the home page of david prater

Beyond the firewall, Thetes a-drilling. Scintillation, precise as tubes. Spot flares bask the gamma rays in fog. What use is a snow pistol? My electronic ink freezes the display. My read-outs betray a breeze. I wheeze � in & out � relieved & finally on Mars.

it will not go away driving in a car kissing your lover goodbye smell it in the air feel it in your lungs shave off all of your hair & say �goodbye this time coz i�m breathing the flicker of a breeze i see it in your eyes its time to go away were coming into spring� kissed your lover goodbye you�ll taste �the difference is i�m not a child� no nicotine i an no gst i oh no nicotine angst yes I know nicotine angst �

only these three things can make me cry images of deaf children hearing for the first time (the first word: mother) a look of utter joy most of us cannot remember a memory of my mother bringing me hot chocolate and a biscuit she drops the tray that one makes me cry small families with no money and those looks in a little one's eyes battered and bludgeoned by capital somehow even these two lovers managed to hold hands to these i can now add the fourth trigger unhappy water puppets in hanoi a laughing boy spits water out of his mouth though one-dimensional how could i fail to feel sorry for him and you my love we have a million reasons to cry our impending departures weigh heavily on your eyes just close them how it will be all right we are together now & i can hear your baby & her looks of stunned surprise so that's what the word for you sounds like all along there has been no need to utter single syllables old times though it's hard laugh at everyone else only

given the unenviable task of delivering mail in a cantonese walled city charged with entropy & chaos criss-crossing its aerial corridors conduits they call them linked towers that change positions days how the garbage piles up forming strata to be studied by future archaeologists � he can never decipher the old city's next move & remains astounded by the most innocuous envelope's habit of finding a home scratching out addresses or the deceased another day a map to discard notice how randomness thrives within the most carefully chosen boundaries first published in my debut collection, "The Happy Farang" (2000)