I want to talk today both in the first person and about the pain of writing. As in: the literal pain. I don’t feel like I ever hear anyone discuss it, let alone make mention of it off-handedly. Even if only as a passing “joke.” And though I know Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at … Continue reading The Pain of Writing
Una played this game where she circled around the professor’s chair, over and over, hoping he would look at her and, if not her, then the shadow of her naked body swirling against the maroon walls in the lamplight of her rented home. He read Sein und Zeit, the black jacketless hardcover gripped tightly in his hands. She leaned in and lifted his thumb from the … Continue reading Being There by Billie Pritchett
You were the highest andMost dangerous rideI’ve ever encountered The tracks were wornThe lows were undergroundAnd the highs felt like flying You felt the same about meWe both knew that the Cars were on fire butWe rode on anyways The highs were the mostTantalizing of all highsWe felt shot to the moon The lows were horrificAs though we were part ofA haunted carnival A beautiful disaster … Continue reading Rollercoaster by Lindsey Wentzel
Since Madonna seems to be in the mood to throw us back to the 90s (despite cursory “fans” associating her with the 80s), she recently presented the world with a remix (David’s Radio Edit) of 1992’s club hit, “Deeper and Deeper.” But she hasn’t seen fit to stop there via her latest remix single from an upcoming compilation of hits, called Finally Enough Love. That single … Continue reading Glamorama and the Sasha Ultra Violet Mix Edit of “Ray of Light”
I teach Virginia Woolf to fourth-year students in the English Department at the University of Ethics in the middle part of the globe. I have a lot of fun explaining her technique to a hundred eager students by always beginning with my own stream of consciousness which is triggered by the word Glasgow. A string of images flows beginning with the swans at Knightswood Park … Continue reading Streams of Consciousness by Susie Gharib
Early morning musings. These callow lamentations speak my piece. I posed for oddity. A freak creation left undone, buried uncut in solid rock. Still, I feel. I think. And I rage as I bend beneath the scourge of the ignoble globe my shoulders are bound to bear. No line of defense disturbs the contradictions I cast as sacrifice of a master’s mold. I model a prime study in suspense, while … Continue reading Prime Study by Victor Marrero
Safely out of my hands from herejust let it have its way with youalready an image in decayit writes itself from the back Don’t give this moment more than its own weight in golda story that I’m tellingnever put too much by tales told of old I tell myself stories outside of infinitybrooding in blindness or escaped to oblivionI always knew it was hiding in … Continue reading A Glass Darkly by Dawn Bratton
Some might offer the idea that Jane Austen was already the pinnacle of gay. What with all of her main characters forced to stifle their true desires and feelings due to the pressures of a subjugating society that not only looked down upon the free expression of sexuality, but especially the free expression of sexuality on the part of women. Who might end up “making … Continue reading Don’t Hide Your Pride (and Prejudice): The Gay-ification of Jane Austen in Fire Island
For several weeksI worked in a small bookstore on the corner of West 10th and Bleeckerin Greenwich Village.One night a customer approached the cash register with a big stack of booksand asked if he could pay for them with a personal check.“Sure. But I have to see some ID.It’s the store policy,” I told him.“Isn’t this enough?” he asked, leaning forward and framing his face with his hands.I knew it was … Continue reading Armadillo Bookstore by Ron Kolm
