Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Under the U Heights sign
Assaulted by sun, starlight dims
Kirsten Imani Kasai, publisher of Body Parts Magazine: The Journal of Horror & Erotica
i loathe your neighborhood
- see the ghosts of myself on its streets —
- there! under the U Heights sign
- collapsed on grafittied bus stop bench,
- weeping.
- lamppost-leaning, sobbing.
- we shared our first kiss in that dive, corner bar
- our first fight, too.
- here is the shop where you braved
- driving rain to seek
- ice cream when i was sick, and
- here are the puddles of sick
- made upon the eve of your betrayal.
- there are florals in the eaves —
- spring blossoms you plucked for my hair.
- see that bird’s nest there?
- woven from the hair
- i snatched from your head when things
- got too rough and your teasing blows
- left bruises.
- i see you grinning, hopeful,
- your bright-eyed stars
- winking. twinkling.
- how could I forget that, when
- assaulted by sun, starlight dims?
Tiny Poetics
- 1) There is nothing in you that sees me.
- 2) It is hard to be concerned with that which does not concern you.
- 3) Sentiment is the enemy of reason.
- 4) This light recalls you to me — stormy afternoons, pink-tinged. Sorrow.
- 5) When you look at me like so, rubbing your hands together,
- I know that you are the fly, and I am the dead meat.
- 6) And yet, she knows that deep ocean waves make the earth ring,
- bell-like, and hum
- that the conversation of elephants is subsonic
- that trees can “speak” to each other (chemical signals/tangled roots)
- that their perfumed breath births clouds and seeds them
- that we come from the stars — thus we rust, oxidize
- (what’s called “aging”)
- that she did not believe in magic until she learned these things.
by degrees: first, second and third
- i was not trying
- to be difficult.
- too this, you moaned. too that.
- it just … happened.
- how else could i express
- to you the brutal, cosmic scope
- of my love?
- it was as if i’d held your
- hand to the naked blue
- flame and dared you
- not to flinch.
Kirsten Imani Kasai has published novels, short fiction, poetry, essays, and articles in numerous print and online publications in the U.S., Canada, and Romania. She’s the publisher of Body Parts Magazine: The Journal of Horror & Erotica. Dedicated to guiding writers toward the fullest expression of their voice and work via MagicWordEditingCo., Kasai holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and is certified in the teaching of creative writing. You can find her reading at the Narrators San Diego or teaching at San Diego Writers Ink. Her fourth novel, The House of Erzulie, will be published in February 2018 by Shade Mountain Press. Fiction, audio, video and more at KirstenImaniKasai.com.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Under the U Heights sign
Assaulted by sun, starlight dims
Under the U Heights sign
Assaulted by sun, starlight dims
Kirsten Imani Kasai, publisher of Body Parts Magazine: The Journal of Horror & Erotica
i loathe your neighborhood
- see the ghosts of myself on its streets —
- there! under the U Heights sign
- collapsed on grafittied bus stop bench,
- weeping.
- lamppost-leaning, sobbing.
- we shared our first kiss in that dive, corner bar
- our first fight, too.
- here is the shop where you braved
- driving rain to seek
- ice cream when i was sick, and
- here are the puddles of sick
- made upon the eve of your betrayal.
- there are florals in the eaves —
- spring blossoms you plucked for my hair.
- see that bird’s nest there?
- woven from the hair
- i snatched from your head when things
- got too rough and your teasing blows
- left bruises.
- i see you grinning, hopeful,
- your bright-eyed stars
- winking. twinkling.
- how could I forget that, when
- assaulted by sun, starlight dims?
Tiny Poetics
- 1) There is nothing in you that sees me.
- 2) It is hard to be concerned with that which does not concern you.
- 3) Sentiment is the enemy of reason.
- 4) This light recalls you to me — stormy afternoons, pink-tinged. Sorrow.
- 5) When you look at me like so, rubbing your hands together,
- I know that you are the fly, and I am the dead meat.
- 6) And yet, she knows that deep ocean waves make the earth ring,
- bell-like, and hum
- that the conversation of elephants is subsonic
- that trees can “speak” to each other (chemical signals/tangled roots)
- that their perfumed breath births clouds and seeds them
- that we come from the stars — thus we rust, oxidize
- (what’s called “aging”)
- that she did not believe in magic until she learned these things.
by degrees: first, second and third
- i was not trying
- to be difficult.
- too this, you moaned. too that.
- it just … happened.
- how else could i express
- to you the brutal, cosmic scope
- of my love?
- it was as if i’d held your
- hand to the naked blue
- flame and dared you
- not to flinch.
Kirsten Imani Kasai has published novels, short fiction, poetry, essays, and articles in numerous print and online publications in the U.S., Canada, and Romania. She’s the publisher of Body Parts Magazine: The Journal of Horror & Erotica. Dedicated to guiding writers toward the fullest expression of their voice and work via MagicWordEditingCo., Kasai holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and is certified in the teaching of creative writing. You can find her reading at the Narrators San Diego or teaching at San Diego Writers Ink. Her fourth novel, The House of Erzulie, will be published in February 2018 by Shade Mountain Press. Fiction, audio, video and more at KirstenImaniKasai.com.
Comments