Harp Bones

Drawing a comb of reeds and metal sheaths across his crooked teeth
a skinny man who points his fingers at another man who holds his fingers in V’s
curls back the yellowed knuckles. Harp bone marrow leaks through a row of teeth.

Sinful whines emerge from millimetered wooden bars,
bronzed notes from spit-worn vibrations;
Then he lets himself sing a word or so.

Earthquake against tongues mimic a flattened earth
Columbus was wrong, he’d sailed off the edge
and did he know the land made such a melody?

Waves like metal-tasting sounds on hair cells and ossicles
curl back the inner ear like curled fingers over the edge, the grooved
cover plate indented with the names of abstractions,
sounds that cannot be voiced.

The skinny man who used to point fingers like he used to be a Zimmerman
shimmers eyelids behind a harp catching spotlight, making cuts across
enameled teeth and marks in lips of names of sounds, eyes

flittering like breaths rattling the metal reeds in a tiny air coffin
where wind meets the afterlife,
transforms into A’s and B’s and C’s and G sharps.
Sharps like sharp fingernails and piercing 10’s carried by breaths or gasps

in, drawing notes to linger in two lungs, waiting below the ribs to release
and mingle with new notes on a curled tongue, folded
and pressed against wooden knots and holes,
a tongue fold so genetically articulate that each breath must be innate.


A metal box with so many sounds within it:
ribbed compartments jailing chirps and quick, piqued casts of weightless carbon,
a tongue with so many words folded within it; a tongue
like nimble fingers skimming the surface of an oral organ.

A thousand chromatic voices at one second, one origin, one
body. Ten fingers glued together in curves to transfer the winded notes:
V for Victory or Vietnam but A and B and C
and D and on and on to change the times, alternating

inhales and exhales in quick expansions of the ribcage; surging blood
in xylem and phloem of intricately cut wooden encavements. The skinny
man knocks the reed against leather-worn palms
to pound out the saliva and lingering psalms. He

with his stained slender fingers strips the metal armor down
to the wooden skeleton and finds parts of his soul stuck in the crevasses,
carbon bodily scum he scratches away with his smallest fingernails:
clearing space for when his harp soul marrow begins to leak again.

Voyeur

(I'm having issues with the "steam shutter snaps open / then shut" line--I'm not a fan of having shutter and shut close to each other, and I like keeping shutter, but I want something short to replace shut that sounds good and yeah...any suggestions would be appreciated.)

Voyeur

I see them on the street corner
in red Chucks and black Chucks,
drifting in circles across the cement
as they waltz in the rain,
half-exposed behind sheets of steam
hanging over the driveway’s rainwater skin.

I see them as frames
caught in the steady flash
of the streetlight as the
steam shutter snaps open
then shut.
In layers the frames
collect--taped to my windows,
pinned to my walls--and
develop into a flickering kiss.

And as they warm in the
air and rainwatery arms,
I sit in blue Chucks, leeching
heat out of the window pane.

Help

I just started a new story. It's got some hope, I think. But it all feels so heavy handed, so forced, and I want to fix the tone before I get too deep into it. Here are the first four pages. Please. Help me fix this POS.


Apartments
(A Love Story)
Charles C

“Just let me blow you.”
“No. Goodnight.” The couple upstairs is at it again.
“Fine. Fuck you too.” It’s silent, a moment. Then I hear the young man settle into the bed beside his amore. “I love you,” comes through the drywall. I imagine them sharing a tired kiss. Half-bickering, half-bantering, I hear them every few days. It’s cute, sometimes. But it’s weird, too. I don’t know their story. The ghost next door is up now. I smell blood in the thin apartment air. Shit. I say a quiet Hail Mary, turn on the radio, and listen to late night shock jocks until I fall asleep.
Rent is good, here. Location’s not bad. There’s a really nice sushi spot across the street. Old Man Yakima runs the place. He’s very white, very Jewish, and very Japanese in his affectations. It’s weird, but cute too. I see his wife sometimes there, drinking hot sake from a small cup at the end of the bar. Her hair is golden and curly. I can’t tell how old she is. She smiles sometimes, reading the obituaries. I’ve never heard her speak.
I moved into apartment 713 right after graduation. I have a bachelor’s in communications; I work at Kinko’s. I eat a lot of ramen. And I’ve developed a fascination with lists. Here’s one;

APARTMENT RULES
(In order of importance)
1. Do not come in unless you are invited.
2. Take your shoes off in the foyer.
3. Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.
4. Do not open my fridge

And another;

REASONS FOR KISSING
Romantic desire
Erotic desire
Curiosity
Thirst
Boredom
They have something in their teeth and you’re too embarrassed to say anything
Hunger
Loneliness

I’ve kissed for all of these reasons. My first love was named Raquel. She was Brazilian. She was four years older, 11. I was 7. I put my hand on her shoulder when we kissed. I’d never felt so intimate with anyone ever. She blushed. If she had been fluent in English, maybe we would have stayed together. And if we were still together, I wouldn’t need this;

HOW TO GET LAID
1. Get off the sofa. You’re not getting any ass sitting on the couch watching scrubs and eating hot pockets. Getting out of the home is the first step to getting into a lady.
2. Be prepared. Shower, brush your teeth, shit and piss before heading out. Wear clothes that look nice. Not too fancy, not too shabby.
3. Keep the following in your pockets;
a. Breath-mints
b. Floss
c. Small knife (Under 6 inches)
d. Hot Dog (Wrapped in foil so it stays warm)
e. Crack (2 Rocks)
4. Know your area. If you don’t know where the easy ladies like to hang out, you’ll be cruising without purpose, which can add hours onto your night.
5. Be prepared to get dirty

That plan works. Most nights I can get laid in under an hour. But it’s not perfect. A few nights ago, I invited a Miss Gene into my apartment. I found her in an alley, rifling through old bread from a Subway trash bag. I’d been out for about half an hour when I saw her, and I went turgid immediately.
The full moon lit her beautifully; Short, sturdy legs, strong, calloused skin, long, auburn hair. She looked weird, but cute. She was lazily chewing an oregano loaf, one hand resting on the grimy alley wall. I stood and watched her from the entrance of the alley a moment. She looked up, noticed me, and stared. I asked her if she was hungry. I hoped so, hoped she hadn’t sated herself on old bread. She shook her head, didn’t answer.
“It’s not nice to make fun of people. Just cause you think you so much better off. I bet you aint happy at all. I bet you miserable, that why you picking on people,” I offered her the hot dog, wrapped in foil, from my pocket, “I don’t want your charity, sir.”
“It’s not charity. I don’t want it. If you don’t want it, I’ll just throw it away,”
“Well,” she smiled. Her teeth were whiter than most of the ladies I went on dates with, and I fell a little bit more in love, “In that case, it would be a sin waste it. I think Miss Gene can find a little more room in her belly,” and she started towards me. She kept the oregano loaf in one hand. I stepped forward to meet her, passed the hot dog off to her. Our fingers brushed together, softly, in the process.
When I got her home, I left her alone in the dining room, while I poured some raspberry vodka (she had said it was her favorite) and put some 80’s music on, to fuck to. When I got back, she was picking out different organs from my cat, and eating them, languidly. Softpaws was sprawled on the table in front of her, with his legs faintly pawing the air, like he was trying to run away. His eyes were clenched tightly shut. I couldn’t tell if he was making any noise over the Duran Duran from the living room. Miss Gene smiled at me when I came back in, and her teeth were stained red with kitty blood. Something was caught in her teeth. I sighed and reached across the table, took her hands in mine, and led her to the sofa. We made out, passionately, and I pried part of Softpaws out of her teeth with my tongue. He tasted bland.
Miss Gene was gone in the morning, when I woke up. She’d left Softpaws’ carcass behind, though, and I had to clean him up. Once he was in the trash, I sat down at the table and revised my rules down for future guests.

APARTMENT RULES
(In order of importance)
1. Do not come in unless you are invited.
2. Do not eat my cat.
3. Take your shoes off in the foyer.
4. Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.
5. Do not open my fridge

Rent is $200.00 a month. I’ve never seen the landlord. I slip a check under his door every Sunday morning, to the tune of faint electronic leaking out from beyond the doorframe. The landlord (Mr. Bruce) and I communicate by letters. He tells me about his daughter, who moved to California and ‘married’ her roommates. Her name is Java, she lives on the beach, and he says she says she’s very happy. She’s barren now, after being raped by an ex behind a Pier 1 Imports in her neighborhood, giving birth to twins, and getting her tubes tied. Just in case she gets raped again, he says she says.
Which is very noble, I thought. I don’t believe in abortions: Or masturbation. Every time you fuck your left hand, it’s like a tiny genocide; one million lives lost, their corpses soaked into a tissue and thrown away. I have never jacked off. If a lady fails to fuck herself pregnant during a cycle, that’s one life lost, dripped out her nethers and wiped away and forgotten. Even if, during the course of her entire life, a woman lets every tiny unfinished baby in her drip into a maxi pad, she’ll still be millions of murders away from one man’s night in with Brad Fucks Lisa and Gina on DVD.

The Boy

I dunno if this is what you want, Renata. It's a prose-poem/short-story/spoken-word performance piece deal. I really don't know what the hell it is supposed to be. But I hope it can be of use. Ugh, I need to start writing in past tense again. Present tense is ADDICTIVE.