Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portugues XXVI [I lived wit...

"Lady of the Dew," by Tim Lulofs

"A Thanksgiving," by W.H. Auden

"Song for Billie Holiday," by Langston Hughes

709 [Publication -- is the Auction] by Emily Dickinson

"Sigmund Freud and Babe Ruth in Heaven" by Hans Ostrom

Truly, Madly, Cellularly

Truly, Madly, Cellularly


Via mobile telephones they trysted.
Their words raptured, caromed off
corporate satellites, descended bundled
in spongy static. Some sluiced through

optic fibers. Why not face to face?
Unmanageable: The lovers worried words
might disappear into Society so harried, sloppy,
huge. Words cleansed in space and digitized

might be exchanged like polished stones.
Sighs and whispers might be chastened.
The two did broadcast their love, but only to
the other; and were charged by the minute.


Copyright 2010

Broken Guitar

Broken Guitar


A man broke a guitar over--that is to say, on--another man's head.

The guitar-strings sounded the last chord the guitar would ever play. The surprised O of the guitar expressed this final chord, then disintegrated when wood splintered.

On the floor, the smashed instrument looked like a miniature shipwreck in an extremely small production of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

People gathered round the injured man like a chorus of bees. They murmured, turning away from the other man.

The man who'd used a musical instrument as a weapon sagged with self-hatred and remorse.

A woman entered the room. She said, "Hey, that's my guitar!"

The man who had been struck by the guitar looked deeply perplexed by recent events. His head bled, and the wound looked like a wet, red petal. “O,” he said, for life had strummed him.


Copyright 2010 Hans Ostrom