PS: THE WOLVES – Justin Hocking
PS: THE WOLVES – Justin Hocking
PS: the wolves
by Justin Hocking
027
PS: THE WOLVES is an odd amalgamation of poetry and prose that explores Bram Stoker's hidden infatuation with Walt Whitman. A strange and wonderful creation, told in three sections, Part I: Not Since Killiecrankie / Part II: Oh, Captain / Part III: Flame Wolves. It has elements appropriated from Bram Stoker’s 1872 written correspondence to Walt Whitman, from Whitman’s 'Leaves of Grass' and Bram Stoker’s 'Dracula.'
Justin Hocking is the former Executive Director of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. His memoir, The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld (Graywolf Press) won the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Award. He teaches creative writing in the MFA and BFA programs at Portland State University. For more information visit justinhocking.net.
excerpts:
Their third night of walking the streets in darkness. Laidlaw with significantly less endurance than Bram, who took second place in the Edinburgh marathon. Bram realized their first night out Laidlaw would never make it to the Skye Cave and back. Plus Laidlaw startles easily, something Bram finds oddly appealing. The way Laidlaw shoulders up to him, places his arm in his. The smell of Laidlaw’s hair, almond extract and lavender. Yet Bram never removes his hands from the pockets of his woolen pea coat. Why is he always holding himself back, always on the edge of contact, longing for but not quite grasping, impounded in a cage of his own making?
Undone by you
The more I read the more wolves escape from my mind the more the wolves circle
I want to reveal my hand my hands to you End my secretive nature with the world
If I were before your face I should like to shake hands with you for I feel that I would
Like you
I think strange things
In dreams I wake up hand in hand with you
I found
the library
wild
with our own
memory.
