Author: Lia Yaranon Hall

  • I will become the sister I have always wanted

    I will become inappropriate for city life fly a trapeze in the jungle maybe do some mechanical work on rocket ships for extra cash I will become a hobbyist for underwater paraphernalia I will become the kind of old person who always buys the same kind of shoes when my soles have worn thin or…

  • Non Prescription Color Contact Lenses, or Beautiful Eyes for Everyone

    Tonight, after supper, the dome of the sky will open in sections Watch the photons swarm the entryways the exitways All the unborn infants have shopping lists There’s an inflammation of naked mole rats in the turnstile A man at a booth on the sidewalk wants to sell a pair of scissors to snip at…

  • I love handfuls

    anything with a shape breaks, my empty shelter collapses, my inefficient transport, its gliterry paint chips. From underneath my chin I look indifferently upon the crumbling angles of yourself appall at that indifference–detectable only with a mirror. In and out of geometries we inhabit, we traverse our luster smears, but the kindle and hum is…

  • Breathing and Yoga

    Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe. Therefore the Master takes action by letting things take their course. Lao Tzu This is what we are referring to when talking about a breath-centered yoga practice. Often a yoga instructor’s cadence…

  • Critical Mass Cyclist Assaulted by NYPD

    Thanks to individuals with video cameras, like this tourist in Times Square last summer, we can bear witness to the world. You don’t even have to be on a bike in NYC to see this kind of unrighteousness. I was shocked when I first moved here, but now I know that you ALWAYS have to…

  • Cities & Impossibilities

    In the city of Fabiola, the armature alternately dissolves and integrates. Its light evaporates as a rope soaks up kerosene to burn within the lamp’s bulbous chimney glass. It brightens with the food of more rope. The sky is a blueprint that dangles contrails. They seamlessly disintegrate into the solid blue that masks the stars.…

  • The Village Pet Shop & Charcoal Grill

    for Banksy stop the dolphin on the sidewalk blue five feet coin slot saddle and red fishnet the leopard lost his coat tail swinging red satin lining five thousand gold buttons bone not included the chameleon wears Louis Vuitton and Krylon splashes the bonobo clutches the remote watching the discovery channel monkeys’ procreating pushing buttons—rewind…

  • Lolo

    Lolo whistled ivory teeth of coconut meat meant he was shoveling or having coffee with Acidophilus Milk or a smoke with Dan the ‘Nam vet who sold him cartons Lolo wore flip flops in the garden carved canyons in his soles saw clearly beyond cataracts made Filipino expletives ukininam at the mahjong table shuffling made…

  • For Y’all

    I roll Dekalb. I watch color walls. I illegal scrawl. I feel Fall. I keel haul to port of call. I kill oak gall. Jackal dolls bawl in mess hall. Ah ! ritual alcohol non-habitual. I waterfall default to thrall crawl no wherewithal. I drawl to downfall. I anchor ancestral temple I follow falsetto to…

  • Currency

    “Money is a kind of poetry.” ~Wallace Stevens A kind of currency. Lingua franca. Electric voltage to jumpstart a body or fry it to a crisp. Everything is bark. Words. Mots. Palabras. Pesetas. Copper. Argent. What a verbal illustration. Tip dessin vert. Mint species. Poetry is green olive and foliage. It will buy you a…