Faces

It's funny, but certain faces
seem to go in and out of style.

You look at old photographs
and everybody has a certain look
to them, almost as if they're related.

Look at pictures from ten years later
and you can see that there's a new kind
of face starting to predominate,
and that the old faces are fading away
and vanishing, never to be seen again.

-- Alan Moore, "Watchmen"

Family

One day
you will do things
for me that you hate.
That is what it means
to be a family.
-- Jonathan Safran Foer, "Everything Is Illuminated"

Home

They say
you know
Georgia
when you
come to it,
for it's nothing
but red dirt
and rough roads.
-- Charles Frazier, "Cold Mountain"

Grief

That was the curse
of being a dummy.
You were always
being surprised
by grief,
because you
could never remember
the important things.
-- Richard Bachman, "Blaze"

Pale

A fat man lay
wrapped in a white sheet
in a recessed berth,
looking as pale
and flabby as a maggot.
-- Michael Swanwick, "The Scarecrow's Boy"
(Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2008)

Drive

Untrimmed thorns
and sapling limbs
clutch at the car
with intermittent shrieks
that embarrass you.
-- Wells Tower, "Leopard"
(New Yorker, 11-10-08 issue)

Mad

Crouching
like an assassin,
she delivered
calculated,
scalding,
phosphorescent
anger.
-- Robert Stone, "Bay of Souls"