Vibrate All

i like the sound of no phone no retro ring tone no buzzing in my pants vibrate all vibrate who vibrate you the space between us right now the slipstream meditating words ideas feelings xoxoxo I like the sound of deeper meaning no space between us Photo by Jonathan Borba Read more

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).

Game of Telephone

The telephone used to ring a lot You see it in old movies Heroes fumbling for their change Being pelted with rain Pursued, hiding, and afraid There’s only one way out In the middle of seduction In the parlor, lights down low The faithful always called The criminal element laughed Read more

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).

Thunder

Rolls like a kettle-drumon the other side of the passwhere my lover once livedin a plain wooden houseunder a sky that carried weightin its splendor and its solace We saved hours underneaththe dogwood tree, silentholding hands, lightly old-fashionedlovers bent on listening asthe yellow-billed cuckoo sangsadder than the rain Everything I Read more

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).

The Day I Quit School (Two Years Before I Was Expelled)

1.1 Falstaff, hoodless, gathers senior pages three quarters removed from postmodern squirehood: apprenticeship, union dues, parental woes, truck payments, beer tabs & dive pubs & splinters eat their futures like famished gluttons chewing new recipes. Encircled, he blathers-on long-winded, demonstrating chattermark removal from 4×4 timbers. Band saw blades buzz, decapitating Read more

James Paraskevas

James is a former Bostonian who has been kidnapped by his nefarious wife, force-fed nutritional meals thrice daily, and lovingly coerced to live among the shire-folk in the land of Southern New Hampshire. He teaches English at the local high school when he's not petting his cat, eyeballing dusty books, or professing undying love to the aforementioned wife.

January 20th, 2014.

An unbroken blue-brown gaze brightening a dimly lit winter’s day— spellbound, perplexed, or simply intrigued— as caustic wit, Offset by caustic wit, joy-twisted still-frosted cheeks into Cabernet-toothed smiles where the paint-chipped Ceilings and Mezzanines agree.   Shadow figures, braving sleet, paraded past our ice-glazed windows, ignored.   Maneless faces shimmered Read more

James Paraskevas

James is a former Bostonian who has been kidnapped by his nefarious wife, force-fed nutritional meals thrice daily, and lovingly coerced to live among the shire-folk in the land of Southern New Hampshire. He teaches English at the local high school when he's not petting his cat, eyeballing dusty books, or professing undying love to the aforementioned wife.

Open D

Long auburn hair Fingers picking, backhand Bottleneck thrashing Closer to the microphone Swaying to and fro Like a cat Or a snake Or a dream I could forsake But never forget As the blues played on In the way they never had The blues played on And of course, they Read more

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).

400 Cans to Lunch

I don’t whine about hunger the wayother kids do when they’re given an apple, or told to wait until dinner, or told to waitwhen they’re stomping their feet while mommy and daddy examine the Halloween candies for razor blades and cyanide:I fucking whine.  Everyday it’s deviled ham with mayonnaise—with mayonnaise, mayonnaise, mayonnaise—enough goddamn mayonnaise to make Read more

James Paraskevas

James is a former Bostonian who has been kidnapped by his nefarious wife, force-fed nutritional meals thrice daily, and lovingly coerced to live among the shire-folk in the land of Southern New Hampshire. He teaches English at the local high school when he's not petting his cat, eyeballing dusty books, or professing undying love to the aforementioned wife.