I listen to "The Manifold Curiosity" much too much. It is a sublime collaboration of music and lyric that always inspires this overwhelming sense of wonder and, for lack of a better word, curiosity inside of me.

6-word Stories

- inspired by Sherman Alexie

1. She was my dream girl. Gone.

2. If you hear two gunshots, goodbye.

3. Forget about it, you're still Generalissimo.

Stardate, The Saturn Opposition, Part 1

(In which our lovely hero realizes he can calculate neither stardates nor the end of the world.)

I find myself riding a strange wave

of unfinished business. Nothing

I start will come to completion

though I beckon it from the shores

of my motivation. Food I now eat

without the luxury of flavor.

Something is simply missing,

and so missing something simply

my credit only grows, monstrously.

He speaks from under the couch

next to my bedless head,

says hey, you got an ok thing

going on here. keep at it.

But the thing is I don't listen

to monsters even if they do

sound sweet justifying

their pedagogical arguments.

Would rather just stay on floor

(because I can't stay in bed)

contemplating whether Che

was really more like me

or you.

imiss you.

The boys were born of gasoline,

one spark away from burning

like rocket children into the night

air. And wherever they went, a dense

haze of sweet-tasting yet gag-inducing

confusion was sure to follow. The girls

loved the smell of their flammability.

They captured it in mason jars and

snuck it home underneath their white

dresses. The glass jars, filled with so

much passionate vapor, would clink

from below the beds. Soft noises

that made them feel open all over.

The boys knew this, especially the red

one with the funny face, and they loved it.

Maybe I might taste you tonight

in some empty stinging glass

or see your face like rosy sunshine

in the darkened crowd before the band.

They are swelling with emotion,

everyone around. "Stay with me"

we plead together, "don't want to be alone,"

but we can't pick up the telephone,

or stand the smell of what we are at home:

just ourselves. Our poor, tawdry

ass-dragging backwards little selves.

Sleeping on it, sleeping on it so,

sleeping with it, keeping with it

cause we can never let it go.

carmen bajo

carmen bajo el cielo

andando hacia un grupo

nuevo de olores,

sabores, na na na

no importa, na na na,

no importa si nos vemos

o mas tarde, si, si, si me quedo

carmen bajo los portales

azules de la calle

esa fuente ya no tiene

agua pa tomar

y si murieramos de sed

aqui despacito en la plaza

mandare tus huesos

tus besos por los ciclos

de mis ultimos alientos.

asi, creo que todo

seria bien.

bien? bien. bien? bien.

biennnnn.

They were rejoicing in the aisles

and the supervisors could not believe

their superior eyes.

Champagne and caveats washed away

the weary before they even had the inclination

of begging, "no more."

And all the while I was dancing out of my skin

and you were diffusing threatening conversations

and the workers of the world

were not uniting because if they did

oh man

it would be bad news bears.

Estoy sentado como un inválido

Estoy sentado como un inválido en el desierto de mi deseo de ti.

Me he acostumbrado a beber la noche lentamente, porque sé que la habitas, no importa dónde, poblándola de sueños.

El viento de la noche abate estrellas temblorosas en mis manos, que aún no se conforman, viudas inconsolables de tu pelo.

En mi corazón se agitan los pájaros que en él sembraste y a veces les daría la libertad que exigen para volver a ti, con el helado filo del cuchillo.

Pero no puede ser. Porque estás tan en mí, tan viva en mí, que si me muero a ti te moriría.

I Sit Here Like an Invalid

I sit here like an invalid in the desert of my desire for you

I’ve grown used to sipping the night slowly, knowing
you’re in it somewhere filling it with dreams.

The night wind whips the stars flickering in my hands,
broken-hearted widows of your hair, still unreconciled.

The birds you planted in my heart are stirring and
sometimes with a knife’s cold blade
I’d offer them the freedom they demand to go back to you.

And yet I can’t. You’re so much a part of me, so much alive in me
that if I died, my death would kill you.

- Juan Gelman

The "Good"

Wave only to things that cannot

return your goodbye.

Airplanes falling into the sky,

the unsuspecting would-be loves of your life,

bus stops,

the scowling eyes that clog the mirrors

as the gypsy cab howls off into the fog,

bundles of evergreen trees flipping the clouds

off like there is no tomorrow. Things like that.

If you do so, I can promise that you will never know

the hurt of staring into uncertainty.

And with that, adieu is bid.