"Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking."

- Jessamyn West:

I'M TRANSLATING THIS FROM A GIANT RED BERRY AT MY BACK

Andrew Riley Clark

What a weird place for a berry. This motion sickness gets meadows, the costume colors. Not on, as in developed, but at, as in touching lightly. Behind the pairing a seamless structure grows from the sand as if speechless, a normal-seeming playland, and it isn't well. What does the word mean in another country, a far-off address, and in two places at once yet. Corners corruptedly obtuse, not right.

Lay on the path which transforms every five minutes these dogs into procession, interminable and juiceless, a dry husk. A field grown into dusk. Pushing comfortably if only seeds wouldn't stick, coverings undone until I'm prone, rolled away, flickering as used telephone lines with their static and it's off the page, an air ink-stain solidifying and moving in next door. Just move the globes out of your way to reach the elevator buttons lacking numbers. Use your insight.

I did and look at this ripeness I have to deal with. Throw stones to knock it off. A dead thing dropped from the tree, from higher than branch-level. What's more lofty than that, a crown?

[Title from line in Alien Tatters by Clark Coolidge]