Poems, thoughts, and the occasional sexy story.
Sylvia’s ceiling was glass. She could see armed men perched above with orders to shoot anyone whose parts didn’t protrude. But that’s not how she fell into an oven. That happened when she realized, as all thinkers must, that thought itself is their enemy — not sex, not sin, but a single word: Why?
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The phone vibrates twenty-seven times between Beowulf and lunch. I snap each time. Students always know. They look at me carefully, compassionately. I dial the number. Wait. “What, Mom?” Labored intake: “Took you long enough.” She says the chicken’s spicy. She says she’s always alone. She says no one cares if she lives. She is my dying mother. I listen, stare at the wall, wait for the tears to subside. Beowulf. He had it easy. Monsters and a dragon? Any day.
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I can sense them, his old lovers, his old leavers, their cloves and smoke thick in threaded carpet, grease stains browning on unwashed paint. Other tenants, other times. Most pass through this station, moving up or down the home-hierarchy to new mortgage or penitentiary. I stay. His transience suits me; I never want more. He can only be rented, like everything else, really, pimped for profit. But I treat him well, I think, much better than the others. Every time I open the door, I tell him I’m lucky. I tell him he’s beautiful. Mine, but still his. I’m not jealous. He can think of Them when he’s with me; who am I to demand? I love him. He compares me to others, I know. They weren’t so dependent, so needy. He is who he is, and that’s okay. I have no claim, pay another for his company, sure that he won’t remember. Sure that I am not the last. That I’m grateful to have made his acquaintance.
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There are books. Great books. Here.
And poetry. Always poetry. Here.
What you discover after — after the battered “Yes, okay” to your heart’s direction — is that all of your guns that once shot enemies and fools are now trained and aimed at you. One Last Chance to apologize to recant to come home. So you write another poem as familiar bullets speed toward their mark.
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“Quick! They’re coming for you! Call down your god!” Oh, buddy, if you only understood. My god runs towards me, bayonet in hand, trying to scare me off, see if I turn. “Some god!” Yeah. My god. As I take a run at him.
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Like these? There’s more — all collected into a NEW BOOK! Click here!
Spend a day observing people.
Most of the time, it’ll be boring. But if we’re lucky, we’ll catch a glimpse of something we’re not meant to see. Pilots leave an apartment window open while waiting for flight attendants to arrive. We see their desperation. A man in a breezeway doesn’t think anyone is upstairs when he tries to get his dealer off his back, all while his little girl plays. The fratboy next door doesn’t know someone can hear everything — and wants him anyway. A whole political party shows its true colors.
These poems are dedicated to who we are when we’re on our own time — to the strange, laughable, heartbreaking, dangerous ways we do ourselves.
Want a sample? Click here.
More poems? Click here.
Or maybe a short story.
He loves me here and now. Your body is there and then. I’ll never get used to time-travel.
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More poems? Click here.
Lankershim Boulevard was better when Grammy took me to the Jewish Council Thrift Store to buy me an out-of-date Writer’s Market, and I looked up at her against the naked fluorescent tube lights, and wanted to write a story that would make her rich and me famous so that we wouldn’t have to shop at the Jewish Council Thrift Store again.
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There was once a time — you’ll have to trust me — when Dad would write notes for cigarettes and liquor, and off I’d go to Dales Jr. And then if I was fast, he'd give me a sip. It burned all the way down. Probably how I got so good at track.
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“I want you to stay away from that guy upstairs.” Old Shirley’s hair was frizzier than usual. She held a glass. “Something’s not right there.” “Okay, I will,” as I walked past her window down the driveway out onto Oxnard remembering how he held me to his chest and showed me I was happiness.
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Roam around the stories here. They’re pretty good.
You remember it from somewhere: “The only place now I can hear myself think is at the bottom of a swimming pool.” So you try sitting down in the deep-alone. Soon, no more bubbles to the top; soon, eyes caressed in water’s well, arms held — strange elongated creatures above, splashing and splaying toward cement shores, over and over, eager frogs fascinated by wavy light — and you wonder whether evolution was such a good thing.
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Stories and more — maybe even a book? Play around with the menu above.
Before his spa-crowd, the Brush-Cut endowed his words with much lamentation. “After making myself rich, strong, and svelte, they want me to give up my station.” He continued. “No one helped me crawl out of that sea! I did it with grit, nerve, and drive! Why should I cry, bring tears to my eyes, when Nature, through me, surely thrives?” More. God, still more. “Should I be cast down when dolts sputter and drown while wading in water too deep? We need to remember Life wants to dismember weak chaff from rare bits of strong wheat.” Then (you’ll love this): He let his arms soar, lifting muscles adored, standing up in the midst of The Lost — but wet shorts do slip, slide down on thin hips — and what Life rewarded...had cost. I’m not one to laugh at men — breathe — at men with toy shafts — but I wasn’t the only one present! With chortles of glee, the wrong kind, you see, we saw that his boy also...bent? Thor’s grand self-made views had been a bit...skewed — Coy Fate had decided his game; his thoughts, teeth and hair, his wants and his pair, just gods doing their thang. Now don’t cause a scene, or think I’m a queen — I’m not saying it’s all been decided! But I’m tired of “studs” nipped close to the bud pushing “FREE WILL” without being chided! So the next time you muse, “I’m Awesome! I choose!” remember Thor’s tiny “reminder”: Fate casts the tool, the job, house and school, the cool and the fool, the rule; it’s always the loud, judgmental and proud, who most need the shroud, the stage and the crowd, whose heads should be bowed — instead of being elected President.
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Books — for readers who like real paper — are here.
In those days, after God scourged their enemies, the holders of the land and keepers of older scrolls, after those made in His image dashed soft child-brains against dusty rocks and bathed triumphant feet in still-warm blood and tears, Little Mikey raised his hand in Picture Class and setting down his crayon, asked: “Excuse me, Mr. Hawley, does this mean it’s okay to kill? ‘Cause it says ‘Do Not Kill’ somewhere.” To which the teacher replied, smiling down at seven-year-old Mikey: “Son, it’s always okay to kill. We kill cows, don’t we? It’s murder you got to watch out for. And you can’t murder an animal.”
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Other work? Just find your way through the Menu above.
Or your could start here, with Stories.
G Beckman 