Mary Skinner,
a slight girl and timid,
a faint for a snake,
wanted to drink milk forever.
But was forced through openings
everyday of tenth grade. 

Aluminum lonely,
the thinnest emptiness,
holding herself in bathrooms,
Mary hated divorce,
smiled for candy–
bacon smoke in her clothes.

More poems from The Goodfish Poems

Reminds me of… Caveat to Aspiring Immortals 9

Check out other work in Re series here.

Rabelais: As for you, little envious Prigs, snarling, bastard, puny Critics, you’ll soon have railed your last: Go hang yourselves. (258)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DMquotations

A one-legged woman, in a conspicuously short skirt, manipulating swiftly on crutches along a crowded street.
Why does Reader still recall having noticed her, quite some few years ago now in fact, and even somewhat distantly? (259)
#Reader/Protagonist #Numbers

On the actual night before her wedding, Edith Wharton had no idea of the facts of life. (260)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go. (261)
#DMBookshelf #DMquotations

There is no mention of Ockham’s Razor in anything Ockham ever wrote. (262)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Protagonist walking the beach, probably every day, at water’s edge.
Oddly, Reader for the moment viewing him particularly in harsh weather, huddled against winds.
Snow in patches. (263)
#Reader/Protagonist

Wittgenstein was cited for bravery three times during World War I.
Fighting against the Allies. (264)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #Numbers

Goat song. (265)

Check out other posts from the Markson Project here.

Check out other work in the Rub in Line Out series here.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
      Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
      And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
      And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
      He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
      He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.

By Lewis Carroll

Check out other work in the Strange Faces Other Minds series.

All The Girls In NY

Check out other work in the Micro Songs series here.

Maxine’s body fought a war
with her clothing.
Her breasts shook 
to upset their carriage,
hips spread 
to unstitch her jeans. 
We watched day after day
the weakening hems, 
praying for the body,
the body, the body…
It was against reason,
but seemed so possible,
a loud tear, a sudden victory, 
her clothes unseamed,
their border overrun.

More poems from The Goodfish Poems

Check out other work in the Uncollected series here.

Taliesin. (248)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Willem de Kooning lived as an illegal immigrant for his first thirty years in the United States. (249)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #Numbers

On one of Reader’s windowsills: framed photographs of his son and daughter, a scuffed baseball, a sunbleached knotted root plucked from the Ebro. (250)
#Reader/Protagonist #DM Map

Poe was expelled from West Point for refusing to obey military orders. Later, James McNeill Whistler would fail there academically. (251)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #DM Map

Why is it commonly referred to as the Arnolfini Marriage, or even the Arnolfini Betrothal, when she is seven months pregnant? (252)
#Speculation

Im Westen Nichts Neues. (253)
#DMBookshelf

Decades afterward, locked indelibly in Reader’s mind the last two pages of Good Morning, Midnight. (254)
#Reader/Protagonist #DMBookshelf #Numbers #GreatsOnGreats
The rape scene from The Fountainhead burned into mine.

Ernest Hemingway was an anti-Semite. (255)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons #Bigotry

Ingenious nonsense, Isaac Newton dismissed poetry as. (256)
#DMGuidetoIllustriousPersons

Check out other posts from the Markson Project here.

Neruda’s Book of Questions