Livid with this life, she is awake, two years old and too much to be contained in bed and dreams. Quick text of change, the psych book says she won’t remember any of it — no matter how idyllic, it’s too traumatic: the maturation process is utter. Her fierce cognition mercifully lost, it is said, […]
Poetry 67
Daniel Nester: Leslie Nielsen Signs Autographs, Comments on His Disaster Movie, The Poseidon Adventure
Splintered, with metallic plastic shards, the ray gun a Leslie Nielsen fan brandishes is the genuine article from Forbidden Planet. “Just point it at me!” he shouts, squinting, chunky girlfriend standing ready with the Polaroid. He refused to hold it, but posed nonetheless, ever the trooper. I walk up to him. Too cheap to buy […]
Daniel Nester: Pay-Per-View Étude
When we see old actors play roles past their prime, why do we not swell with the sunrise of pity? Perhaps we pick out terrible infants hidden beneath their vivid fitted suits. Time’s gracious wooden stakes could straighten them, like tomato branches stretching for the sun. Or think of Monet, his late-life flowers. Fingering our […]
Ander Monson: Lawrence Welk Dies
And men in Craftmatic adjustable beds recline, their hearts on momentary pause — my father one of them; all our fathers one of them, those fathers who made us turn the show on to light up evenings otherwise irreducibly devoted to the one long task, shoveling the snow back from the driveway — six inches […]
Ross Martin: Time Delay : Twenty-One Stills
[Still 21] Me getting out of the truck. I think I was telling him we had to get out of there, which he knew. Nothing felt right but we at least had some money now and we could pay for the gas. [Still 20] Joey getting us some gas. You should send this one to […]
Kevin DiNovis: Baiting Leviathan; or, Watching Jaws Again
we often cast the lunartide your nude to lure what primal scream writhes sternum-driven from beneath- serrated teeth occlude each femur rend your sinews hewn like riven timber- swimmer don’t you know by now what swells below- the undertow- you’ve breached this self- same sheen and swum at least a thou- sand times at our […]