No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story. No Kings.
11:56 pm and the concrete felt like a griddle. The sweat on June’s feet hissed steam against the broken rock, not that you could’ve heard it over the racket coming out of the river bottom down the way. Crickets and frogs, mostly. Full moon shining like a streetlamp - only light out there, shone the stars out.
listening to the storm outside, the storm inside
all heavy and unrelenting
and not a damn thing to do about it
The father handed the box to the grandfather, and he cocked his head as if acknowledging his son should have the honor. The father ripped off the paper, opened the box, and removed a black gun.
That couldn’t really be a gun. I stared with my mouth open as the baby held out his hands and wiggled his little fingers just out of its reach. Then the grandfather placed the end of that shiny black pistol into the baby’s mouth, who sucked on it like a new toy.
Ai Weiwei's foreman looks remarkably similar to Ai himself, so much so that when people see him (the foreman, that is) there is the kind of communal, hushed stirring that happens around a possible celebrity sighting: Is that—? No, it couldn't be…is it though? The disappointment when the truth is revealed: no, it’s not Ai Weiwei. The man in question turns out to be one of four of Ai’s employees who have traveled from China to the States on his behalf.
And still you mould your familiar clay, Its edges hopelessly soft and yielding. Please, take up some sharp and heavy something, Shatter these pieces and burn the pointed shards.
We're born to pine, kin, and stone. Home's harsh tang to us never sours in the mouth.