All My Exes Hate Me
it’s a big gross world and
i don’t know what it wants from me
close my eyes
listen to lo-fi remixes of brazilian disco hits
beats hit like waves
and everything smells so salty
i am so damn salty
“Exhuming Luigi”, “Father” and “On the Beach Wall: St. Malo”
Exhuming Luigi
God, we were drunk the night we exhumed your ferret
from the dirt in the grounds of your old school. We
drank mudslides and white russians until the bartender
dimmed the lights and put all the stools but ours on
the bar, the chairs on the tables. Stumbling into the cold,
on a chorus of “Life’s Been Good” and “Marian the Librarian,”
thinking what a good idea it would be to dig some bones
from the dirt.
“I Am My Own Savior” and “Lady Saturn”
I Am My Own Savior
Somedays I take my pills gladly, with hope
and juice to wash it down, and other days
I glare at them until they get caught in my throat
and I hate myself for feeling like they’ve failed me
already. Somedays it’s 85 degrees in Phoenix
but I’m caught under feet of suffocating snow
with no one to pour salt on my flailing body,
like drowning all over again, but so weighted and cold
I’m dragged to the earth’s core.
“Akashic Archives”, “Quest/Vision” and “Ode Et. Al.”
Ode Et. Al.
We still pray to the old gods
changing of the guard:
deity in that solemn face of the ancestors.
Help me through [the moon light]
We still pray in Quechua, Aymara,
Lacandon, et. Al.
Affinity –see the shoulder width of those keloids
scars on the backs of African slaves [marks the above fight]
“Golden Shiraz” and “You Killed My Mother”
Golden Shiraz
Everyone here lives in the past
In a golden age of bliss
Living in our own versions of the past
Living in a version of what it all meant
Ghosts of what once was
Before the revolution
Before the loss
Before we packed our bags and left
Before, before, before
When we were all made of gold….
“Man of the City”
Man of the City
Put red crosses all over my calendar
jam my luggage
til ‘tis too heavy to heave
I wanna be sure I won’t leave
Prepare hot meals
anything warm
for our factory-stomachs
let us first lounge & rest
in the shade of our jungle-lounge
hidden away from the omnipotent eyes
of our western lives.
“Forest Nocturne”, “Lunar Light” and “Superposition: Love on a Quantum Level”
Forest Nocturne
this drama hums birched, blue,
and pine behind winter-closed doors
where raccoons and rabbits still.
i remember the evening’s autumn
cathedral when amber light
massed in prayer above. i
played over the under of your body.
don’t think Nietzsche would be
angry because under
i explored this penumbra’d path
round a temporary pond jewelled
with drake and hen lusty
in spring swell—winter’s death
finding level.
“Beloved Mother”, “Decolonial Inventory: Impressionism to indocumentados” and “The Blueprint of the Land”
Beloved Mother
What I want to write
is that I am
and I can not stop being
I want to give back everything you have given me, mother.
And thanks to you I am far away again in New York
But I’ll be fine. Do not worry
A poem for you, mother
is the least I can do
turning my love into words.
Here’s a bit of me and you
It rained in your day today
for you mother. I am ashamed
I can not give you more.
The Message
Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2025
“Mr. Bookman, time for dinner!”
Simon Bookman roused, groggily, and studied the nurse. He didn’t recognize the nurse that took care of him for the last two years. Josephine Lucas rolled Mr. Bookman in his wheelchair to the dining room for today’s feast consisting of a dry piece of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and a little cup of vanilla flavored ice cream.
If Simon Bookman could remember the old days, he’d recall the smell of baked apples wafting up the staircase and hypnotizing his three boys, Winston, seventeen, Sebastian, fourteen, and Wellington, age ten, respectively, dropped in the lap of Simon and his wife Margaret after Simon’s brother and sister-in-law died in 2000, courtesy of a drunk driver.
The older boys retreated into the safety net of their deceased father’s transportation company. Wellington chose the sciences and graduated from Stanford, and celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday, a shared celebration with his beloved uncle.
Root That Mountain Down: Chapter One
It’s an unspeakable smell. The smell of death. The ripping open of animal to let out the demons, loosing the jumble of organ and bone and tissue and exposing it to open air where microbe and maggot and mosquito can do their work.
Black piles of waste swarming with insects fill clearings in the woods, just beyond the demarcated perimeter where decrepit buildings totter in the heat. Two scraggly roosters barely muster up the energy to chase each other in languid circles amidst food wrappers and beer cans. Muddy men wearing flip-flops cradle tattered playing cards and AK-47s.
A voice booms from inside the long, flat building: “Hey! Hey! Hey!” over and over like a wicked hymn. A shirtless man emerges. Stretching from his right shoulder to his belly button is a long purple scar. The belly button protrudes like a tiny appendage. His arms are outstretched, and unlike the other men, he has a nice potbelly.
Platform 5
Prague is cold. I stand on the train platform shivering in my wool coat, tighten my scarf around my neck, and close my eyes. I picture myself sitting on the front steps of my university library back in Texas, the feeling of the Texas sun in the summer, its angry heat. Despite living in Europe for four months, most of it spent in Northern England, I’m not used to the cold. I check the time on my phone, making sure I’m still on schedule for making my flight.
Read more.An Anthropologist “Storms Heaven”
As the urban traveller ticks off cross streets—Van Ness, Filmore, Divisedero, Presidio—in the Peruvian lowlands where travel is chiefly by water, it’s confluent rivers: Huallaga, Chambira, Tigre, Ucayali. And every arrival, if the locals are to be believed, is only tres vueltas mas, ‘three more bends.’
Read more.Land of the Free
For the first 20 years of Douglas Williams’ life, his grandmother Mary had been tightlipped about her past—what had brought her to America, what and who she had left behind. During the last week of his last semester of college, Douglas’ father Llewelyn Williams Jr., fearing a downturn in Mary’s health, insisted Douglas join the family at the nursing home that had housed her for the last five years. That evening, after a short visit from a priest during which she insisted she was healthy as ever, she asked about Douglas’ upcoming Army service and if he still expected to be stationed in Europe for a time. When Douglas answered yes, she made this request of him: Please look up my brother-in-law Joseph, who might or might not still be living in Wales. She gave Douglas a photograph of her long-dead husband Llewelyn Williams Sr., noting that she had none of Joseph, but that the two brothers, born a few years apart in age, shared enough features for the photo to be useful. Promise you will do this for me, she insisted. Douglas kissed her on the forehead and promised he would. Mary’s request took everyone by surprise, especially Douglas’ father, himself equally tightlipped about his origins—as if it were a family obligation to bury the past.
Read more.Economy As Intimacy
During a previous artistic project of mine, I explored various one-person endeavours into positive change through dialogue against the backdrop of worldwide geopolitical issues. We would engage in a range of topics—from gender equality to environmental awareness—all with a focus on “the small-scale” and with forward-looking attitude. But afterwards, I was left thinking ideas/opinions on economics or finances were left unspoken.
Read more.See Table 1
It is argued that it is time to classify the compulsive need to hoard military-grade weapons and ammunition as a mental health issue that would preclude the said hoarding (see Table 1).
Read more.Freedom
Dr. Levine, the psychiatrist, seems perfectly comfortable with long stretches of silence. Long stretches of silence are the story of my life. This is my third visit with the doctor. Mom is mad at him because he doesn’t prescribe anything for me. She wants me fixed. My mind needs mending in her opinion. He’s asked me why I’m here. I don’t answer. Looking out the window I watch a squirrel climbing up an oak tree. He loses his balance, landing on the lawn below where all the acorns are anyway but he ignores them and jumps right back onto the trunk and tries again. Stretching out to reach a limb he falls onto the grass once again. The acorns are right there. What is he really after, I wonder. I just want to hear the truth. That’s what I’m after. I think about the day I told my mom I know the truth.
Read more.The Keeper of the Keys
Torn clouds scuttled across the sky with the beginnings of the moon’s light dancing behind them as they chased their own broken shadows. The yellow glow and low hum of the city street lamps fluttered and shook, not quite sure if it was their time to shine in the waning daylight. The air had turned cool in the evenings, keeping the large crowds of lookie loos inside the bars or coffee shops up the street from the bridge, only giving them reason to venture out for necessity instead of pleasure walks. The faint sound of moving water purred underneath him, as he sat on a bench near the end of the bridge, waiting and watching out of the corner of his eye. Without fail, he always managed to find one.
Read more.Closure
At the time, I lived on the 31st floor of a modern apartment complex for middle-income households. I loved the large grounds and being a fitness freak, the easy access to a pool and a gymnasium. I loved having a shopping mall and a multiplex cinema a stone’s throw away.
It was 4 am and I exited my Uber, teary-eyed, inebriated and nauseous. I had just ended things with Dee, the love of my life. It had been the most amazing relationship for eight years. We were two hippies who floated through life like synchronized swimmers too lazy to collect their gold medals at the Olympics.
Tip
Captain Haines sheds his rain-pressed coat and hat in the entryway of the railcar diner. Laughter from 3 a.m. troublemakers, snores from booth-ridden sleepwalkers, snaps from slow-moving line cooks cut through the smoke-festooned air in the same whirling loops.
Dark-haired, gum-popping Dina points her pen at the large central booth with only two place settings. Haines nods as he retires his trench and cap on the sharp wall hook over a bouquet of tired umbrellas.
The Girl with the White Bicycle
When I first met the girl with the white bicycle, it was early spring. The tulips were only just beginning to bloom. I had often seen her, riding that overly large bicycle which had been painted entirely white, from the frame to the tires.
Then one morning, as I sat alone in the garden, she rode up to the front gate, in a plain white summer dress, and dismounted. She came to stand in front of me and stuck out her hand.
A Very Fine Time
They were sitting alone on the white sand. Everyone else had gone to bed. The night was cool and calm and the waves collapsed peacefully on the shore. The rods were still standing in the sand with their lines in the water. It was said to be bad luck to take them out after sundown.
“Why’s the sand white?” asked Marjorie.
“I don’t know,” said Nick. “Why is anything the way it is.”
The Skin We’re In
In late 1969, when I was an impressionable four-year old, someone shot Mr. Easter’s dog Runt. Mr. Easter put his dying dog into the back of his pickup truck, and booked. He feared once the drunkard started thinking about it, he might come back and shoot him too—knowing there was no heavy justification needed to shoot a black man.
Read more.