Author Archives: hlinak

Twenty-one minutes and fifty-four seconds

Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep.

We stepped over an empty slate sidewalk as we passed you, up high, by.
We talked of directions and demigods and medical paperwork 
And the iconic innocent connection with my niece.
I nearly sat beaten on the navy couch to rest my weary soles
And gain respite from the drought-stricken flame-drenching sun.
But I was alerted, Shannon had died,
Richard and Stormy and Diane just did too
And now you.

A Well-lit Room

We are just explosions upon collections of explosions upon compendiums of explosions upon amalgamations of explosions; The calcium and iron of light that we see every night, guides us towards the north, and now swallows time whole; A singular energy being pushed, too afraid of its element lasts frozen in eternity. If there is no trust, no strings, no gravity, how can we recharge?

Kinetic Species Loss

Light split by the dark side of moon
Electrified the innocent hand,
Pushed all but fifteen grains of sand 
To construct a castle, a memory palace  

As groans are replaced with 17139059, no 17139058, squeals of joy 
Another plant, another spider, or was it another jellyfish, dies
Another baby cries

Only rainbow coated hands can slow this clock

(she had the right idea – but she doesn’t anymore)

                                                                                                a siren
                                                scratched
                                                   in lipstick

ears                                                                  pierced,
            mirror, sidewalk cracked.

                                                                       not you bowl cut dame.
kann ich helfen?”

                                                            liquid
                                    and                        sheets
                                        the                          deluge
                                            stream being washed
                                                            away,
                                    through    steel    bars,
                                    a          shower     scene.

                                    taxi stopped (she needs a ride)

                                    pay phone, by the bibliothek
                                            (911, no not 911)

                                             “sprichst du deutsch?”
                                                                                 “nein, nein, nein.”

                                    head turns
                                    stone walls, trees,
                                    night and a red crumb trail.

Fall 2001

wispful and wishful

ruining of clothes
a tearing of threads
on crooked nails
mangled, protruding
from the molding of
a 50’s doorway

its broken hands and
catfish frying and
the barking of dogs
an airplane spewing
streams overhead that
ends the silence of
the musical notes
resounding on dust

the illusion that
can’t bear acrostic
references to
removed ex girlfriends,
will always recall
vis-a-vis a stuffed
mesozic mind
the hauntings of life

around 2003

1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1

Let’s not eat Pete
Don’t

On a mushroom ride from Newark
We could have rolled six and six
But the flurry of action was real
So our storm sense relieved.
That bar stool fool we met was not
You
…and good trips make daisies.

Love Poem v8.02 (beta)

There was a three-page long poem typed single-space in rhyming couplets here about love, how it made a young man soar in the clouds with butterflies, gamma rays, and chickadees.
But ctrl-a was typed and backspace pressed.
That is what had happened.

Build Your Name With Sticks

The joy is here, the skunk has died,
It is time to stop the masquerade!

There is sensual buzz saw filling the void
and starlings are walking blind into cars
and we can eat tacos, tasty tasty tacos.
I just hope my dad is alive to meet the kids.

So whether your name is Emmanuel or Imannuel
or if just you want to lie in the sun
or even if you cannot hit a baseball and insist on losing every game you play day in and day out
take a moment
make a phone call
and let everyone know that you really really despise old Dutch pirates.

mors mementi (a dream of the inevitable)

i looked out my window
on a night that was moonlit
but still cloudy so sometimes
this bold reflective lamp
would be smothered, exterminated
it no longer brightening the land

i felt a presence
while Mahler was weaving
a windy web of fog
that whispers ‘Frere Jacques’
in the otherwise calm background
so i scanned the room

and i saw my german shepherd
now smaller than me
jump up to say hello
gnawing at my wrist
though his face was not gold
but white like porcelain

then my great uncle
came knocking at my door
with a red cyst on his eye
he screamed “you asshole”
and exploded before me
spraying blood on the hardwood floor

i stared at the freshly painted room
its glow like the image of the sun
after you gazed for too long
but I shook the exposure from my head
and with eyes still fixed began to walk
past mirrors and night lights

then i noticed a skeleton
at the wooden kitchen table
doing the morning crosswords
this must be my granddad
but he is still alive and fat
and drinking national bohemian from a can

with curiosity i looked over
his visible collarbone
and i examined the puzzle
all he needed to finish
was a 9-letter word for rites
and it began with an ‘o’

2000ish

just a scene, nothing more

grass almost everywhere
green pencil lines
desiring the setting sun

three wooden light-posts
and four wooden elm trees
are a natural man made bar graph

there is very little time here
but every fifteen minutes
a bustling train reminds me

in the pond, a large shriveled olive
the center is dark, almost black
and the shores are shiny and verdant

four birds in the sky
or are those planes flying high
no wonder superman was hard to describe

the sky caresses them
pink, white, blue, purple, orange
new bathroom tile, but soft like wool

an open eyed child walks behind
he said that as time goes on
his shadow will get longer

lord knows when this was written, the past