Total Oblivion

"A fast-paced, suspenseful dystopian picaresque, part Huck Finn and part bizarro-world Swiss Family Robinson..."

---Kirkus

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Skinny Dipping

Long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and finalist for the Crawford Award. Title short story listed for the 2000 O. Henry award.

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Goblin Mercantile Exchange

Futures, Options, and Swaps (the weblog of Alan DeNiro)

Why We’re Not in the Streets

I had written this poem in the spring, but it seems apropos to post it now…

WHY WE’RE NOT IN THE STREETS

weighed down by November snow
these pines have broken
my child is not an open book
snow falling on an iceless lake
this is the secret salt

lights lead up the cabin stairs
gold cocktails prime the blue
the sight of these reflections
across the clear mist
sealing the footprints away

the dogs are restless
I’m afraid they will be shot
for less than a revolution
first vespers next black tea
concentrate then gravitate

oh late woodland empire
smoke frozen in the pipes
sink the shortness of breath
where life has gathered
owned trucks go all out

my child is not yet alive
crawling beneath canoes
millfoil mind empties
walleye termination blooms
every trap is a revolt

cinnabar resin sticks to hands
rot so driftless
as a vigilant substance here
stars like the baby teeth of child soldiers
will to be feral

I can carry you
inside a dormouse of dew
where the galaxy we don’t know
wells into its other being
as property and wilderness

Sun, October 2 2011 » Poetry

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