1 | 2 | 3 | 4 As the coffee went from hot to lukewarm to cool to the touch, Freja went out into the city. What a fool- she thought to herself, of Bastian, whom she was at first hesitant to speak to but had judged as harmless shortly after meeting him. Flecks of [...]

(Read Part 1) (Read Part 2) Before Berlin turned gray, Bastian often dreamed the same dream. He was walking through a forest; he could not say which one. It was daylight, and slightly cloudy, so that the sun fell like arrowshafts through the branches and leaves of the great and grand trees above. And then [...]

I stand upon an empty crate and say I am a good god man. Splinters encroach on cracked feet and the people do not lend with interest. Overhead some twelve or twenty stories ago shattered glass suspends itself by virtue or virtue of. I am a good god man and my brow is cut into. [...]

(Read Part 1 here) The blue-eyed girl was not so much a girl, in fact. She was quite the capable young woman. If the young man could have seen her at that moment from his street, instead of calling out her name, he would have closed his eyes and opened his nose and inhaled quite [...]

WIDOW, WIDOW, WOLF, WOLF (click here to download an mp3 recording) She receives a letter in the post she tears the letter with her teeth to twos then fives then tens and twain she eviscerates she disembowels again and the hardwood floor is poor relief when she sinks onto it like salmon returning to a [...]

(click here to download an mp3 recording) I closed my jaws around her throat like fingers grasping for air, for air for air for air. Was she fair or was she unjust. It was cold, it was crisp; it was ice in a paper-towel gurney. Shakespeare recitations were not enough: I touched her like a [...]

UNCOMPLICATED GESTURES OF AFFECTION (click here to download an mp3 recording) We were, ultimately, unsure of our destination. The maps had flown out of the passenger-side window at eighty-four miles per hour, and the guidebook or constituent parts of the guidebook had been used to stem the flow of blood from the puncture wounds on [...]

HUES THAT I HAD NOT SEEN In Berlin they built war machines. The once-blue skies stained gray with the smoke of war: burning coal and smelting iron to build bombs and bombs and bombs. Everything became gray. The charming piano cafes turned gray. The bookstores and bookshops turned gray; the books inside and all their [...]

Concrete is a good ghost home. Solid and through and beckoning back the water. I walk with footfalls unlike myself. The incense billowing out in ash could not suffocate such a step nor the cavalcade of little gods. They little gods creep out of metal grates and sinuate in alleyways. They do not mourn the [...]

I OPEN MY ARMS WHICH WERE PREVIOUSLY CLOSED I stepped out of my car and onto the dirt. It seemed crisp underneath the soles of my black leather shoes. I squinted. The coffee-stains were faded but remained. I closed the car door and waited before locking it. I pushed my hands into my pockets and [...]