Category Archives: Creative
Del Valle
No one can quite grasp the specifics of my situation. This scares me. Each person I share my story with serves as proxy for a potential juror, eventually to be culled from my bank of peers, whoever they are. And as their eyes inevitably glaze over when I try to explain the nuances–critical to my [...]
Also posted in: Fragments, History Tagged as: austin bergstrom international, del valle texas, early evening, east border, international trips, juror, late afternoon, melancholy, nuances, painful reminder Leave a comment
Unbelievable
This is not a photograph. It is a vector drawing by Thai artist Ussa Methawiitayakul. Check out the process. One step closer to Weird Science.
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Shoal Creek
For Carlo Marx
The innocent arrogance of innocent insight
Where no one isn’t stained
The simultaneous paradox, then:
Is no one is to blame
The opiated masses bleat and daily chew their cud
And the pigs that serve them self-righteous
Are covered in the mud
Order has a grotesque cost of vile assimilation
It follows, then, forever lost
The minds of generations
Not all
Some stand naked [...]
Posted in: Creative Tagged as: arrogance, assimilation, bleat, carlo marx, cud, fifth floor, floor windows, hymns, pigs, shoal creek Leave a comment
An imagined prologue to divorce. Oh, and Beck.
How is it possible that today, a niche-famous musician I’ve never met, only having admired him from this side of my ears, could accurately predict the thoughts in my head, from the speakers of my car, and in harmony no less? Even more impressive is the prediction manifest in a song, Cold Brains, released in [...]
Also posted in: Monologues Tagged as: cold brains, famous musician, insider trading, interjection, permanent damage, prologue, prominence, sea change, song titles, thoughts in my head Leave a comment
Eulogy
Here, then, lay our reflections
Silent hymns to our complicity
The capricious change of heart and
The biases of memory
The rapture of despair and
The inevitable agony
Of off-white lies and furtive cries
And doe-eyed volatility
The promise of redemption
And shame at our complacency
Duplicitous omissions
That mock our claims of honesty
I burn for a reprise
Of our consumptive, common fallacy
The brief joy of our [...]
Also posted in: Fragments, History Tagged as: agony, biases, blank, breakups, change of heart, complacency, complicity, duplicity, fallacy, hymns, rapture, reflection, volatility, white lies Leave a comment
The frailest of gestures
I open the door and I can smell her before I see her, that unique amalgam of Camels, Maybelline, and chardonnay.
Also posted in: Fragments, History, Monologues Tagged as: amalgam, camels, chardonnay, email, gestures, love, maybelline, short hairs, urgency Leave a comment
Five feet, five inches
I had only ever heard her tell one lie before but it was a lie that she often repeated. I should clarify. There were probably other lies. But, this is the only one for which I had confirmation. Her lies were never actual commissions. There were no claims of I was with so-and-so at so-and-so’s [...]
Also posted in: Fragments, History, Monologues Tagged as: communication choices, condescension, entanglements, five feet, mock debate, poor communication, prose, quarter inches, seeds of doubt, self righteousness, slow progression Leave a comment
The downward spiral
I get to the restaurant five minutes late to find her waiting halfway between the entrance and the back. I feel good and it’s good to see her.
“You look like you haven’t slept in a few days,” she says. “Are you drinking?”
“It’s good to see you too.”
“I worry about you.” The moment of tenderness is [...]
Also posted in: Fragments, History Tagged as: downward spiral, few days, fingers, five minutes, gesture, grabs, prose, restaurant five, short hairs Leave a comment
à la mode
The mathematics of ice cream are never exact,
And for most of us, not easily grasped.
Like ∏, which undefined, still describes a circle,
Each scoop is perfect and unknowable.
Of course, we have machines that tell us temperature.
But none exist that calculate the velocity of flavor,
The atomic weight of preference, or the melting point of slurp.
None come even [...]
Also posted in: Fragments Tagged as: atomic weight, brr, ceiling paintings, close to understanding, fall from grace, fugue, melting point, poetry, velocity, waffle, yum Leave a comment
Hidden agenda
This poem is not concerned with language,
but rather with a gesture.
Truth be told it has an agenda.
See it speaking sweetly to you?
This poem misses you when you walk away.
See how it waits for you to finish your sentences,
and acts nonchalant as you answer the phone?
It hopes you’re talking to a girl.
This poem is sad because [...]
Also posted in: Fragments Tagged as: acts, chocolate milk, donuts, gesture, hidden agenda, love, poem, poetry, sentences, sunday morning, sweetness, whispers Leave a comment
The bus to county
I remember three things: 1) The song playing on the bus (yes, they played the radio) was “Gangstas Make the World Go ‘Round” and all the gangstas—real and wannabe—rapped along; 2) There was a guy in the cage at the front of the bus de-toxing from something and every time he vomited on himself the [...]
Also posted in: Fragments, History Tagged as: black man, California, gentleman, homosexual, laughter, left hand, population, prisoners, prose, special needs, violence, worry Leave a comment
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God doesn’t play dice, I do