“That’s how I’ve made it this far, triumphant. And with legs light, I tread on round stones edged by discreet grass. Perhaps the sun is too cruel for the dead who rest on the plain. I could abandon the spiral of sweet violence that wafts from these ashen castles. I could pray, make the sign of the cross, follow the Stations of the Cross. Like flowing water, I could fly madly through the cables and tram lines. It would be better, however, if I sat in distinguished chairs, even if there I’d feel the shutter of emptiness. It’s time to produce the linchpin, place it where it belongs. Over and over. If I do this tomorrow I won’t feel like stuffing myself grotesquely with unplucked swallows that I cook whole but can’t enjoy.” —Miquel Bauçà, Carrer Marsala

(from the archives, Seattle, 2013)

Celluloid

February 5, 2019January 27, 2019 | Chris Bronsk

Take It Or Leave It. © Chris Bronsk 2014.

“I’m not capable of describing my own liberation as a series of plausible events; I lack the ability to convey the evolutionary history of my own resurrection–I present only these epiphanic stanzas, though my resurrection too was like an epiphany, like a haiku; it was like a single line of poetry, unerring as lightning.”

—Jerzy Pilch, from The Mighty Angel

(from the archives, Seattle, 2014)