City of Writers: A Weekly Newsletter
She looked at him pointedly. Amidst the fervor of the green room of the Empire Ballroom, he got the hint. Only a few people knew of their love affair – and if the rest of them knew, they played dumb. They left in their respective tour buses for the budget…
In response to Lâm Thị Mỹ Dạ's Bomb Crater Sky. Dad served two tours in the war,a media circus of Ohio hippies andescapes from Saigon via helicopterLit by the fireworks on the nightly news,gilded in the blood of the conscripts,photographed by Leica. Building roads as a Seabee,cleaning the mud caked…
I didn’t even like the band, but my friends were dragging me along. Who am I to turn down a free show? The band’s name was Love Split Mystery. They were part of the post-punk revival, you might even call them emo with their shitty lyrics and bass lines that sounded exactly the same. It was payday, and my best friend Natalie called me before I left work. I had bills out my ass, and this paycheck was going to keep them at bay for a little bit longer.
“Ingrid, guess what?” Natalie said cheerfully over the phone.
“Wha?” I replied, trying to balance holding my lunchbox and purse, whilst unearthing my iPod and keys from my purse.
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Surviving is a verbLiving is tooBreathing, smelling, touchingWords that imply movementI've not stopped movingSince yesterdayWhenever that was. Wish I could stop timeThe rat raceAgingDeathSexTaxes Memento mori, Latin'Remember you will die'Keep that hubris in checkWe're all born to dieA monied deathIf you didn't buy it,you're the product. Can't stop, won't stopWe…
“When does the new tour start again?” Nicola Allen asked randomly.
“In a month. After this last bit of appearances, we’re coming home for a bit. Why?” her best friend Christopher Donaghy asked.
“‘Member how you’re always asking me to come to visit?”
“Well, yeah.” He and Nicola had been best friends since high school. As the eldest member of Love Split Mystery, high school was a long time ago. He and Nicola had bonded over a mutual love of video games. Nicola was a professional game tester now, while Chris – AKA “C-Dawg” – was a member of the band, focusing his career on his second-most important obsession, music.
One of our in-class poetry prompts was to take a translated poem and translate it in our own way. I chose Salma Khadra Jayyusi's A Tale. I have no father-in-lawI'm sure he existsHe sleeps, fucks my mother-in-law(Hopefully she's a nice lady and will treat me well)He showers, and is a…
You buy clothes you never wearTo impress people who don't careYou can't speak in front of crowdsYou should get your head checkedYou have blisters on your heelsFrom shoes that refuse to be broken inYou wear makeup to even out your tanCertainly not to impress a manYour mirror reflection of selfDoesn't…
“We need to talk,” she said, the most feared phrase in the English language invaded his ears. She took him by the hand into a quiet corner of the arena’s backstage area and waited for her to speak. She seemed resolute in her words, but her hands told him the truth. She was nervous, and couldn’t quit playing with her trademark purple jade ring. She couldn’t look at him as she spoke either. He wasn’t paying attention, really, until…
“You’re what? Say that again?” he interrupted her.
“Look, Summers, I’m 30, you’re 21,” she began before he cut her off again.
“What the fuck?”
Poems gush out my fingertipsWritten carefully in bloodTattooed on my skinThe original sinSapphire blueCrimson redFetch me a napkinSharpen the quillPumice the momentsLovely bops of clarity'Cause nothing elsein this damn worldmakes a lick of sense.
“So are we going to storage today, Ma?” Mary said, gulping down her orange juice. “Yeah. There are a few things your Grandma Lucy’s been after me to let her have that used to belong to Daddy,” Marcy added. “I might get rid of the whole unit.” “What are you…