Black
Crouching with you in the black as men tear each other apart and enter tents uninvited. But I will never really know. Around us, so many flapping mouths— Tongues flash and flounder, bear gleaming teeth while sounds tumble from their open pockets, scraping floors when there is nothing worth saying. As I show [...]
Men Calling Women-A Sestina of Spiraling Madness
I don’t like women. They are so busy! This is true! How many times do you call them? Once? Two times? Three times? Four? No, no, no! If you have self-esteem like rhino-hide, you could see they are not interested in you, and this is why they don’t call you back! But then [...]
The Whiplash of Audism
Two by two, they filed into the Temple of Audism, these hopeful Supplicants to the God Locutus. Within, they met the Oracles of Locutus, with their full beards and smarmy smiles. “Your Child shall be healed,” the Oracles cried. “But first, thee and he must drink from the River Lethe.” “Its waters shall help [...]
The Death of Kindle (a Poem)
Because he saved his survivalist books on his Kindle, when electricity in the neighborhood understandably sputtered in the face of massive riots, dire predictions of inevitable cannibalism, and frantic knocking on his fortified front door (courtesy of his prior-to-crisis-already- irritating next door neighbor in search of Peroxide to replace her whiskey supply—which she claimed was [...]
The reason I don’t drink
When I entered Gallaudet I was ready to be a rebel But the problem was that everyone there was drinking and if I drank I would be a follower and not a rebel So I said drink me never But what really nailed me was seeing my first drunk person I was walking down the [...]
Putty in the Security Gap (a Poem)
It occurs to few A disgruntled government worker, in the right place and time, with even a single plastic egg of silly putty could spread it over sensitive documents, copying everything, and their bosses (trained only to spot C-4) would say “Is that C-4 spread all over your desk, mister?” The disgruntled government worker would [...]
If You’re a Deaf Writer, How the Heck Can You Get More “Famous”?
In a country where more than 50,000 books are published every year, marketing yourself as a writer becomes far more important than it should be. If your publisher doesn’t have much money to advertise your book, hiring publicists is a very expensive proposition. Worse yet, if your book promotes a Deaf–not necessarily the tired [...]
Trauma
There are two police officers in our dining room. They’ve come to take my father away. He’s standing by the table in his underwear, hands cuffed behind his back. My mother is trying to hang her burgundy housecoat over his shoulders so he won’t be naked when they take him outside. The housecoat has feminine [...]
Ten Ways to Oppress Deaf People’s Writing
Some thoughts grown out of recent discussions on Gallaudet. There are still those who oppress Deaf writers, attacking them personally instead of their ideas. The focus is on groups and their particular foibles rather than on elevating the discourse of ideas, and that pulls us all down. So in the Tradition of Joanna Russ’ “How [...]
Tree Hugger/Enhancement (Two Poems)
TREE HUGGER He was a Zen disciple of passion. Prior to the meditative ritual that landed him in prison, he never would have thought that being One with a tree was illegal in every state except California (and only there since Legislature needed Republican votes to get “for-cancer-patients-only medical marijuana” passed, and some compromise was [...]