M.

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a lighthearted custom in fathomless air

A cold air’s breath on new year’s night is doubly possessive and, as such, not without…
this is about

Memory and imagination are one in the same for storymaking but sight depends. Did you know…
the spirit prints no timetable

Someone else once described poetry as the practiced revelation of subjects ordinarily marked for concealment, but…
tbd

Bellow writing in the ‘60s about the well of literary estrangement running dry. Saul, that is.…
the flies that fasten that shadow to the ground

One thing is to be, another is to see, just the way I wish you’d see…
a feeling that you might be

I was tired. All we have is this moment, and, at times, I was sick of…
saudades

Hyper-awareness is such a flatly ironic drag when it lacks the ability to go beyond itself,…
fear and a spirit of hateful accommodation

Yes, all those things are lovely, but it’s boring when all is said and done at…
end of a story

Another time—yes, there was another time, but only one other time, and that not really—I saw…
leaving and staying and by staying leaving

Had to stop reading a (the?) biography of Clarice Lispector because, no matter how much I…
an inevitable insubstantiality

Resist, resist, resist—what about the virtues of just going along? By “virtues” I mean “benefits;” there’s…
may i speak here

It’s hard to say it matters so I keep typing and breathing anyway but isn’t that…
the pleasure of perpetual communication

No matter the number by which you decide to split the dividend of times I lied…
to be all eye and eye alone

I have four windows open around me this morning, a sigh on every side—everything I am…
without faltering for reason or commentary

The perfect autumn day—by evening, when my toes are cold despite socks and slippers, I might…
beauty has no end or edges

A person can be internally consistent and absurd at the same time, like a comedy skit.…
the one flatterer of this base despair

Tears in the morning at the slightest provocation—the inconveniences of sensitivity, the troubles of necessity, and…
revealing the fullness of their pretense

The ground outside was littered with crab apples the day I found a dead dove in…
every mirror holds different news for me

For a good twenty-five minutes she some young unknown sits in a blue Camaro parked with…
the light that sometimes increases the wisdom of joy

Sometimes I’m alive. Look at the sky. Feel the breeze. Read Cervantes. Write a poem. Love/lose…
and we return to the earlier discord

When was the last time I just watched rain fall without feeling the need to be…
sleeplessness and unexpected music

It’s far too early in the evening to say here accept this and good morning, let’s…
in a pose of sweet indifference

Sometimes you write a nice, strange note to a nice, strange some kind of acquaintance and…
pinned like a note on a hospital gown

Wednesday at 8pm on the back of a plain white business card, the address below. 4256…
how the surrender happened inside

I feel something when my eyes see that I don’t want talking to shatter. Always desiring,…
dans le bureau

What are these people doing? How do they have that many clicks in them each day.…
fading out under the ashes of the night

For the child, time stretches out immeasurably in all directions, and it’s as if nothing more…
the moment’s eternally running stain

The bass was drowning out the highs, the saxophonist’s mic didn’t work, and for a minute…
my wisdom is as neglected as chaos is

You can’t even think straight. Cleanly, that is. It’s straight enough, but so coarse and asperous…
with the demented enthusiasm of full-fledged existence

I am the monster lurking on the hillside, chased by something even more terrible. I am…
strabismus

An old man approached me at the gym as I was catching my breath between sets…
meantime we will express our darker purposes

The patio overlooked my fantasy but we sat inside and had overcooked fish. Clinking glasses of…
all i’ve ever known is true

Suppose life is just one big missed connection and post an awkward public notice to the…
ventilator to the good darkness

And then there were those open spaces of my youth, stretched out between memory and oblivion…
stack it up like cinnamon

You were pretty like a leopard or a fox and probably just as sharp though you…
so the words knock in vain and nothing sticks

In a dream I dreamed some few maybe several dreams ago—they’re hard to count, hard, sometimes,…
liminality

UNITY in yellow letters on the back of a black hoodie, our differences bring us together.…
keep before you the swift onset of oblivion

The grass is patchy with indecision, or so I project, but the morning doves don’t seem…
and everything is unanswered and vehement

It’s 8:00 in the morning on the first Saturday that feels like summer. Winter is gone…
put your heart in the hands of a cynic

You’re a marvelous being, he says to her, eyes squinting for a better view behind the…
groping for attention’s instruments

Have you ever fallen for someone at the sound of their voice? No, he said. But…
each man is a half-open door

I came to Chicago in 2007, the year of the Virginia Tech shooting. I’d been there,…
i am a waterspout for impressions

It’s not going to look big but it is if you make it. Tomorrow would be…
tabernacled in flesh

It’s the keeping in that makes my heart palpitate because it’s not telling the truth and…
like a shadow burned into a wall

It was a week of work, my first in over two months. Funny how you can…
all that appeared was a blind obstinate impulse expressing itself in bursts of foolishness

Canceled my New Yorker subscription some months ago, as if that would help me feel less scatterbrained, once…
standing at the center of the picture of his joy

Filling page after page with half-thoughts is both an affront to writing and essential to the…
literature is a second form of protection

Listening to one story (tv, French crime thriller) and reading another (first one of my own,…
context

I woke up and my face was bruised and a front tooth broken half off and…
to my knees you do promote me

As an act of living, everything I write is a little record of feeling alive, no…
dough, booze, and chicken pot pie

Last night was the last night in that apartment I’d tell people was down by the…
the fake elegance of periphrasis

Here’s an idea: Write the story of this move we’re making to a completely different neighborhood,…
like a small wisp of smoke drifting quietly skyward on a windless day

Getting a new job is like asking for a favor. And so is moving. Asking for…
cover up and say goodnight

Between us, I suppose did all the feeling. The inherent disobedience of singing our contrapuntal song…
pigeonholed by one (in)coherent myth

So I got the job. At first I was mad, as if some principle had been…
achieropoieta

The sun was low and melting through the palms and garish columns when we arrived after…
too much is never enough

Not enough, not enough, not enough, not enough. Never enough. Work-life balance. Work-life integration. That’s all…
futility is the way home

I was sick. Sometimes I think it’s too bad I don’t really write poetry. This may…
a carapace for this irredeemably querulous nature

I step out of the office and into the hall for an hors d’oeurve taste of…
notes to self on a story

Make it sound. Sounding is being, and he must be other than some slight linguistic variation…
with my toes on the edge it’s such a lovely view

Yesterday was a long day and that thing I wrote was not. It—the thing—was written several…
better living through chemistry

At the Mexican place around the corner and the neighboring table’s food arrives and the cute…
piece of a story called be both beautiful and camouflaged

I reach the steel staircase of the train station without realizing I’d left my spot on…
a human as well as a scientific foundation

But I write how I write and say what I say the way(s) I want to…
the work is highly characteristic

STOP WRITING SO MUCH ABOUT WRITING. It says that in my notebook and it has a…
contributor

M is the editor of no magazines (print or online) and does not hold an academic…
and someday i would disappear completely

Rather than finding reasons to dismiss, keep finding ways to contribute. Don’t pull away and judge…
moves like myth

Remember the letters, with your scholarly manners of speech and good diction, fast and dry. Tell…
caution/at least we have this

It’s sleeping with security, knowing it could leave in the height of the night and never…
it’s a milky chance

As a prosaic poetics would posit, B would not have happened without A (with A being…
human development

I don’t want to hear any more about “fast-paced, high-energy environments.” These job descriptions make the…
four thoughts from Dec 27

Work for a man with no sense of past. Another thought about time last night but…
that the lies may fly out

You were in a dream I had last night, in your town, holding the Nouvelle Anthologie…
“the idea was so naïve it became sophisticated”

The Midwest isn’t as charming as many of its inhabitants seem to believe. It’s insular and…
predestination uncertain

Dream one. At a crowded beach on a warm, sunny day, big puffy white clouds in…
a week in the life

In my first full week of unemployment since, I don’t know, maybe 2010, I applied for…
noted 020818

Well, I suppose this is the gist of it. Some stuff on weekdays and other stuff…
noted 020718

The reading list is getting longer and stranger. By “the” I mean “my.” How about a…
noted 020518

It’s good to take a vacation. On a vacation, writing might happen. But I was just away.…
invention/charade

Till it all falls away and nothing’s left but a great teeming swarm of perceiving subjects…
apprehension

Around two o’clock in the afternoon on a bright and chilly Chicago Thursday, a man in…
noted 020218

When the universe says jump, you a) hesitate, b) stumble, c) stand still and wait for…
noted 013118

Since it’s the last day of the current month and we’re on the topic of great…
noted 013018

Today is Tuesday but the other day it was Sunday, and morning. I woke up and…
the man (with the hat)

This is the first quarter or so of a story I more or less finally finished…
scenescence

My dad was sick and we were trying to get the house ready and a cow…
span

Maybe one day we’ll meet and neither of us will know what to say for no…
headway

Winter, and a thickness like fog, but crisp and clear. “Shroud” isn’t the word but “envelop”…
birthdays

Tomorrow is my birthday. My birthday is tomorrow. Either way, I’ll be older than I am…
conventional

A fellow called Chris Knapp in The Paris Review, not me. Maybe I should tweet about…
abuela

Not long ago I read that prize-pony book by Junot Díaz and found myself feeling a…
gnossienne

Maxine Groffsky talks too much and I hear too little from any of you, but the…
continuous

Made choices not from equilibrium, as sometimes thought, but from crests or troughs. Just a ship…
fortitudinal

Had an idea. I’d play on what “better” means. Mix it up with the categorical imperative…
optimal

Nothing is indefectible. The car is clean and it’s raining. I love you but I’m not…
cipher

Thunderstorms again, and with each flash I count the miles between soul and spirit, closing fast,…
predicate

The ground again, yesterday, it’s still there, or was, and it’s still hard with these pauses…
date night

Those two over there, yeah, the table in the corner right there. Before you got here…
pursued

The past is nothing to run from or fear. Wholeness, they say, and I think about…
sketch

This is what Oscar says, and it’ll be in the book. I sometimes wonder if the…