sirenize a sea, a sea of freckles and it is between them i wish to trace your mythology through my tongue, to bring forth your sparkle the way you cast out all my dark. fingers dabbling in the wet i leave behind and if you and i have a name by then we’ll …
apple what does your sleeve feel like? i imagine it must be so warm. autumn flashes her teeth and you hide your arms under layers, so when i bare my vulnerabilities why do you not take the same care? wine tasting like all couples do this time of year except i’m five fingers …
steak i take it, masticate between jaws until temples throb and consternation leaks between teeth, and still the nerve of you there, hard like rock that knows no footfall, memory woken to you but gone the way smoke from flame, chew and chew and chew while throat beseeches relief from the fire valley, …
philocaly i know november by the way wet leaves fill my ribs and how a sinking sun takes more than it gives and when that dark funnel of crows goes churning i dream i’m their last center spark of bright before sweep of day flees. eyes set shallower in my head than before …
trauma when i didn’t like it, i’d cross it out, when it didn’t go my way i’d scribble it a hundred times until self tore and the pen fell through, smeared smiles and rehearsed lines and i’d be alright cause mom said i’d grow out of it, well now i’m up and out …
serotinal the warmth flees above my head on two wings and an itinerary i’m left to question. was hope held steady-handed or burst breathlessly through the gate secure in the knowledge i’d not be boarding. stuck up my nose the stench of fresh cut grass but no one seems to grieve these corpses. …
boardwalk slowly i say goodbye to summer, to the sheen of sun slipping down limbs and to hopeful magenta brushstrokes across september sky, whimsical reminders we can find our way back. so it begs to be asked back to what, the sparkle and glimmer of your mind, the lazy low tide of your …
grievous steady hands but the keener eye spots the tremble straight off. there’s no shame in a spot of liquid courage. the fallacy is that it keeps muscles from reverberating. truth is it rids the shit from the stench of giving less than anything that was ever returned. to some degree i love …
an excerpt from my new collection ‘FROM MY FRONT STEPS’ if i’m okay she’s having her first sleepover i can feel her glow from down the block she’s found a friend who accepts her as she is it’s all i could ever ask for a lesson i pray she learns without my …
an excerpt from my new collection ‘FROM MY FRONT STEPS’ thunder when i was a little boy my mother told me thunder was only the sound of angels bowling overhead so when i hear it now i laugh with the thought we’re all on one big alley wearing miscolored shoes. listen …
Joseph A. Pinto 