I don’t understand why, when you Shed your skin, the scales remain beneath. Through this layer and that, your eyes cloudy like milk, you keep blooming. With new fangs, with a flickering new tongue, you wind your way through Autumn’s scales, your blood as cold as the Rain, blind to me unless I move.
Author: johnbrandall
John Randall is a writer living in Missouri. His interests include camping, running, walking, cutting and burning wood, messing around with magnets, foraging, and listening to podcasts, many of them about baseball.
Cirrus
The cirrus points to god like a unicorn’s horn in a quiet, curling way. Through it fall two eagles fucking on the carcasse of a lion. Nothing like wind, and cold, to separate ash from its embers.
In Your Hole
You went there to think.First it was just a loungechair out on the plains,in the summer. Where youcould go to watch stormsand to feel the wind blow.Where you could seemore colors than one. Then you were sitting onthe ground. It was warmwhere the sun had been,cold if you stayed throughthe night. But quiet, andyou set … Continue reading In Your Hole
White Hole
Eating color like bleach, the reverse of a stain, the release of blue to a shirt in another dimension, a puddle of white left behind, rimmed with the touch of indigo sparkling.
The Knowledge
Only because you’re handsome—
that dark black hair of yours,
those slick metallic sides
sweeping down the sidewalk,
stopping to kneel at the neediest feet—
You know where to take me
without even asking—
you know me
better than a cabbie in London
knows his British city. The main street,
the side street. My street, yours.
At Five
At five twenty-five he saw him pull into the drive. Lucky for Miggs he had already showered, shaved, and swept the floors. He put on some garden clogs and opened the door. Sullivan was standing there with a bottle of J & B, his arms outstretched holding it like a fish. “Diageo owns my … Continue reading At Five
Computer
The barcode is just straight lines yet it speaks to me.
Sky Diving
Higher up and higher up and higher up. I keep a knife in my belt, that if I might fall from this height I can stab fate in the back on my way down.
Raindrop
Frayed like lightning, dropped from the clouds, wet and unique from all others, hitting the pavement with a smash, existing everywhere at once.
The Sound That Water Makes
by R.L. Wisdom Dear(er) Melissa, It has been a while…I suppose some contact is necessary. (Ray opens the freezer door.) I haven't seen Tom in more than a few weeks. (From the freezer, Ray removes a bag.) I would assume the two of you are traveling on the weekends, no? (After closing the freezer door, … Continue reading The Sound That Water Makes
