November 30, 2008

Answer

I paused, but not long.

Sometimes
there's no time
to decide what's
the best answer.

Sometimes
you can only
give the true answer.
--Stephen King, "Duma Key"

November 22, 2008

Mean

For children,
meanness
is usually
funny only
when it's
imagined.
-- Stephen King, "Duma Key"

November 15, 2008

Opening

Accidents
ambush
the unsuspecting,
often violently,
just like love.
-- Andrew Davidson, "The Gargoyle"

November 11, 2008

Explain

It's a pretty bad idea
to wring what happens
to get every drop
of meaning out of it.
-- Saul Bellow, "A Theft"

November 9, 2008

Jackpot

She listens to the bells
from slot machines
and the cascades of nickels
falling into steel shells.

Of course, this was what
you heard at the end
of the world.

It wasn't a whimper
at all. It had nothing
to do with anything
human,
not with the mouth
or the ear.

It was the sound
of symbol and motion.
It was the sound
of tin.
-- Kate Braverman, "The Woman Who Said Communion"
(McSweeney's 14)

November 8, 2008

Name

The shape of her name,
sharp as metal filings,
gets caught between your teeth
even as you try to force it out
in a shout.
-- Jodi Picoult, "The Tenth Circle"

November 5, 2008

Story

We saved some of the story
for ourselves,
like the words
of the songs we sang,
and the contents of our prayers.
-- Daniel Alarcon, "The Thousands"
(McSweeney's 28)

November 2, 2008

Beauty

Their beauty was still there,
but it was beauty in the broad sense,
the general sense,
the way a forest is beautiful,
or a field of waving grass is beautiful,
whereas any single tree or stalk,
on closer inspection, might be flawed.
-- Michael Blumlein, "The Roberts"
(Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2008)

November 1, 2008

Marriage

The best decisions in a marriage
were based not on honesty

but on the number of casualties
that the truth might cause,

versus the number saved by ignorance.

--Jodi Picoult, "The Tenth Circle"