• WALKING

    He walks slowly, with a stoop, born of time or knowledge of a world that has seeped away. He smiles, but you cannot tell if it is at the worm slowly crossing the sidewalk, or the young woman pulling on the leash of her far too large dog. He could walk this route with his…


  • IN TRANSIT

    We have decided to skip the viewing to say our farewells in thought without needing to see her face frozen in the morticians best attempt at placidity, erasing the anger, the fear, the frustration, the pain that made leaving easier for her than remaining. We will say the prayers, most of them, she with fervent…


  • RECALL

    It is always odd watching older men gather to talk about their lives, about how much they no longer remember of last year and a decade ago, about the infinite details they do recall of their time spent in the army, air force, navy, the smell of slop on a shingle, the stain on the…


  • A CHILDHOOD

    I have fond memories of a childhood I never lived. Those are the best childhoods from for they reflect life as you meant it to be lived. In this life my father is in his late nineties, still smiles when he sees me, not didn’t clutch his chest sixty-one years ago, didn’t fall to the…


  • CYCLES

    The Royal Poinciana is in full bloom, its brilliant flame has led the sun to take jealous refuge in the clouds but we know not to be complacent. Mother nature it is said, and we are loathe to argue, can be at times the most fickle of bitches and we suspect that it will not…


  • ON THE MESA

    At night, in these mountains you see a million stars, but all you hear is the silence. It bothers you, this silence and you strain to hear, what? There is no one here but you and your breath is swallowed by the night sky. Be still for the wind will rise, and these mountains and…


  • SCREW YOU AESOP

    So Androcles, how did it feel when, in the pit, the lion sidled over. You saw his paw finally healed and no doubt remembered the thorn you had extracted. Did you rub his mane as his jaws snapped around your thigh his teeth tearing into your flesh. As you saw the blood spill out did…


  • HERE LIES

    Ambrose Bierce walked into Mexico one day, and was never seen again. That was surprising enough, but more so, he left no epitaph, the least you would expect from a writer. In retrospect, perhaps he was the smarter one, for I know othersl who have spent countless hours trying to devise the perfect epitaph, knowing…


  • UNTO EACH GENERATION

    Years later on, having walked calmly away from my former faith, I am left still pondering where you find the words to describe, to teach the unspeakable, and how you use them to reach children who have no right to know the unspeakable, but who must, lest they later speak it. It was a generation…


  • IN TRANSIT

    Mom died, the text message read, similar words we’ve been hearing too frequently but always leaving us with the same hopelessness. The words my brother, estranged now, estranged then, come to think of it, said two years ago in a quickly left phone message. I thought of confronting him, but when he never answered, I…