The Monarch of Metamorphosis
I lie on my queen bed or do I lay with my queen? Does my bedroom monarch lay or lie on me? As a monarch butterfly perches on my kingly […]
Fatherhood Growing
The first time I lied to our daughter, I declared “you can do whatever a man does.” Words shot out like a pressurized sprinkler onto her freshly formed frame. The […]
Grocery Store Slaughter
In a grocery storeoff Tenderloin Road,a venison strutsto the meat display displayed like a photoshootmodel hungryfor a juicy tenderloin. Wait. Does a venison or deer strut? I got it. Behind […]
You Step into an Oakland Day
On a neighborhood sidewalk cracked by finger roots, I spot you through the MLK Café window where your feet hook into MLK Way down the block from Marcus Books. […]
In the Heart
In the Heart and Vascular Center waiting room, a Malaysian woman from Reno with a face filled with stories throws a nod my way. “What brings you here?” “My […]
A Pushy Oakland Wind Almost Pushed Me
into a dead raccoon sprawled over a dying oak tree’s finger roots wrapping around feral decomposition at 26th & Telegraph 2 blocks from where I hunt down my dreams on […]
Concrete and Petroleum through the Centuries
The 21st Century is being built on 20th-century concrete. Concrete cracks like my sandy-colored face under a Global Warming sun. I transverse down Madison Street carrying a plastic […]
In the Death of Your Boyhood and Birth of Your Teenagehood,
do you remember the hooded memory of when your father grilled a slaughter of steaks on a July 4th grill that swung open like a carnivorous mouth? In your teenagehood’s […]
To the Daughter I Won’t Father,
you’re shriveled up like a raisin within my raisin-skinned right testicle in a XY body I’ve claimed possession of since a C-section slice when my mother gifted me life under […]
Into Lawful Nature
At the beginning of a new episode during a Law & Order marathon, mom screeches out find the murderer. So I propel out the back door into unfilmed darkness defined by predator-on-prey […]