http://www.failbetter.com/ failbetter.com publishes original fiction, poetry, and visual art. en Copyright 2008 failbetter.com - All rights reserved Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:52:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/28/HabeckerFold.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/28/HabeckerFold.php?src=rss It snows / as if a god slept hereabouts / and meant to make a winter / of his sleep... Tue 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/28/HabeckerAlmost.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/28/HabeckerAlmost.php?src=rss Graves are like airplanes / compartments for traveling somewhere / else or back where / our journey began... Tue 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/28/HabeckerABird.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/28/HabeckerABird.php?src=rss The clouds rise and we alone are lighted / figures on the beach, free-wheeling one evening / along the lagoon chasing the sandpipers... Tue 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Fiction http://failbetter.com/28/LongDevil.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/28/LongDevil.php?src=rss The boy was to play the devil in a third grade children’s play loosely based on The Portrait of Dorian Gray. His devil outfit was a red union suit and his makeup, red food dye and Vaseline. He carried a curtain rod his mother took from his father’s study, spray-painted Rustolium red, with the tip of an old meat carving fork... Fri, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Fiction http://failbetter.com/28/TerryFallow.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/28/TerryFallow.php?src=rss Early one summer morning, Corporal Skaggs and Corporal Wilson of the Third Yorkers, Continental Line, appeared mid-stride in the parking lot of Cherry Tree Shopping Mall... Fri, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Fiction http://failbetter.com/27/MillhauserInterview.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/MillhauserInterview.php?src=rss In an ideal story, never yet written, all you’d need would be the title and the first sentence. The rest would be superfluous... Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Fiction http://failbetter.com/27/DixonRattle.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/DixonRattle.php?src=rss He must’ve been pretty young then because his mother was pushing his brother in a stroller. It was cold, bitter cold for springtime. Colder than it ever got where they lived. He remembers the way wind chapped their cheeks and made it seem like they were always in a hurry... Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Fiction http://failbetter.com/27/DressickJesus.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/DressickJesus.php?src=rss Jesus Christ rides the Somerset Avenue streetcar into Windber, Pennsylvania, in the middle of the afternoon... Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Visuals http://failbetter.com/27/SpeedAdvisory.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/SpeedAdvisory.phps?src=rss Tue, 3 Jun 2008 00:00:00 feedback@failbetter.com Visuals http://failbetter.com/27/SpeedTheCup.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/SpeedTheCup.php?src=rss Tue, 3 Jun 2008 00:00:00 feedback@failbetter.com Visuals http://failbetter.com/27/SpeedFrogpond.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/SpeedFrogpond.php?src=rss Tue, 3 Jun 2008 00:00:00 feedback@failbetter.com Visuals http://failbetter.com/27/SpeedOverEasy.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/SpeedOverEasy.php?src=rss Tue, 3 Jun 2008 00:00:00 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/SmithHushNow.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/SmithHushNow.php?src=rss My head was cloudy / not transparent / as the plastic body / in the children’s wing / of the museum / but free of charge... Tue 20 May 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/SmithFortuneTeller.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/SmithFortuneTeller.php?src=rss Gaunt and salt-and-pepper as the birches, wolves / are starving in these woods. From here the moon is a crystal ball. I don’t need to look inside / to tell you that if you walk into the trees / you won’t come out... Tue 20 May 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/SmithManicPanic.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/SmithManicPanic.php?src=rss If you lie still and concentrate, you can forget / your body and float like a balloon to the ceiling / where plaster stars prick like thumbtacks... Tue 20 May 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/YamaguchiAudio.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/YamaguchiAudio.php?src=rss Hush now, can’t you see how it’s starting? And there is so much we have yet to do. In the ledgers of my youth I found myself positioning the cellophanes directly over whale noise... Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/YamaguchiArbiter.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/YamaguchiArbiter.php?src=rss Was pleased with the garden, then was sallow, was scrolled down, waited and waited. Was leeched, but not as a plump, but migratory, but a coin spinning them out of me into distant, held places... Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/YamaguchiChambered.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/YamaguchiChambered.php?src=rss I thump the tank with every word, then, bubbles the tank’s words, and I should mention it is dark in there, the exhibit closed, and this is our forever, even as the patrons fill the place Saturday after Saturday... Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Fiction http://www.failbetter.com/27/WilliamsMisunderstandings.php?src=rss http://www.failbetter.com/27/WilliamsMisunderstandings.php?src=rss When my sister’s friends call her, they worry, by the sound of her voice, that they’ve woken her from a deep sleep... Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/WisseProfligate.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/WisseProfligate.php?src=rss Someone I won't name has been profligate / Not only in wild-eyed creativeness / — Everything's teeming: lawns with grass and grass / With ants and so forth... Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/WisseValentines.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/WisseValentines.php?src=rss Before we start to cover for each other / There are some questions you will have to answer / — More than formality, less than ordeal — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/WisseDeciding.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/WisseDeciding.php?src=rss Be lazy and you’re going to have to be lucky; / Then further luck breeds further indolence. / Eventually you’re lying flat on a beach / Almost unable even to open your eyes... Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Fiction http://failbetter.com/27/SmithBloodline.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/SmithBloodline.php?src=rss Miguel crossed the border at Nogales and walked until midnight before resting at the arroyo where the water jugs were buried. He continued on until morning when he found the old cement granary and lay down to wait for his cousin to bring the horse. He fell asleep and dreamed of a deep blue lake... Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Fiction http://failbetter.com/27/NazarioMySignature.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/NazarioMySignature.php?src=rss Over his sink, Benji nudged the cork from a bottle of Belgian beer. "Let’s put some lead in our pencils," he said, and poured me a glass. Years ago, Benji was my ex-boyfriend's best friend's little brother. Now he is my own little brother, my own best friend. It was his housewarming... Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0800 feedback@failbetter.com Poetry http://failbetter.com/27/WeiseHowTo.php?src=rss http://failbetter.com/27/WeiseHowTo.php?src=rss Carry the flowers blossom up, stem down. Take the flowers directly home. Make no sloppy small talk with the woman biting into an orange on the park bench... Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0800