Charles Frenzel

Down on the Brazos, brown Brazos Laugh! – and feel the mud between your toes. Where last week’s flood rippled, an empty can And an engine hood lie rusting in the sand. Next week or next year, these parts will move downriver, the piece of broken china, the half burned milk carton, the used Band-Aid, […]

Lavender jazz sparkles ice hot. Passion is a lame camel spitting acid juice from fat lips. In my field of dreams a green ox grazes On purple rows of yellow corn. A temple bell tangles with a warbler. Dipping my blueberry Poptart in last night’s martini, I enjoy a malleable feast. The blue-eyed olive I […]

Lately afflicted with dross static cling, I have begun listening to Silent Radio. Elongated early morning hours are spent tuning across bands, catching voice blips broadcast from WDOA in New Orleans, WWAR in Los Angeles, and KLAN from Montgomery. An enlightened driver listens to Silent Radio. Along my way to Reno I pass a jogger […]

Oklahoma, 1952. At first the tassels of corn did not stir, the stalks did not rustle, the bees did not bustle. of water there was none to fuss of. Then Kansas moved where the wild winds blew, settled where the wild winds slowed. There was a lot of Kansas falling in the yard. There was […]

Sour air streamed from the drier vents in the alley in back of the laundromat. I pressed close against the spit stained wall by the bust stop on Division. By the depths in the hypogloamy sea, by the shores of Armageddon, I have strolled on the sands of slime and now my feet are splay. […]

Night showers on damp flowers tingled with other smells. Alleyways on Bourbon, daily ways for urban folks, human yolks stoppered to stare at Daniel; a human eddy with money heady, some unsteady, umbrellas ready, mobile awnings like shadow halos dripping diamond dew. Funny man with felt hat clutching wet cat, seen turning like a child […]

A late snow fell not long after green shoots of early grasses loosed the grip of a hard and dirty winter. I caught up my camera and walked to Centennial Park, where a copy of the Parthenon stood with many columned legs upon a field and waited for Athena to arrive on the West End […]

Polly feeds the automated Nelson and table speakers belt out phrases like “Down in Muskogee, under the flood, my crop of potatoes is buried in mud.” in an accent as elastic as chewing gum. Our conversation is a parsed string strung between loud pauses. On the stage, a comic is poised in suspended imitation, scattered […]

Silent St. Charles trolley rolled downtoward Tulane. Dragons guarded the Super Egg; watermelon howled and danced on frog’s legs; the cat’s belly growled and heaven floated on Old Man with calliope honking. Blue Man’s harp bended down through town, wailing in the last hours before the cock sings. Posed like a wilted flower, heavy breathed […]

All children in Smalltown celebrate Birthdays at Bigboat pizza place, A moveable feast on Saturday morning. Smalltown has no BigMac space. Bigboat has a crusty grill and a two pan oven; There are beer taps, baseball caps, coffee urns, Pots buffed, a parrot stuffed, cup racks, plate stacks, A photo of Callipso, and green plastic […]

At the mouth of the Pearl there is a bar of white sand where you can stand without other footprints far about. When weather dries out the water is neat and the land bends brighter tunes; but I’d rather have the rain and heat to keep me thinking slowly while I spin this story. Upriver […]

Sweet history of life in which sorrow is a malfunction in punctuation, so hang on, dawn, on the road from work-a-day down on, a song rough sung along the way. And hear from the wizzard of ah’s that near the shore a man of clay wades in shallow waters along the beach across bay, melting.

Father stalks the pasture fence line, shotgun held low but ready to track the flight of a darting dove. I see his cap floating over the ripe fields of milkweed and poke. My towheaded cousin bends to clasp with cupped hands his vision of the fluttering white butterfly. In the distance I see Father stand […]

She rests with God above the ground, her bones to pick by things that fly, No longer caring where she’s bound. The desert god deep orange and round descends to night with tears burned dry; she rests with God above the ground. I hear her ask if I have found a reason for her not […]

Staccato bark of trembling metal hounds crouching at the line.