of two minds

PED #274 2017

Apologies on the rooftop ledge, bowls of soft-boiled eggs marching in rows of five by four, sour, gummy candies  in half-cup bags roll around like tops. The baby elephant wraps her trunk around my wrist and leads me to a tree, we sit, she naps I don’t know how to tell her I’m only human.

-- yiqi 30 october 2017 7:02 am

and one must

PED #313 2017

Zone twelve, the last door on the left is large enough for 47 bison and a dinghy if one must

and one must

bring with her 47 bison and a crate of books for burning for amusement for projectiles if one must

and one must

save the sticky rice for dessert because the chocolate is all gone, the baby hippos ate it when they were whipping out dung and you missed it again.

-- yiqi 8 december 2017 8:15 am

sleep disordered

PED #270 2017

The ship’s commander tied up the invader, all six, blue limbs of it, put it into the storage closet where the yeti slept snoring and sleep-fighting. The invader was kicked many times before the space craft reached the mauve planet, upon landing the yeti woke, took a fright and pummeled the invader until the restraints broke. The ship’s commander removed the blue creature, now a mixture of red across the boots.

-- yiqi 26 october 2017 7:57 am

the dead remember

PED #279 2017

An abridged account was once all they had to remind themselves they had a past, they journeyed over  volcanoes and valleys to reach the city built atop the ashes of the incinerated, and it rained curtains on them, they couldn’t make fire, they couldn’t see the road, so they huddled together  under the forest canopy and waited for silence.

-- yiqi 4 november 2017 11:02 am

in his free time

PED #324 2017

he spent his tokens on the same machine the one facing east, covered with confetti and cost two tokens every two minutes, seen by many, played the least and didn’t need to be fixed every day at 3 pm it smelled of peaches and vanilla sometimes mint sometimes pineapple it wasn’t a conquest, there were no space invaders to obliterate, no, this game was all about watching the wooden birds peck the wooden thief to death and eat his intestines while the high priestess oversees the punishment of foolish rigidity, when the wood chips settled, the birds become sphinx and guard over the secret passageway behind the antique bookcase.

-- yiqi 19 december 2017 8:21 am

Stand Up Lies

PED #305 2017

Good looks won’t win you an award but it’ll put you on center stage, all the lights will shine on you like the press waiting for a statement where you were the night of the incident, how many people saw you there, if you kept your receipt if anyone snapped a picture of you and maybe put it online for the world to see because if not, it didn’t happen.

-- yiqi 30 november 2017 7:16 am

morning o mine

PED #336 2017

It’s the new international vision of gardens of Edith the tree of life grants self-awareness that the heart beats out of fear and agitation, insistence and bliss and the loins quiver out of fear and agitation, insistence and bliss so you can count the ways i love thee or measure your name as sweet by another other name than rose you can kill envious moons so the fair sun may rise but don’t forget the hollows that lurk behind the celebration of another year gone, and all that went with it.

-- yiqi new year’s eve 2017 9:23 am

take this trip

PED #333 2017

the witching hour on the great plains where the big cats once hunted the big rats and pine cones we spread out a jersey blanket open up a bottle of blood and have ourselves a little picnic the moonlight stalks us into the reeds the serpent pulls me into her bosom bequeaths me with everlasting patience and cunning to strike upon the prize of my craving draw it into a pocket the size of a coffin you braid my hair like the best of the French and rattle off predictions  of a future shrouded in mist.

-- yiqi 28 december 2017 8:16 am

toots for gnats

PED #332 2017

The lanky dude with the green bandanna sauntered over to me five minutes into my shift, I’d seen him the day before when he sat by the window with the blue dream catcher. He pointed at me and smiled, “Emaline,” he kept pointing, “You’re Emaline.” “And if I am? Can I help you?” and his words came cascading down the front of his plaid shirt. He was in a pinch, he needed a place to crash until the heat cooled enough for him to skip town. “We were in one science class together,” I reminded him. “You always borrowed my pens, you thought my name was Emily.”

-- yiqi 27 december 2017 6:51 am

making the best of a bad situation

PED #331 2017

Of all the things you taught me, being self-preserving wasn’t one of them, so in the middle of the night, when the orphaned colts were shivering, I ran to them and gathered all the quilts that could be spared for animals. You taught me to be brave and to be kind and to be the last face the powerful saw before retiring to their bed chambers, I thought I was being brave I thought I was being kind and though I knew the King would be grateful I’d saved his soon-to-be champion horses, I hadn’t considered myself or you, or that I may not live through the night and when you discovered my frigidly stiff body the next morning, my fingers curled like ribbons tied around a gift, you wet my mouth with your tears, asked the King to let you keep one of the horses, in fact the dark brown colt nearest to my dead body because she smelled just like I did, of roses, figs, and honey.

-- yiqi 26 december 2017 10:29 am

You are what they eat

PED #306 2017

Life is what you make of it, the mantra of the decade -- ham sandwich, pepperoni calzone, vegan casserole, tub of chicken wings, salmon nigiri -- and yet,  what will consume you? Whose hunger wins your life?

-- yiqi 1 december 2017 7:19 am

the fad bunch

PED #289 2017

You and me lady ain’t nothin’ but trouble so let’s glue it like they glue it on the pottery channel. Rex, lady Rex, lady Rex has a spacious spout Ming and yoo gluing things that only cherubs sing about So put your fans down my lands And I’ll let you feed runts Bless, I’m a sickle I’m an expert And I’m stiffing your tunes with aplomb.

-- yiqi 14 november 2017 8:07 am

every hand to herself

PED #302 2017

Come into this world with a butter knife for a left hand, grow up thinking someone out there has a plastic fork for a right hand, you keep an eye open, try to keep an even wider mind, yet everyone you meet has two hands as ordinary as a stick of butter stacked into a pyramid for a food challenge.

-- yiqi 27 november 2017 7:52 am

your enemy’s heart through the belly

PED #286 2017

meet me in the center of the glass noodle bowl the scallions line the rim the bamboo shoots act as guardrails  between the coriander garnish and the sesame seeds pool atop the pork belly that leans against shredded ginger we’ll have a grand ‘ol time infusing the bone broth with nano-particles that once swallowed by the hosts render them fearless and worry-free until they try the spicy tuna roll, then their brows will ooze with guilt and shame about art projects they destroyed in high school because they couldn’t bear the idea that the new kids were better than they, our mission will be complete once these jerks take a knee in protest of nothing but their bleeding hearts skewered by the spotlight of public scrutiny.

-- yiqi 11 november 11 2017 12:42 am

150 times 2

PED #300 2017

The henchmen dressed in beige trench coats approached in groups of three, their spokesperson eager to make a deal of some sort. My King stepped down from the balcony, sniffed the air around the henchmen and screamed, “YOU WEAR NO PARKAS?!”

So I pushed the nearest one backwards into the pit  and the others huddled together like a ball of yarn remembering how to knit.

-- yiqi 25 november 2017 10:27 am

not that kind of phoenix

PED #323 2017

In a blaze of whoring Mitchell replenished the population of three towns, the gene pool not so diverse the emotional quotient even less so, but at least there were warm bodies (or would be more warm bodies) for the tractors, the altars, and the runway stage, the kitchen ovens, and the dog pound.

-- yiqi 18 december 2017 7:46 am