bill wunder

Memorial Day 2002

I'd nearly forgotten that room but lately, things appear in the narrow, dark space between door and linoleum: Fingertips of palm fronds; fragments of jungle fatigues; love beads we wore under them. Acrid, burning wreckage of a helicopter delivering mail and Christmas dinners to a hot LZ. Foul, strange aroma of mama-san improvising meals out of fish heads and rice. Thunderous roar of F-4 Phantoms climbing in tandem, urgency in their contrails, distant varumpf of bombs in mountains. Sing-song complaints of mothers moved from ancestral villages, their children clinging Read more [...]

Lions

My neighbor's television mumbles all night through yellowed wallpaper. Beer commercials, game shows, Star Trek theme at 3 a.m., I play puppet to ventriloquist, lip-sync every sales pitch; sing their vacuous anthems. There is safety in this stale room. Sleep will not come. My mind sprints, I am a step behind. Traffic snarls, rises from the streets. Sirens sing to me, divas fill the night until morning's air spills through my window, sun warms the floor. Outside, lions pace among crowds of strangers in their stone Serengeti; they wait for me. Lions first app Read more [...]

Cathedral

I walk reverently, footsteps soft as feathers falling. I am humbled by giants, asleep in Muir Woods. Solitary sentinels reach for heaven, scrape the sky. End of daylight tiredly slants, filters through canopied roof, ageless shadows of God's cathedral, illuminating my path. Overwhelming silence enraptures me as angels sing of God's gift to man: the sacred redwood. Cathedral first appeared in [i]Melange Journal[/i]. Read more [...]

Those Red Shoes

phone rings. he wants me, I can tell, or is it those red shoes? sounds made by high heels on reflective, wooden floors bedevil him. I am someone else in scarlet spikes. my skirt swirls freely in the warm air surrounding me like a swarm of honey bees. my legs, longer in those red shoes, belong to a seductress; a stranger to me. I am rhythm. my breasts bounce upon the off beat. he is at the door. my pulse quickens as I slip on those red shoes, and one thing leads to another. Read more [...]

Religion

Breathe me. Part your lips, draw me in deeply. Hunger for me, want me, I am all you require. Taste me. Lick my salt, I lie thick on your tongue, like ash spewed from a volcano. Feel my tremors, thirst for me in the desert. I am like rain, I will wash you clean. See me, watch me love you. Close your eyes, feel me enter the temple. Love is religion. Religion first appeared in [i]Coil Magazine[/i]. Read more [...]
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