Al Maginnes: Lydia Loveless’s X
And just over her heart,
a tattooed X, a set of crossed sticks, stitched
into the skin with a sewing needle and ink,
jailhouse style.
Al Maginnes: The Body’s Cartographer
I’ve been lucky enough to steer clear of pain that squats
like the friend you no longer like but can’t evict
from your couch because he’s out of work, but able
to be drunk every day you walk in the door.
Al Maginnes: God in Retirement
A little more wine before the sisters
of the scarlet moon perform their ritual
dance again.
Al Maginnes: Journalism 101
A friend stops me in the headache-dim flouresence of the hall that houses our little hive of offices to say she liked a record review I wrote for a website … Continue reading
Al Maginnes: The Skeleton Parade
Old legend whispers them, bent-backed, crook-kneed from the nest of their military graves in the low-ground cemetery by the river. They hobble a clacking cadence whose time no mortal can … Continue reading
Al Maginnes: Source
Out of sore feet, out of roadsides sooted with dusk, out of gravel, jeweled crumbs of shattered glass, out of the wide gesture of the hand toward heaven, out … Continue reading
Al Maginnes: The Book of Forgetting
I know there is a book, more
than one, where the names
of dead towns and their citizens
line the white pages neat
as grave plots
Al Maginnes: Creative Writing
Life isn’t like that, one student says, objecting to the end of Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” how it leaves the narrator, eyes closed, between his wife and her blind friend, everything … Continue reading
