A woodwind
The Sayersaurian Flute
Is wood from a child’s favorite stick
Left behind on a ambling walk home
And the pulped pages of never returned library books
With a slight barrel
Long as a paperback
Ending in a generous bell
Reedless
This rarest of instruments
Features a simple mouthpiece
And a series of tone holes
Covered by keys
Mismatched and Porcelain smooth
Each chunky key is Reclaimed ...
Before sentient androids in space operas
Wise cracking witches
And a shape shifting sheriff
Riddled with mysteries
Brimming with brimstone
volumes of stories written and yet to be told
Started with that first story
Me on the page in serifs
Ink stained memories
Thoughts thunk thunk thunk on my grandma’s manual typewriter with a sticky e key
The five whys starting with who am I
To connect with ...
Bogsucker, Labrador twister
More names than a cat has whiskers
Denote our simple timberdoodle bird
Brush snipe, becasse, or mudbat
Folk names toodle ratatat tat
As weird as this sandpiper’s walk absurd
Just search for its gait on TikTok
Its dancing woos more than woodcocks
Never been one for the birdwatching herd
more than a wibbly wobbly joke
My heart’s open for hokumpokes
Odd utterly Timber...
“How’s it hanging, Mace?” Splitfoot called from her forklift.
“Low and leaning left,” Mace called back as he climbed into his skid steer.
Splitfoot howled with laughter and shifted into a wolf. She picked up her uniform with her mouth on her way to the locker room. After honking in return, Vahn adjusted his filter mask. His engine turned over with a tired wheeze. Most of the day shift drivers w...
There was that time I drowned. I’d taken swim lessons with the Girl Scouts, a few anyways. I’d missed more lessons than I’d taken because of life i guess. The swimming lessons I took I wasn’t very good at. I don’t love being wet. Maybe I was too small to enjoy the feel of floating. Maybe it was the whole stepping into nothing, the slipping and the sinking thing. Something abut the bite of chlorine...
“So pretty cool right? I can’t believe you’ve never played Vams. It is kind of like Sims but like a thousand times cooler. You were made for this game, Zar?” Austin said. “It’s all vampires."
Rocking in his gamer chair, Austin adjusted his headset. A few weeks back, he’d met the coolest kid at the Midnight Madness Murder Moviefest. Confident and deadpan funny, Balthazaar “Zar” for short was a tot...
The moon is not made of paper
Nor the sky painted canvas
yet I wait backstage to perform
with cardboard courage
a stacacco heartbeat drumline
hairline trickles cold sweat staining
my carefully crafted mask
on a frayed ribbon
knowing the words by heart still
sentences dry as cotton
collect in my throat
as I step into the spotlight...
My palm aches
Swinging from numb and tingling
To electric cramps
With the remote
You scrolling scrolling
Just pick a show
Any show
No we saw that one
About the witch and the father and son
Just pick something else
Rubbing my palm against my pants
Anything is fine
You Scroll talk scroll
What about that series
You know the one with the guy I like
What you’ve finished it
Scratch at my hand bitin...
“If there is one thing I know it is that I know nothing,” Mr. Douglas said brightly.
Mr. Douglas was that guy in the complex who waved at everyone and said “don’t take any wooden nickels.” What was the wooden nickels some oldtimey folk band? Mr. Douglas decorated his stoop every holiday and swept the sidewalk in front of his door every week. Mr. Douglas was that guy.
He also had a lot of plant...
Once the clouds have boiled away
And our demise is without doubt
Scholars still won’t know why this cat
Wants to be in as soon as he’s out
As pockets of doomsday preppers
Emerge from ashes to again begin
Scientists’ll wonder why this cat
Wants to be out as soon as he’s in
Dystopian dynasties rise and fail
Neglecting nature’s driving clout
Damn I just—Stop yowling cat who
Wants to be in as soon...
