Adam Golaski

This guys writes some pretty dope stories, and you can get them in his new collection, Worse Than Myself.

Slow Poetry?

Certainly, our special kind of irrelevance has a value of sorts—in its necessary obscurity, cultural definitions and expressions of value, and so on.

Naïve Melody, cont'd iii

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To the child who asks for syrup on her pancakes when there is none I say: Pretend.

To the child who asks for syrup on her pancakes when there is none I say: Imaginary.

It's nothing, she says.

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O these people and their cute little...children.


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Belief and disillusion--just like that.

Why did you let me get so close, little bird

You should be more afraid

In the Case of General Setting, the Lock Is Never

      I

      Is so beautiful out 
I take a cab because my shoes is 
hurting    O I miss you

        Love you

Now at Penn waiting for a train 
to the airport A vagabond
  A tinker hawking my wares wherever 
the wind blows

  Can you please add Thin Blue Line to the Netflix queue

I got to the airport early         So stupid 
so now I know how long it takes to get here I guess

Minneapolis is 1 hour earlier   It’s 1:15 Battery dying   No one is here



II

I’m at ikea need anything Wanna move here
What about Jasper
I like that name  Can you buy toothbrushes This place is far
       
I feel like I’m on drugs       Acrobats        Penguins
Small town silliness Who’s that teacher we had who did that thing some people liked 
and some people didn’t

I think she’s here  The file’s corrupted I could meet you by 5:15
 
7:45
 
I’m at the bar
 
With a nice looking macaroni salad 
 
Maybe we could have a picnic
 
When will your massage be over



III


4 eggs are still being watched 
 
Children laughing is a crazy ringtone

I’m hungry Tired           I think the heat makes me slow

I have lots of mosquito bites 

Can you bring cash

Naïve Melody, cont'd ii

In a church for a funeral and despite my sadness for the loss of my loved one during the Mass I felt comfort and hope. A Presence. What Anne Carson claims Emily Brontë called Thou. Or not. It doesn't matter. That kind of thing shouldn't really happen more than once.

In the days of yore i was a parakeet and my mouth was a river

The oldest form of conjuring, sleight-of-hand is at once archaic and modern, a ruinic art rooted in ancient texts that still thrives today as magicians in the highest echelons endeavor to fool one another with new methods.

Advice from the Experts

Rather than focusing on loss, set specific goals. Write out an action plan. Use a road map to reach your destination.

Naïve Melody, cont'd

*

When my grandfather was 3 he nearly drowned in a pond in the woods or maybe it was an orchard where he was trying to catch frogs. He fell in, thrashed around some, sank. A brilliant light, he said. A brilliant white light surrounded him and he felt an immense comfort that he remembers vividly to this day. He is 92. A man of science. He breathed in. The light was about to go out, like a shut-off TV he said. The synapses shut down. A stranger happened to pass and hear my grandfather thrashing in the water. A hand reaching down and pulling him out of the water. Back to life.