He was jailed for cruelty to insects, and his agent wasn’t answering the phone, so he stayed awake in the cell all night, pictures jumping around his head of the cops and the blowdryer they took as evidence. He used...
In a sesone of somere þat souerayne ys of alle,
Þat was þe myry monþ of May when many myrthys spryng,
Þe sonne ys somnore and syre and sendyth tyl vs doun,
And byddyth vs bisy for to be oure bodys for to glade;
Man for to myrth hym in al maner wys,
Bestys for to buske ham on bentys tyl abyde,
Swarte smekyd smepes smateryd wyth smoke. dryue me to deth wyth den of here dyntes. Swech noys on nyghtes ne herd men neuer. what knauene cry & clateryng of knockes þe cammede kongons cryen after col col. & blowen here bellewys þat al here brayn...
‘þis were a wikkede wey but whoso hadde a gyde þat [myȝte] folwen us ech foot’: þus þis folk hem mened. Quod Perkyn þe Plowman, ‘By Seint Peter of Rome! I haue an half acre to erie by þe heiȝe weye; Hadde I eryed...
Too black, too much indulged, living in clover, all little withers, all air, all charity, all crumbling, all massing in a choir— damp clods of soil, my land and liberty...
With early plowing it is black to blueness, and unarmed labor here is glorified— a thousand...
I have learned to love turning a bar of soap and the calendar’s empty pages in my hands, soft lather that soothes, feels like ritual, lifts away things I don’t need. I have learned to love the chickens’ ways, the hesitating way they walk like...
When a bullet enters the brain, the head explodes. I can think of no softer warning for the mothers who sit doubled before my desk, knotting their smooth brown hands, and begging, fix my boy, fix my boy. Here's his high school picture. And the smirking,...
You know sleep will dart beyond your grasp. Its edges crude and merciless. You will clutch at straws, wandering the cold, peopled rooms of the Internet, desperate for any fix. A vapor of faith. An amply paid gig, perhaps, for simply having an earnest heart...
Working the 2–12 shift Driving home in the shiny dark under the sleepless moon Curling his car around suburban back roads Almost every day, pushing drowsily his nice-enough-to-not-get-pulled-over SUV Iced coffee sugared and milked into cake It was already dangerous, diabetic as he is, for...
Even this early— the muezzin’s minor cry just now floating the first notes, the minarets not yet lit, the sun a closed hinge— the men have arrived, unloading dawn’s plunder & kill before arranging the tails with an octave’s precision: silvery intervals crossing the wide banana leaves. Even before the day’s...
Out here in the sticks You rarely encounter such genius: "Come, come, come to Taiwan U Go, go, go to the US" Words passed with envy from mouth to mouth Giving the hometown high hopes
Then I heard you've become an American citizen You're very busy With house...
My father is modest. He didn't save hundreds from drowning. Just a few dozen. Gathered from the swell, the riptide, rough, rough waves he carried them ashore.
Half-lit, he tells it again. The storm against sky, the lifeguard without fear alone in the water, the crowd gathered...