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I scouted out for days before I felt it safe to approach them, In the back alleys playing quarters The monkeyshines gather, they’ve Got a sharp eye now, but we Agreed to meet further: next Tuesday toward lunchtime At the County Museum, Rops exhibit She never goes there, We agreed on our system, slid Off on our way. Today's Tuesday, I lingered in front of the etchings But met no one. Coming home a note Was pinned to the door. Decoding it took hours. A flash of Red at the window—was there, Or was it, was gone. Finally-- "she’s getting too close." posted by Reen at 12:23 PM | link| versify 0 comments
At the blackboard, Chalk like a claw From her fist, Calamity scratches The crossbar of a Four, the two flats Of an equals. High Screech of th[this Part has been Crossed out with A thick blue Sharpie] solves For X, bringing Her hand over What’s already [No No NO NO!] Chalk snap And fist ball A breath out [phone rings: A breather] The chalk wails The four gathers Teeth her red Hat pulses the Teacher purses Red lips she Looks right she Looks left she Scrapes the insides Of her palms With red nails, Calamity turns From the board she Breaks the fourth wall She's ready to [Fire alarm, not A drill, everyone, Even you, Calamity, leave]. posted by Reen at 3:52 PM | link| versify 0 comments
I would tell you more about Calamity, but I've become unsure which one of us is invented; at the start I could pick among a stack of tales: this one here and this one here and this one here and launch off straight but lately, the moon has gotten strained by bumps and squiggles, there's a halo round the lampposts, and I've begun to think that between here and Santa Fe there may be a little bit of Iowa. Like the devil or a chocolate bar, she has few salient features but set down on paper here she seemed for a time at least to stick a sort of shape, agreed upon. The steady tread of a basketball outside my window, the amoebic reflections of headlights passing over the windows of an apartment building, the unsettled landscapes of a Krazy Kat cartoon -- these things broke our truce so that what Calamity did or Calamity didn’t or she thought or she spoke or she will or she won't has gotten away from me, or maybe it is me, and I would go on but it’s all a bit much for me and I would like to make it clear: I don’t know what I’m doing. posted by Reen at 12:57 PM | link| versify 0 comments
Adrift in the market stalls Of afternoon, the tomatoes In cardboard boxes stacked Along the curbs, the box Trucks busy bees making their stops at one-two-three impromptu stands of bananas a quarter, papayas fifty cents and the buskers outside the subway entrances, a wok for the collection basket, A hat, a newspaper folded Into a hull, and the coins Go flipping into palms Ricochet off concrete And ricochet off guitar cases And all these transactions So tiny, and she says my New bad habit is paying For everything with dimes. posted by Reen at 1:00 PM | link| versify 0 comments
The mouth of the silver mine posted by Reen at 6:10 PM | link| versify 0 comments
Hackles raised and I'm right there Shins trundling through the pain He's the gone-soft one, I guess Shawled backing from the train. Like an inkpot hovering over, The beach's sand smelled tinctured, A buzz like bees gone western-- A second and I find him injured. The sand swirled along the curbside Above us swung a crane. "I saw her make camp by the train tracks Dissolving in the rain." Hackles raised and I'm right there Bewildering my vicinity Bruises and sandstorms and manholes Supply the forms of this city. The train tracks have lost perspective Angles ceding their humanity She's come and gone, and things are Shrinking, no small calamity. posted by Reen at 2:51 PM | link| versify 0 comments
posted by Reen at 6:41 AM | link| versify 0 comments
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