Read my latest flash, Venison, at 52|250.

When it hasn’t rained for a while, the first thing you notice is the sound of a downpour: the rush of drops down buildings and stems, how each hits glass and concrete. Then, when you step outside near the end of the shower, you notice the smell: the soil, the leaves, the warm sidewalk and whatever dried on it. Finally, you see the darkened dirt and the drops still clinging to plants, homes, and signs shimmering in whatever light has emerged.

It is a different kind of beauty than that of a blue sky unbroken by clouds and the warmth that drives crowds to the beach.

Neither sort should be denied. Though we all have our own subjective preferences, plants (and thus everything that depends on them) thrive on both kinds. They need rain and sun. Having a climate with both does not mean living every day in some murky (partly) cloudy middle. Why then should hybridity in writing mean the equivalent?

I strive for a sort of synthesis in my work that does not make the sun any less sunny or the rain any less wet. When I play with punctuation, when I replace “l” with “|”, it is no less an experiment or questioning of the bounds of language for being done in lines that otherwise resemble more mainstream poetics or everyday speech: it may, in fact be more so because of the juxtaposition and the incursion into less problematized meaning. At the same time, an experience need not become less powerful for its telling being riddled with experimentation, though the potential for distancing in such writing is admittedly a challenge.

That difficulty is worth it.

Rainbows require just such a synthesis (and rainbows can be messages as well as messengers).

Take a handful of dirt. Examine it. Consider what’s inside it. Make up a story with the dirt as a setting.

Most of my garden has been demolished by a certain cat I could name. Carrots from a seed packet promising a rainbow of varieties from yellow to crimson and a plant that should eventually bear black tomatoes have survived. Had I planted potatoes, I would have chosen blue. If I tried to say that these colors made my garden-work superior to the garden-work of those who prefer orange carrots, red tomatoes, and russet potatoes, I would have to go into all sorts of ultimately dull theoretical contortions in order to avoid being laughed at straight away. Gardeners choose the varieties that suit them in terms of taste and predicted production and most will occasionally try a new type of seeds or two, but they won’t usually trumpet their superiority to those who choose other varieties.

This is one reason why I find so much that is written about poetics to be boring and a little bit silly. Different styles are going to appeal to different tastes. To try to lift up one school or movement at the expense of another is really no different than to try to prove the universal superiority of red peppers to green.

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Look under a piece of furniture. If you don’t have furniture, look under your clothes. If you don’t have clothes or furniture, look under your foot. If you don’t have clothes or furniture or feet, look under someone who does.

If no one does, write about the apocalypse.

Otherwise, describe what you find. Explain why it isn’t a sign of the End of Days.