Exclusive Clip: David Gladfelter — “Secondary Effects” at Godpussy Poetry
She couldnt take the highway anymore. It was gone. Removed. Like an enormous hand had scooped it out and threw it some place else. A moment of pure awe guilts her before horror. Peering, downward, from the vacancy to the slope, utility networks ripped into scribbled rebar balled up and run through with cables like wrist-gauged worms writhing some rust slaked wadded organ, wiggling above gutters abyssal, strange, bleak, slicing golden blinks in black as wind howls off it whole like a canyon. Systems of roots tore pulpy and appearing like of brass, dull and almost milky. Semi trucks pulled in half and buried, buildings pulled in half and buried. Dead, of course, slung like laundry as from tenement balconies. She imagined all their blood drained for days down into there, rolling down slate and gravel and loam, pig iron bloomed out struts and grating gaping, dripping the slats and slots, pooling down there. Black black water so dark that you would think it just void for not a greasy evil-shot shimmer tensioned on its surface. Big Hole. Big Doom. The Interior. She sat back to it and marked the road atlas. She sucked on her bottom lip, absent and thinking, accounting, marking. Death like blown pollen, she thought. She made her marks and closed the book and stood. Cant choose some seedlings, she thought. Glance caught while turning, charred trees toothpick looking tumbled through in the ruin so appear like structures of bled bonewhite coral, dead pale starfish tiered in threaded knots in some blank knotted hierarchy, still very tiny and fine and far far away. Far far down there. She plucked careful steps ticking around the edge then cut east through weeds and wild wheat bleached to stems.
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David Gladfelter was born in Gettysburg, PA and now lives with his husband in Detroit. His writing has been published by Bruiser, Apocalypse Confidential, Spectra, Eulogy, The Pixelated Shroud, Michigan City Review, Expat, and Back Patio Press. He and his husband host a weekly radio show called David Radio. He is working on a long thing. He is 35 years old. He has a high school diploma.
His work can be found here: linktr.ee/daviddaviddaviddaviddavid
David's editing services can be found here: daviddaviddavid7.wordpress.com
David Gladfelter is on X @gothicman50
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