Today I Saw

Today I saw
A student posting his request
For quiet in the hall
While he studied.

He did not realize that
He had become Martin Luther,
Nailing his angry theses on the church’s door.

That Martin Luther was only
Doing something supernatural,
Articulating for himself
The petty feuds of gods above
While they looked down in agreement.

The paper posted –
Written in cursive –
Was of a planet
Unseen by the strongest telescope,
A planet where spirits and gods and angels float
One
And another
And another

And this planet,
Dear Reader,
Is like nothing you could ever,
Ever comprehend.

A story with no conflict

I enjoyed dinner very much tonight.

Thank you! I made sure to put in your favorites.

I noticed. The filet mignon was tender, but not overdone.

I learned how to sear the meat but keep the moisture from this article I read in the paper today. You're looking quite dapper this evening. Special occasion?

No, not really. Although, if you are so inclined, I would love to rob a bank with you tonight.

I would like that very much. Shall I get my coat?

Oh no, let me.

You’re such a gentleman!

Oh, honey?

Hm?

Don’t forget that darling balaclava.

Misc. Weather Reports from Northern California

March 2005: Snow! Snow for the first time in ten years has fallen in San Francisco. Many schools have cancelled classes to allow children to play. It’s wonderful except for the roads. Unfortunately California drivers cannot adapt to things such as frozen water.

June 2007: It is a warm sunny day. Highs in the high 70s, lows in the high 60s. Most are complaining that there is no breeze.

September 2009: Mild winds provided quite a contrast to the extreme heat wave the bay area has been experiencing the past week. People are perturbed have taken to wearing snow jackets.

Landlady

Did that squirrel just growl at me? I think that squirrel definitely growled at me. It’s looking at me like I’m trespassing on its turf.

Hey buddy, who do you think you are growling at me like that? (I didn’t even know you little guys made noise.)

What am I doing on your grass? I own that grass! No, no, that’s insensitive of me. Of course you live here, too. Don’t look at me like that! Hey, wait! We can be friends! I know you need your space, but I’ll—I don’t know, here I’ll pay rent. Here’s an acorn.

Our Own Constellations

Where are you tonight, girl with the shining blue eyes and husky voice? I don’t know your name. But the look on your face the last time I saw you is enough for now.
If we were together, I’d show you the stars and try to make you laugh. You would surprise me by naming each of the constellations.
Maybe, if I dare dream it, we could point out our own constellations. Imaginary lines would become real to us and form pictures only we would remember.
Under the stars – our stars – with you. That’s where I want to be.

Voice change #1: Charlotte

Tom’s best feature, is like, his eyes. No hahah that’s bullcrap its his stomach hah yeh I love his stomach oh my god and I know he likes me. Yesterday in the gym he totally glanced at me between pull-ups to make sure I was looking, of course I wasn’t looking at him directly, I could only tell he was looking at me because I was looking in the mirror. But oh my god I get so sweaty when I work out I have no idea what guys find so attractive about girls in the gym? Its gross, right!?

Giving Thanks

They joined hands in a circle to sing a song of thanks before sitting down to eat. The table was new, the chairs were new, even the smooth, steaming turkey was new. When several slices of it were on her plate, the littlest girl poked at it uncertainly with her spoon. The others were too busy shoveling heaps of food into their mouths to notice as she finally gave up, content to suck little bits of milk from her glass. When they all got up, laughing and joking, she slid to the floor, a wide open grin on her face.

Charity Proof, 1 of 2

Charity may be given to alleviate suffering in two ways: for Preventative uses (to stop suffering occurring in future), or Relief uses (to stop current suffering). Ethics dictate that charity dollars are finite and thus must be used to alleviate the most suffering. Preventative strategies plan for the future so that suffering will never occur. Relief strategies alleviate tangible suffering in the present and thus subjectively seem most altruistic and satisfying, but do nothing to prevent the same suffering occurring again in the future. When suffering does occur, charity will have been exhausted on short-term strategies and suffering will continue.

Charity, 2 of 2

Thus with the end goal of alleviating suffering, distributing all charity to Preventative methods is the only moral choice. Allocating any resources to Relief is a short-term waste because humane though it may seem, it works inefficiently by only stopping suffering once suffering has already begun.

Caveat: if Relief is more efficient than Prevention, such that one charity dollar might alleviate drastically more suffering if spent on Relief than Prevention, it is moral to allocate a percentage of charity to Relief, for example, for Comfort Care. This is difficult to prove, as Prevention is always more efficient in long-term.

Arctic Elegy

Her final breath fled towards Polaris and did not stop its wending journey until it had reached the frozen North Pole, where it instructed Earth’s winds to stream down the invisible longitudes like rain cascading over a rocky hill. In the snowy depths it was buried alongside the forgotten exhalations of millions. But the winds swept the planet softly, smoothing dusty places and ruffling the picked flowers set upon her coffin. The day was warm beside the breeze, complacent, and the suburban cemetery pushed forth its grass obediently, as if the Arctic gods were merely humans, like she had been.

Experiences Rising

Everyday are experiences rising around you. These are things that, like noises, have no past or future though they may echo for some time. Experiences may be ignored, misplaced, and forgotten – or they may be experienced as they were meant to be. They come from anywhere and disappear and reappear in all shapes and forms, wanting only the person with the curiosity to find in them their simplest meanings. These people are rare wanderers. If each moment is untied to the next, they reason, what is to prevent them from finding joy in every experience that rises around them?

A Poem In Trochaic Pentameter

Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.
Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.
Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.
Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.
Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.
Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.
Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.
Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.
Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.
Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse. Free verse.

Discipline

Discipline is practice not theory. Discipline is repitition not enthusiasm. Discipline is hard and unexciting. But it becomes deeply exciting later on, when you remember to look back across the time. Discipline does not arise from the joie de vivre as other things do. It plods. It is cultured in unseen cavities like mushrooms with their alien, rubber feel. When conflict arises, discipline keeps its eyes forward. People find it uncanny, unlikely, strange, and perhaps intimidating. Discipline distilled would be bored and lonely, but as a steady rhythm beneath the cavorting flavors of life, it is the confidence of experience.

Italian Wedding Steps

No one knew why they were called wedding steps. No one had ever been married there, and rumor had it that the one occasion a wedding almost occurred, it ended in tears and vomiting. Sylvia sat on the wedding steps, allowing the warm Italian breeze fill her lungs with the stillness of today and the sorrows of yesterday. She touched one. Whose feet had scurried down this rustic stone, jilted and guilty? She wondered if the bride had fallen and cut herself, a bloodied Cinderella, a crimson trickle lost in the crevice of the rock. The calm air murmured, perhaps.

Estrogeneration Bars!

New for women! Finally, you can have your cake and eat it, too!

Estrogeneration Bars are now in stores and supermarkets nationwide! Pick one up today with this free coupon! They will be in the special feminine product aisles with soy milk and tampons! Flavors come in strawberry, raspberry, cherry, pink, and midol for that special time of the month!

Don’t worry, Estrogeneration Bars will make you grow breasts. And they will give your skin that healthy estrogenetic glow! All natural and yummy, too! It is simply hormonorific!

Estrogeneration Bars are made by women, for women, and in women everywhere.

Proverbially speaking

One tenth of one photograph.

Dear Sister

Grooming, juicing, dicing, cubing, and stewing these brutish feuds strikes slack gashes and gnashes our familial bonds. Delicious pretence clouds reasoned discourse and stormily sweeps forth relations blindly into some inky unknown! How much simpler to admit apology phenomenologically, and confess to appreciate rather than suppress egregious hate. A solid biological construct in a world of arbitrary groups might be honored if nothing else were. For all we have are our fathers and mothers; and all they have are their sons and daughters. And all families have is mirth and laughter to suture their wounds when they poison and slaughter.

Party Animal

“It’s all ‘one shot, two shot, three shot, more’ with you, Colleen.”

“Mom, just because I like to have fun doesn’t mean I’m a party animal.”

“I’m sending you to boot camp.”

“What? That’s just stupid!”

“You need to learn some values young lady.”

“You’re serious. You were drunk last night, too!”

“I’m a grown adult. And it was your brother’s wedding. Mother-in-laws are allowed to get tipsy.”

“Mom, you grabbed the microphone from the band and started singing ‘Emotions.’”

“You’re going to church school.”

“You dedicated the song to the ‘flipping newlyweds,’”

“Just go to your room, Colleen.”

Mine-d

She would sit at her desk and plumb the depths of the dark cool region directly behind each eyeball. She would traverse the trundled ground of across a thousand mysterious signals, instant changes, and muddled messages; sometimes trying to decode and understand and sometimes just to listen. It was music rich with the repetition of a shouting river and noiseless and still like a calm death. It was unnecessary, ephemeral, for self-interested curiosity’s sake; but then wasn’t everything?

To cross a lawn and consider the act of trampling one single crisp blade of grass. What could be more human?

Eating An Apple In Class

First my teeth delve into the juicy depths with the smirking sounds of a foot stepping unexpectedly into a patch of mud, and then with a crispy pop! a chunk of the apple disappears into my mouth, where it is further disfigured by barely heard mastications like distant dinosaurs tramping through imagined forests. The teacher continues and a student raises her hand, both with an air of awareness of foreign, corporeal sounds invading their delicately atmospheric brainwaves. If the cidery juices didn’t flow down my esophagus like tears of joy, I might be concerned about the intrusiveness of my noises.

Ambulance

The sirens echoed through our eyes so we stopped to take a break as the ambulance sped past. It had green and orange lights and swooped by like a vulture with its distant sight set on something around a hundred city corners. We got back on the road timidly, peddling our bicycles around manhole covers as if sirens might suddenly burst from them like geysers. The buildings rumbled past like express trains, full of bankers and men in suits, and when we finally came upon the scene of the accident, we were nearly ready to see what had just happened.

White Space

I wake up. Where am I? The stringently white walls and the sterile hum of nurses and machines tips me off. I am in a hospital. I struggle to prop myself up, but a gloved hand pushes me down.

“Please don’t move, sir, we’re monitoring your vitals.”

The glove releases my shoulder and jumps back to scrawling notes on a yellow legal pad.

“He’s conscious,” a nurse says.

I snort, but can’t because of the tubes, so I hack and choke instead.

She looks at me. I look back. She looks away.

I close my eyes and sink back into--

Three Phrase Scenes

“Steven, come in here”

“I didn’t mean to, Mr. Johnson.”

“When you broke the window, we could replace it. But we can’t simply get Mrs. Bronwyn a new cat.”

“We’re out of milk again, dear.”

“I’ll pick up a carton on my way home from work. Non-fat?”

“Yep, can you pick Kimmy up from ballet too?”

“I told you I loved you”

“And I told you I loved you”

“So that makes both of us…liars”

“How simple, yet effective!”

“Robert, I guarantee you won’t regret this purchase.”

“Why, if I can sit down, I’ll mow my lawn every day!”

what happened?

As I walk round and round

thinkin’ about the black and the brown

it makes me wonder what exactly

happened in this town

What happened to the immunity,

community,

the land of opportunity?

‘cuz now the stage of this scrutiny is all just one big mutiny

and it’s crazy, man

I can’t explain it, man

As I ride and whine and watch—and watch and dine

It’s like someone everywhere is pushed to the grind

What happened to the immunity,

community,

the land of opportunity?

‘cuz now the stage of this scrutiny is all just one big mutiny

it’s crazy, man.

Too Sweet

I don’t like carrots.

What are you, a five-year-old?

No! Well, if you must know, I just don’t like the way you make them.

What’s wrong with how I make them?

They’re too sweet.

That’s because they’re carrots.

Look, I don’t really want to get into it, let’s just—

No, let’s get into it. I can’t believe I’ve been cooking carrots all these years and you haven’t said anything until now! Do you have any idea how many carrots you’ve wasted?

Hey, hey, calm down. It’s only carrots!

It’s not only the carrots.

Wait, what are we talking about then?

How nice.

The little bowl pipe sat untouched but much viewed. Sylvia had said his breath smelt like mole rats were living in his beard, she suggested it might be the tobacco. He said perhaps it was the tobacco. It certainly wasn’t her beef stew.

Sylvia said he needed to be less sarcastic, you bastard. He said he was being sincere! They were in the parlor. She picked up a plate from the silver-edged set his parents had bestowed unto them as a wedding present, and with athletic vigor launched the missile in the air in the vague direction of his person.

A Lament

Life has carefully sapped the vigor from my imagination, leaving a lack like nothing you could ever experience. My blood still flows like rivers that know their channels, and my mind still wrings the logical progression from each moment, but the cosmic fusions that leaped like skydivers from my mind to the ground around me have vanished. This is what it is to be a forgotten river, or a liver, or a prisoner in a wide-open world where the weather changes forever. And the horrible thing is the survival of my memory, which reminds me of those former impulsive days.

The World Spins Wildly

The kerosene sputters and the wind tormenting the leaves wakes you from your dusty slumber. Where is the moon? The night feels lost to time, and the spin of the world becomes so violent that it is all you can do to keep yourself from being blown away down through the copse. Up the hill, a night express train charges past, and the sound is comforting. When the first ocean-sized, invisible drops begin to fall, you sit leaned back against a tree that groans down into its roots and wait meditatively, apprehensively, for the world to right itself again.

Dinner time

Murky, dust-coloured broth swirls in circles of ill-defined ripples. Its stench is so thick you can taste it brush against your pores, and the tiny vapour droplets glance a candle’s light and fling it dingily about the hovel. Your toes are caked in miles of dirt road and leech swamp. Your fingers have touched so much, and will do more before the brittle bones within lock and snap. The cracks in your fingernails harbour small farms in which tiny cabbages have started to grow, and a potato patch by your thumb’s cuticle. Your breath heaves out. Halfway there, to nowhere.

I'm Back

Here, I am an antelope with centipede legs scrawling viscious circles in the hot dust of an untamped earth, brazenly heeding suggestions of misdirection and triumphing over brittle collapse. Breaching beyond ochre splashes and tearing through bristles to break free from mired chaos and emerge contentedly. Wholly scathed yet blatantly whole. Here, I volley my soul across crystal skies, it wrapped only in the ragged concepts borne from fruiting trees – some ripe, others sour; but all produced and displayed in unjudged glory. There is no red, zigzag line of derision across this path. Simply horizonless plains and unfathomable mirth.

We are often

We are often beings of great passion. And more often than not, we succeed at endeavors simply because of this. And passion is… red and hot and bright. It paves the proverbial road. It allows us to live. But what is also not so seldom an occurrence is doubt. Doubt is cloudy and grey and sad. Some say, it is only human. So we are at a standstill. A metaphysical crossroads between two utterly human qualities. And that is where perspective comes in and kicks you into a different gear, powers you out of the ditch and onto the highway.

Random Poetry

A fortress of impenetrable girth
Swallows chasing solitary lines
The gatekeeper with ordinary mirth
Looks over the great valley that shines

Not a whole lot
Not a whole lot
Things are goin on
Are things goin on
Not a whole lot

Tumbling mumbling
Mumbling tumbling
Life is a pillow
Falling down stairs

Steaming streams washing down
Draining away sweaty stains
Streaming steam comes, surrounds
Refreshing flesh from the day

Soporifity
Perfidity
Nucleotidity

Spears jump out into the clear
Dancing like mirrors
Leaping over glassy lakes
Landing like stakes

The breeding grounds are overflowing with granddads
Waving band flags
Mountain crags

Interstate 5

The Nisqually River cuts a huge, open-mouthed valley from the Puget Sound curving back towards the Cascade Range. For millennia it has been a swath across the lowlands, grown under with fir trees and populated with all types of songbirds.
Approaching the river valley in a car on Interstate 5, you see a sign reading “Entering Nisqually Basin”, and then you enter it... And then you’ve left. Did you see anything? Maybe your speed picked up a bit as the road dipped, but the lines guiding you did not change, and the mighty Nisqually Basin passed without notice once again.

The Temple

She walked in with romantic desperation, for she was a lost soul. She expected candles, morphed from centuries of drippings down the sides, to line an equally ancient rug—perhaps hand-woven by the monks themselves. The warm light would give way to dozens of silent, meditating monks. And then the great golden Buddha would be there to receive her.

But it was not so cathartic.

The temple was bare and stone and that was all. But it was old. And there was man. He was not rosy and gold like the deity she imagined. But he was old.

“Oof,” he said.

Sleep

            The setting is a tent, where four people are adjusting their sleeping bags by the light of a single flashlight. Cary is an anarchist who believes that the achievement of ideal society is simple with a healthy, purging, violent revolution. Trent believes that God exists today as a beggar. Kelsey thinks life would be no fun without her designer hiking boots. And naturally, Rocky believes that all joy is found in rocks and trees, and everything else is inconsequential. Somehow, here they are, together in this tent. They say a goodnight to each other and fall asleep under the moon.

Guest Post: David Roxas

"Skittles"

There is something surely magnificent about Skittles. What exactly? Who knows these days especially since people took their heads out of their bottoms and started to speak their own minds. But seriously, what makes Skittles so fun to eat? Is it because its slogan is ‘Skittles, taste the rainbow?’ Is that even what a rainbow taste like? Has anyone ever ventured up to a rainbow, tasted it, and said “Mmm, this truly tastes like Skittles!” And why does that slogan only work with Skittles? Then again, you would never see anyone eat Cheetos and say “Mmm, Cheetos, taste the rainbow!”

Re: Letter To The Editor

Dear Charlene:
 
Your letter impressed me mightily. Who would have expected such force of vigilance from such a young girl? You are quite right to be concerned with Mr. Abrams’ use uncited factoids in his article on the daily plight of the homeless. However, your proposed course of action – namely, to fire the reporter – is reactionary and unwarranted. As an editor, my first responsibility is to protect my writers. I do not often reply personally, and if you try to attack Mr. Abrams’ work again, I can assure you that your letter will be ignored.
 
Yours,
 Judd Biaso

Get Together! Fuse!

            Tug of war! It’s a dastardly masterly battle between the seat of my hair and the deep pit of my stomach! Who’s gonna win? Who are the opponents even? Kick, bite, fight! Or not! Work together! Have fun!
 
            Hmmmm. Why does it seem that my sense of what is true and meaningful in life is always slow and deliberate, and completely disconnected with my impetuous nature? It arises from solitary settings, and though it often gives me unsettling pleasure, it is divorced from the corporeal me who wants to turn somersaults for fun.
 
            Woohoo! Weehee!
            They both are me.
            Simultaneously?

If I Was Holding Your Hand

Remind me how you crinkle your eyes,
How my insides are attached to the corners of your mouth –
When they go up, so do I.
I remember the way
You say things to me,
Whether giggling or frowning or groaning,
No matter how you say it, they’re the air that I breathe.
Really, you could twist me in pretzels if you felt the need!
 
If I was holding your hand,
I’d gently count each finger
To make sure they all were there.
Then I’d say,
You’re my air.
And you’d laugh and make me feel
Better than I should.

The Teacher

            He threw the thrashing burlap sack into the back of his dinged pickup truck, and with eyebrows in the V of migrating geese, gunned the engine. For eighty-eight miles, his eyes did not waver. The sun was just coming up over the big middle school building as he wove his way into the parking lot, swung himself out of the truck, and walked in his sandy boots to his classroom. The students were waiting. He walked straight to the wooden tank in the corner and poured eight mottled brown stingrays from the bag. Turning, he said, “Morning. Welcome to class.”

Kansas

            When you find yourself in Kansas, write me a letter. I know you remember my address. Write about the endless wheat fields and the dirt underneath them, how you tried on a straw hat and wanted to eat a burger. Tell me things. We’ve been wandering like worm trails in a red apple; we might be following our noses but it takes in random directions. Sometimes paths cross. Maybe ours never will. Make Kansas your marker, and even though a letter is just a letter, make it only our own. Then I’ll know that you’re still out under the sky.

Not A Scene From A Club, But From Your Cranial

Emcee Hypercracktive: “We got Busta Baby in da hoobastank gettin’ swank y’alllll!”

Busta Baby: “Yo. I got dough fo hos. Flows fo bros. Shows fo mo and toes fo muthafuckin’ runnin’.”

Male fan: “Impregnate me!!!!”

Emcee Hypercracktive: “Make noise fo yo boyzzzz!”

Busta Baby: “Chikin dinna I’m a winna. Taco dinna you a winna.”

Crowd: “AHHHH! YUMMM!”

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Hell.”

Busta Baby: “Knock yo bell. Put you in hell.”

Emcee Hypercracktive: “Go STUPID y’alllll!”

Confucius: “Reincarnated? What have I done?”

Crowd: “Get. Dumb. Get. Dumb. Get. Dumb.”

Fan: “Shoot me!!!!!”

Busta Baby: “God bless. Do work.”

You: “Ummm, what?”

Guest Post: David Roxas

As I sat at my desk typing away, I heard my fellow officemate begin to chatter a call that could only mean business was taking place here. To keep anonymity in play, Shosanna, as I will refer to her, placed the call on speaker as the elderly woman’s voice on the other end failed to clearly state her business address. It was then understood that the location given must be spelled out letter by letter. This made Shosanna sigh.

“ ‘B’, as in Bangladesh. ‘O’ as in Optimus Prime. ‘Y’ as in Yankee. ‘C’ as in ‘Como se llama senorita’…”

Mental Checklist

As she prepared to leave, she went through the mental checklist in her head.

Socks? Check.

Toothbrush? Check.

Camera? Check.

Molly’s Polaroid?

She looked at the picture for a moment. Her sister stood plainly front of the station. “See you on the other side,” was scribbled.

She wondered who had taken it and if they knew Molly’s intentions were.

Careful not to wake her parents, she looked in the pantry. An old pack of popcorn, slim jims, and a cranraspberry juicebox. She slammed it all in her backpack and hit the road.

“Not anytime soon, Sis. At least, I hope.”

The Way (To Sauté)

            Hank Bankton talked wildly into his Bluetooth as he chewed his hot wings with mouth wide open. “Push those bitches out of our market, like I said at the.” He stopped and began to froth. A hair was coiled in his basket of hot wings.

            Brandishing the near-empty basket as he thrust himself into the kitchen, he was greeted by the sight of a barefoot guru sautéing onions while sitting in full lotus on a stool. The floor was dirt. The air was spicy. Unprepared for such sagacious and third-world preparation of food, he silently stepped back into the lounge.

Food People

Look at this waif over there with her frizzy blond hair high up in a pony tail, looking as if the wind could knock her over. A lemon soufflé for sure. And that yummy waiter with the chocolate eyes and broad shoulders? A rack of lamb with a porcini reduction. That couple over there fighting over something or other? A spicy king-prawn arrabiata with angel hair pasta for even more knotting. What about you, dear reader? You are a blank setting. A perfect medium on which to plate my words. So what do you think? Sweet or sour?

The Test

            The boy fidgeted with his belt and looked up at his grandfather.
            “Now, that elk might come at you,” said the old man.
            “Yeh.”
            “Ain’t nothing he can do when you got the gun.”
            “Yeh.”
            His grandfather got into his old truck and drove off, down through the woods to his breakfast table.
            The boy crouched where he had been told and waited. Each time the breeze brushed through the woods, he pictured a wolf or bear getting a hold of him - if anything had come, he’d have been too frightened to lift the gun. But he didn't dare leave.

Guest Post: David Roxas

"Envelopes Part II"

Dear Monitor,

Remember when itold you iwas going to split this post into two parts, like Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill”? Well ilied I’m going to split it into three parts like Robert Zemeckis’s “Back to the Future”.

So here are the Post-Its that have been allowed by the HR to be sent out, so far:

“Please Return Envelopes”

“Please Return Envelopes, thank you”

“It would be greatly appreciated if the envelopes are returned, thank you”

“It would be ever so kind of you to return the envelopes, thank you”

“Please kindly, dearly, happily, return the envelopes, thank you”

Writer,

David

Celebrating Mediocrity Everyday

You wake up this morning and think to yourself, why don’t you put a spin on this day? After all, this day is Tuesday—just any Tuesday, you suppose. But still, you decide to shake things up. Put on socks that don’t match. Eat my eggs scrambled instead of sunny side up. Take the scenic route to work today. Go five miles over the speed limit so that old lady doesn’t tail gate you so much. And you know what? Go ahead and greet your co-workers in Latin. Put that 7^th grade knowledge to work. Yeah, shake things up a bit.

Status Symbols

            Her friends all said she battled her cancerous spot with a heart like an unremitting cyclone, that her determination was the very stuff of inspiration. She paid their comments no mind, though she heard them a lot, and charged ahead with her life. Of course, she made sure to keep several of the pens that came with her medication in her purse – the ones with dire yet colorful names of supposed cures – to use at opportune times. And there on her keychain was a little rubber sign with Scarzotec splashed on both sides, right next to her keyless Lexus key.

Waving A Hunk Of Wood

            Leroy Raker may be a psychopath, but he sure knows how to wave a hunk of wood near a plate in the dirt. He’ll give the pitcher the death glare even as he’s charging up a ball with enough energy to land it in an order of garlic fries 350 feet away.

            In Game 2 of the World Series, he finally proved himself to the seasoned criminals of penitentiaries nationwide when his last-ditch swing at a two-strike pitch ended with him roaring from atop second base. The winning base runner was champagning back in the clubhouse, and he just roared.

Part Of A Letter

            What else to tell you? There are certainly limitations to a letter. I have been reading and writing a whole lot lately. My book is coming along quickly the last three weeks, though it keeps getting harder to wake up at seven in the morning. It is my last week on the farm, and there are a lot of things I still want to do before I leave (i.e. become a mycologist, make hot pepper sauce). I know I won’t finish the book, so it’s hard to know how hard to push myself to continue making more progress this week.

Shabba Dabba

Shabba dabba
Shabba dabba uwwww wabba
Shabba dabba uwwww wabba wa bow bow uw wabba
Shim shim
Shabba dabba du wabba bow wabba
Shim shimma shim
Shabba dabba du wabba
Du wabba
Du wabba shabba
Ting
Shabba dabba uwwww wabba
Shim shim du bah du wabba
Shabba dabba uwwww wabba
Shim shimma du bah du wab du bah
Du bah du bah shimma du bah
Ting
Shabba dabba shabba dabba uw wabba bow
Bow uw wabba
Shabba dabba
Shabba dabba uw wabba bow bow du wabba
Shim shim du wabba
Shim shimma du wabba
Shabba dabba du wabba wabba
 
Yeah.

Sundays

            On Sunday, the world stops. I can’t explain it. All week I work at things that seem important, and the hours march by like the mile markers on a highway. Indeed, I am getting somewhere – each night as I blow the steam off of my tea the number of things I’ve done amazes me. But as I said, the world stops on Sundays, or the rules change, or I am simply surrounded by hours lying out like sunbathers. I want to say that Sunday disorients me, the way it sneaks up unexpectedly, but it’s so damn relaxing to do nothing!

Flight By John Steinbeck

            Pepé goes to town for medicine and candles and kills a man. He comes home in the middle of the night and his mother helps him prepare. He rides into the mountains with a shotgun. Weird dark figures watch him. He crosses a ridge; men are chasing him. He is very thirsty, crosses another ridge, and his horse is shot. Weird dark figure again. There is a rattlesnake and Pepé stumbles over yet another ridge. Somehow he loses the shotgun and so he stands up on top of a ridge, where he is promptly shot down. That ends the story.

Utopos

Can it be true that for all of history
We have wandered away from something right and natural?
 
The planets move unceasingly,
And the ants carry bits of food through unseen dirt tunnels.
If I could stretch up or stoop down
And tell them of all our progress,
They would laugh confused, and ask:
“What is this progress?”
 
Oh sun that reappears each morning!
Oh terra firma flowing with all your systems of life!
If you are not the incarnation of Utopos,
Come to finally unite our pleasure with our happiness,
Then who is,
And where might I find him?

Dead Ends

I am running, no, I am full-on sprinting through this town. Roads and roads in front of me curve every which way, and each turn promises virgin sceneries, but no—wait, it can’t be. This turn doesn’t go through. Dash to the next one. Neither does this turn! Just dead-ends for miles on end? No, keep going, this next one on the left has gotta be through. Oh despair, panic. It’s just another cul-de-sac where I must screech my heels to a halt. It’s getting dark, I’m getting tired, and my joints hurt from the pounding. Where—when can I get through?

Mycologist

            Rurik’s maple mushroom (for that is what I will name it) appears primarily in depressions in the forest floor where there exists an abundance of moisture and rotting leaves. The color of the cap ranges from tan to brown – indeed almost the hue of maple syrup – in an ill-defined circular pattern. The edge is rounded and underneath the cap is a radiation of white gills. I discovered one instance of a near perfect circle of these mushrooms, a pattern that suggests they grow in conjunction with one another, perhaps even as protrusions of a single larger organism.

Rings (II)

            The young man was now a shivering old man. Only his fingers retained the vitality of his youth, and still he used them to shape rings. Each ring now was meticulously crafted of precious metals and gemstones or ornately carved of hard, exotic wood. People offered him exorbitant prices, but he only gave them away to young men saying, “Have this. I made it for my wife.”
            He had never married. One of the young men asked him, “Isn’t it getting too late?”
            He smiled and replied, “I stopped dreaming about what a wife might be like long ago.”

Guest Post: David Roxas

"Envelopes"

Dear Monitor,

Like Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill”, this post was too damn long, so isplit it up into two parts…

It works like this: companies order, iprocess and send them an invoice. And because this process of receiving, billing, and sending envelopes is an everyday duty, one would think that they should be getting these envelopes returned so that more envelopes are not needed to be sent, ordered and produced, thus saving money and trees. This is however not the case. So what does one do to, in hopes, get back their beloved envelopes? We send Post-its. Cheers.

Writer,

David

Rings

            One day a mother found her young son twisting a piece of grass into a loop. “It’s a ring!” he said. “For my wife. Someday.” He frowned, trying to get the loop to stay.

            As the boy grew into a young man he continued to make rings. It was something to do when his hands were idle; he made them from wood, twine, paper, or whatever else was handy. Any time someone asked what he was doing, he absently replied that he was making a ring for his wife, then gave it to them, saying, “I’ll make another, better one, for her.”

A Play on Words

Anger: I’m going to strangle something.

Denial: Why? It’s not like he meant to do it.

Depression: Yes, he did. He meant it and it’s terrible. Oh, it’s so terrible.

Anger: I’m really, really going to shoot the guy.

Depression: Now, there’s no one. We’re alone.

Denial: Nah. Everything’s fine. Stop over-reacting.

Hope: Hey guys, it will be fine.

Depression: Who said that?

Anger: I can make it fine.

Denial: I dunno D, I didn’t hear anything.

Depression: You’re right. Oh god, I’m hearing voices.

Denial / Anger: Shut up. All of you!

Hope: In time, everything will be fine.

Hypocartical

“Hi.”

“I gotta get gas, is that okay?

“Sheesh, again?.”

“Why so snarky?”
“Well, maybe if you stop driving such a gas guzzler, you wouldn’t have to fill up every other day.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. Not everyone can get a fancy new hybrid plug-in whatever thing.”

“Yeah, but—wait, don’t pull in here, this place is really expensive.”

“Fine, where should I go?”

“Just go down the street. Look, I just think--Turn left here. Oh no that place is closed.”

“There’s another place further down. I don’t need your judgment. I’ve been driving—“

“This one’s even more expensive! Keep driving.”