August 23rd, 1998 by Jim Clark
I awoke yesterday morning with a bit of anxiety, as I had had the night before. We were about to take a twelve-hour flight on our first trip to England and we hadn’t even packed our bags yet. Leave it to us to wait until the last goddamned minute.
February 2nd, 1998 by Jim Clark
The lights dim as the cinema begins.
She moves as a parade
of jasmine and winter breath
and I am the last dance of hornets losing stingers.
Lights, camera, action.
She offers up
a smile, an embrace
All her defenses and nervous mysteries.
I devour these gifts,
And suddenly I am trapped
within her cage of arms,
paralyzed, hungry.
The world becomes a teeming collection
of noises and intrusions,
invading our familiar coil.
Somewhere,
The sea level rises,
A streetlight flickers and goes out, followed by another.
I join in their obvious worship,
lost in a wilderness tamed by her bitter smile;
her damning embrace;
the fall of her gentle rain.
A turn of the head, wicked, satisfied,
she opens her cage and releases me
and disappears in a dizzying repose.
Jump cut. The camera follows her down the boulevard.
Sirens.
Footsteps grow quiet.
All that I am fades to black.
January 20th, 1998 by Jim Clark
Charlie’s wife came into the room without him noticing, as usual. He was busy typing on the computer, connected to a bulletin board system on the other side of town, entering a message in a debate with another user about how stupid he thought the guy was and to what degree. Charlie was involved in his thought process and completely oblivious to her arrival.
Lauren stood behind him for a few seconds, waiting for acknowledgement. Continue reading “Cosmic Charlie” »
it is hard to say when the lie brings in the new day
when a little bit is too much and still not enough
and worse than nothing at all
when a mirror of distant voices and a blend of agonies
steal the truth from my breast and lie all the same, in time
it is hard to say where the line is drawn in the tall grass
when all I hear is the clicking of her falsetto heels
strumming the rhythm in a song of goodbyes,
click - click - click
it is all I can do to remain in an errand of mysterious smiles
when the grin is a lie, and the new day never comes
it is hard to say when empathy becomes mercy
and mercy grows numb
when there are no limits in a confinement of faint memories
that stroll through the grainy photograph of my sleepless nights
when dry heaves and an angry, bitter moon
are all that accompany me as she melts away
it is hard to say what images are painted between the black and the white
when all I read is the fiction written by an angry moment in time
for a dawn that promises never to come, and pays no attention to my lies
it is hard to say how the next act will play
when my voice is lost in feverish gasps of midnight air
that swallow the lie into a radiant dream of paralyzed goodbyes
it is hard to say what will become of this.
it is hard to say anything at all.
July 8th, 1997 by Jim Clark
old leather seats, with velvet drapes and dirty windows
steady rhythm of the wheels as they struck the tracks
“attack… attack… attack…”
cigar exhaust hanging below the dim cabin light
and ashes in the aisle