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DEFLATED DREAMS
when did youthful dreamsslip awayerodeget consumed byparentsteachersor simply abandoned reality, yourstheirs a poor substituteall edgesand pointspiercing hope love once (a) givenrendered faint hopeworse, impossible dreamdelusion? you wantto think notwant so muchcan’t havebad for youwe know goodwhen we give itnone for you timepast sogrow up
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IF ONLY A BULL
In our family Murphy was a god, and his law was the eleventh commandment. I often wanted to ask at what moment my childhood ended. Had to be before my twelfth birthday, before the day on which I went from greeter at one of my father’s business parties in our oversized family room, to bartender,…
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FINITE LOOP
As it turns out, lifeis an ongoing process of accretionand deconstruction, of growthand eventual shrinkage. I started with 20 teethI am told, and got to 32,only to fall back to 23thanks to orthodontia and wear. We start with 270 or morebones, but we knit that numberdown to 206, or in my case under200, the orthopaedist’s…
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BANDAGE
She wants to know if it is even possibleto make a bandage large enoughto bind the wounds we have inflictedon a planet which we were toldwas ours over which we wereto exercise our wise dominion. She says it isn’t fair that she will beleft to try to clean up the messthat we have made for…
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GRANDCHILD
You more easily rememberthe birth of a grandchildthan his or her parent whether from a memorysharpened by ageor regular sleep or by a visionmore acute for knowingwhat to look for, or simply a clingingtightly to any symbolof youth denied you. It may be as wellthat grandchildren seeyou differently than parents a hope for a long…
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TREPIDATION
I approach it slowly, overcomeby fear and desire, warned to stepcarefully over the uneven earththat on this hillside haven set behindthe rusting wrought iron fence , itsmaster lock dangling askew, peersout through the trees to the Kanawha riverflowing unknowingly through the valley. The stone is set in line with the others,neatly incised, a name, Englishand…
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LOWER FLAT, BUFFALO
It was a small house, that muchI still remember clearly, not wide,what some called a railroad flat,but ours had two floors, as if tworailroad cars had been stackedone on top of the other. We, luckily, had the bottom, orat least that’s what my father said,and his varicose veined legs applaudedhis selection of our new home.…
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RETIREMENT
He would arrive as I was still strugglingto convince the dog that he didn’t needto drag me around the neighborhood,that he knew the backyard well enough. I’d lose the argument in the end, thatwas a given, but he’d concede meenough time to wolf down breakfast,and I’d hear the small door in the wallopen and then…
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SKYWARD
It was a Thursday in August when he first noticed it. It was an unusually cool day, not the sort you’d expect in the middle of summer, but he knew the weather was ever more unpredictable. He was certain it hadn’t been there the day before, but he was surprised it was still there the…
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ETD
As a child, I could neverunderstand why, when I knewthat it ws time to go, my parentswere never ready, always neededone or two more things; and whyen route, we were never quite thereeven though I had waited the tenminutes more they said it would take. But I had nothing on my beloveddog Mindy, who would…
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an old writer and his words 