a human entity?
ELEGY FOR A SINGING RIVER
the shores fanned out like dark kidneys, moon a tiny mirror on her face she lists the dangers knowing nothing but despair of rain in stomach if water were to loss as light is to body, then let it be
This Boy I Once Knew
Contractions and pulsations loosely define the form of the jellyfish. Although it has some ability to guide itself through its undulations, currents and tides dictate its movements. The whole entity is translucent in artificial illumination. It draws nutrients into to
Electricity
There was a leak in the font and the floor of the hall was crackling over and flooded with current. I filled my bucket and dipped my phone in to my wrist until the screen glowed on and I couldn’t
REVIEW OF We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love and Literature at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, edited by Eric Olsen and Glen Schaeffer
Daniel Green reviews We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love and Literature at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, edited by Eric Olsen and Glen Schaeffer. Skyhorse Publishing, 2009, 320 pages, $16.95 978-1602397354 A frequent criticism of creative writing programs is