The Wake

A young man was on the phone and engaged in a heated fight with his girlfriend outside in the stairwell. Obscenities were screamed, curses were muttered, under-the breath-threats were offered and countered. And then…a faint beep. A meep really, to tell the truth. The hormonal young man had hung up on the words of the offending female. For the eavesdropper in the next room, this climax of the young lovers’ angst was terribly anti-climactic. The second meep through the wall indicated the temperamental young man to be equally unsatisfied as he pushed buttons in anger. But instead of inspiring images of the wronged lover fed up and taking his vengeance, were instead images of baby chicks. As the unsatisfied young man stormed down the stairs, one could not wonder whether the inability to offer a …

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Dear Wake,
I am please publish these. if you dont then I’ll will fail in school studentry. I would prefer to remain annonymous if that’s ok
-Justin Bailey
Englash MajorAnd then she falls
My love
Inside
My soul
(It’s all all right)
This distance between us
Entropic void
Cannot be filled
A valley,
Once flowing,
The river of our love,
Our souls once bound
Now dry,
Mountainous,
[Cavernous.]
Breathing salty, I exhale myself into you.
Whrursh.
I am inside
with you
It’s all all right.

She stands astride, begging me to pass through
To come inside, to show me the truth
Her lust is her mind, everything she ever knew
With guttural moans she invites, begs me to do (,what,)
While on her back she lies, prepares for me toShe fluffs, I stuff, we flex and stretch.
Rough and tough.
Our love is a battlefield.
I get pushed out, she screams out
Next.

I feel my pain
Like a needle in the soul.
Prinks and points in my being.
I feel my pain
As death creeps into my bed
Where we lay, mourning
Our broken relationship
That was dashed to pieces
When you cut me your words.I feel my pain
At the bottom of a bottle.
I drank it at dawn on the subway
As I rode away from you.
The pain is so overwhelming
I can to cry in public
But I can’t because I am a man
And I should not even be writing
Poetry because if anyone found out
I would be called gay.
Maybe that’s what
My pain is really about?
If only I had a vagina.

I put out my cigarette on the bus door, spewing my own poison out, and inhaling the toxic fumes outside, and think of the pollution now filling my lungs. I chastize corporate America internally, silently: Crying, “Swine, give me a chance to taste my own life. My love. My essence.” Digressing, my foot swings me up onto the bus.I thought of her when I saw him. Coughing, stinking, fidgeting. I want to hold him as I held her, but I do not want to make the same mistake again. Ambiguity aside, I sit across from him, watching his moves.He speaks in tongues; the Heavenly words I sought to hear from her so often. She would not even perform this simple act for me—she said she was …

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My gold fish swims
And skims the waters
Of his fishbowl.He makes faces at me
While I pee because
He lives in the bathroom.Sometimes he lies
On the bottom of his
Bowl real lowPretending to be dead.
But he’s really overfed
And big time lazy.But one day when
I changed the water
He jumped out AND COMMITED SUICIDE!
THAT STUPID FUCK FACE
FISH THAT NEVER LOVED
ME THE RIGHT WAY!

I want to leave a kiss
On your moist cleavage
Because there’s no way I could piss
Away my chance at your beaverage.
Longing for your lips,
I think of your gyrating hips
And how much it would mean
For me not to be seen
While I watch you change
Outside your window. I dream of the day
When I can lay
Next to you and eat
A bloody steak so sweet
That you and I share.
I can only compare
This vision
With the ass bang I got in prison.
Now that’s true love!

The house in front of us was about the size of a two-car garage. “This is Nick’s brother’s house right?” I question Aaron not wanting to walk into some random house. “Of course,” Aaron said, following Nick up the incredibly small flight of stairs. Nick turned the knob, and we all walked in awkwardly. We got a few glances since we were the odd men out. The room was filled with the smell of alcohol and fun. It was packed to the brim with people; we knew none of them. All of these students graduated at least a year before us, and all went to rival schools of ours. None of them knew Aaron or me so we decided to make up fake backgrounds for ourselves just to make things entertaining. Nick headed for the …

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(Ago)
The first time I rode a school bus
I cried and clutched and nearly lost my way
And the teacher said maybe it would take me
Where I needed to go
And my parents were not at home. …

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We voted in the van
apple orchard, corn maze, or
petting zoo first?
Petting zoo first. I sprinted ahead of my sister
toward an aluminum gate and a dented
garbage can, but instead of the glassy gloss
of horsehair, a yellow jacket reached me first.Me first? My finger pricked
by the needle of that buzzing spindle-wheel.And then onto the corn maze,
my sister in the lead and me behind
my extended hand humming with pain?
Past the moan of dried corn husks.And all in-between I remember only
my hand and myself, hating democracy.

The edge of my mind is a tethered bee
that flies around a pencil
on a mint-green line of floss.
If I was smart I wouldn’t touch it,
but my heart has thick red secrets,
and from time to time they bug me
and I have to write them down.March 20, 2006, 1:41 amQuestions
1.What are the “thick red secrets”?
2. Who or what is the antagonist of this poem?
3. What is “it” in line four?
4. What is the form of the poem?

Web Editor’s Note: To see the first installment of “The Exhibit” please .There was one lone guard on the fourth floor. He was old, his limbs were weak. He wasn’t about to go running around like the others. He would be of more use, he told himself, staying at his post. Let the others give chase.He had spent most of his life tending the museum, and he liked it. It was quiet and peaceful. He knew every inch of it, knew the routines and systems, knew how to handle all the little problems that worked their way in from the outside. Management was always changing, new guards and new bosses coming and going, above and below him. But the museum hadn’t changed, not really, and neither had the people who visited it. He loved …

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For those of us who attended the T.C. Boyle reading, author and University of Minnesota graduate instructor Brian Malloy may not come across with the same prestige—he hasn’t authored two dozen books, gone on as many European tours that he’s forgotten most of or won enough awards to sell books without a promo advisor. Malloy represents another side of successful writing. He does what he wants and still gets paid for it, which puts him in a percentile over those of us who dream of our first novel’s success without having written it. Malloy’s on his third book, and won’t stop until writing’s no longer fun for him.The Wake: I think most readers think of writers as aspiring to be one of two personas: do you see yourself leaning toward the rock n’ roll super …

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The museum was quiet. The rooms echoed softly with the wandering steps of the last patrons. It was closing time, but there were always a few stubborn people, who waited to leave until the last possible moment, a few who wanted their money’s worth. The security guards checked their watches, waiting until it would be appropriate to be pushy. Coffee had stopped dripping in the café, and the ticket takers lazily tapped their feet against the floor.But when the stranger came, he came fast. The doors flew inward with the force of his entry, and an air of mad, desperate energy flowed in behind him.He looked normal, is what they said. They didn’t know what else to say. The image of his face slipped away from them, just beyond their grasp. What did he look …

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You wandered slowly downstream
throwing your gaze to the other shore.
Small wonder: you have always loved
your coastlines. You’d dart for a stone,
like a heron fishing, pluck and then weigh
it in your hand, smoothing away the sand.There are markings in the sand,
from somewhere younger in the time-stream,
another traveler on your way.
That day, you did not share the shore.
You sank through water, pretty stone
forgetting rivers you had loved.There, in twilight, it seemed no one loved
you, your hair soft and brown as sand
and all their eyes as flat as stones,
the ones tossed out by shallow streams
to wait for you to tread their shore
and tell them each how much they’d weigh,as if the world cared for a stone’s weight.
You chose two, only, that you …

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