Blade Runner Love

It all started with a kiss
that was something like a dirty bomb
going off unexpectedly
in a populated city
in a movie that I’d seen before
where the survivors walk the streets
but the reaction takes years to dissipate
among the residue,
ticking off seconds on a Geiger counter
while one character tells another,
through eyes filled with pain and longing
that when you love someone,
sometimes that means you have to be a stranger
whether you want to or not.
Sometimes that means arriving in a place
unfamiliar; gray colors undefined and
sharp points around every corner,
cutting deep, often wounding, always
past, present, and future, I watched
a strange sixth sense develop, as
blanks fired into a dystopian landscape
two people fighting to the end of love
not even sure if the end could ever be
and like my favorite poet’s song,
kiss still lingering, I knew
someone had to tell the tale and
I guess that it was up to me

 

Photo Credit: Alex [Fino] LA Flickr via Compfight cc

Doug Hoekstra

Doug Hoekstra is a Chicago-bred, Nashville-based writer and musician, educated at DePaul University in the Windy City (B.A.) and Belmont University in the Music City (M.Ed.), whose prose, poetry, and non-fiction have appeared in numerous print and online literary journals. His first set of stories, Bothering the Coffee Drinkers, was published in April 2006 and earned an Independent Publisher Award (IPPY) for Best Short Fiction (Bronze Medal). Ten Seconds In-Between, his latest collection of short stories, was published in June, 2021 on Better than Starbuckspress. Hoekstra has also worked extensively as a singer-songwriter with eight albums of original material on labels released on both sides of the pond, propelling touring throughout the U.S. and Europe, at bookstores, coffeehouses, clubs, libraries, pubs, festivals, radio stations, and castles; solo and with combos in tow. Musical highlights have included Nashville Music Award and Independent Music Award nominations, as well as many groovy happenings. 2021 also brings a new album of music, The Day Deserved. ("A lot of people write songs, Hoekstra writes five minute worlds" - Wired Magazine).

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Doug Hoekstra is a Chicago-bred, Nashville-based writer and musician, educated at DePaul University in the Windy City (B.A.) and Belmont University in the Music City (M.Ed.), whose prose, poetry, and non-fiction have appeared in numerous print and online literary journals. His first set of stories, Bothering the Coffee Drinkers, was published in April 2006 and earned an Independent Publisher Award (IPPY) for Best Short Fiction (Bronze Medal). Ten Seconds In-Between, his latest collection of short stories, was published in June, 2021 on Better than Starbuckspress. Hoekstra has also worked extensively as a singer-songwriter with eight albums of original material on labels released on both sides of the pond, propelling touring throughout the U.S. and Europe, at bookstores, coffeehouses, clubs, libraries, pubs, festivals, radio stations, and castles; solo and with combos in tow. Musical highlights have included Nashville Music Award and Independent Music Award nominations, as well as many groovy happenings. 2021 also brings a new album of music, The Day Deserved. ("A lot of people write songs, Hoekstra writes five minute worlds" - Wired Magazine).

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