Dark

The bandstand
was wrought iron,
and in it,
though it was
late at night,
insomniac
children
played.

— Roberto Bolano, "2666"
(translated by Natasha Wimmer)

Buttered

I laugh like crazy,
a laughter that bubbles
out like popcorn ...

— James Franco, "Just Before the Black"
(Esquire short story, April 2010)

RIP

"I think I am going to die."

She did not even blink
when she replied.

"That would be best,"
she said. "Then we could
both have some peace."

— Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera"

Bruised

Red-tailed hawks
soared above
in the sky,
which was
purple like
the skin
of an Indian
woman beaten
to death.

— Roberto Bolano, "2666"
(Translated by Natasha Wimmer)

Scent

... they dug up the barbecue,
and a smell of meat and hot earth
spread over the patio
in a thin curtain of smoke
that enveloped them all
like the fog that drifts
before a murder ...

— Roberto Bolano, "2666"
(translated by Natasha Wimmer)

Stranger

The clown held a bunch
of balloons, all colors,
like gorgeous ripe fruit

— Stephen King, "It"

French blue

The sky in Paris
(shades of
Baudelaire,
Verlaine,
Banville)

— Roberto Bolano, "2666"
(Translated by Natasha Wimmer)

Storm

As happens with me
at periods of electrical disturbance
and crepitating lightning,
I had hallucinations.

— Vladimir Nabokov, "Lolita"

Nonfiction

The best sentence I read today (from a nonfiction piece by Aaron Gilbreath, "Cupid Carries a Switch," in the new Gargoyle #55):

Then one day I thought, Either I peed myself, or I smell a change in the air.

Billy Collins Action Poetry

Forgetfulness