• FROM HERE TO THERE

    It is a marvel of engineering,miniaturization taken to a new level.Once it was a pound of coffeewhere sixteen ounces became thirteenbut they knew we would growused to the new quantity afteronly a short period of complaining.That there weren’t other optionsall but guaranteed they would win.But now they’ve miniaturizedthe inside of airplanes, your seatnarrower, you knee…


  • CRIME SCENE

    It was far and away the worstcrime scene he could rememberand he had been at it for many years.Over here were the bodiesof anapests and dactylsmotionless where they fell,oh how he wanted to pulla white sheet over themfor his sake if not for theirsfor they were beyond caring.By the wall he saw a trocheehalf draped…


  • HOPE, YET

    There is a certain pleasurein reading obscure biographiesof the decidedly lesser lightsof their respective fields.Inevitably a writer assiduouslystruggles to avoid mentionof the great men and womenwho define the discipline,and the books are shorter,for even if their lives were visitedby great trials, and even ifthey overcame obstacles,we all know they ascendedonly so far, and we,at the…


  • LISTS

    The list seems never ending. He carefully checks things off yet for each item that comes off it seems two or three are added. He knows he shouldn’t complain. He is not a complainer and he is one who completes tasks so if it is on the list he will take care of it and…


  • MANY THINGS

    There are many thingsyou will never hear a poet say: I wanted to write a concrete poembut every time I floated the ideait immediately sank I love occasional poetrybut I never have foundthe occasion to write any It is no wonder so many poetsare starving because allthey write is free verse I thought of writingconfessional…


  • DECISIONS

    Sitting today trying to decidewhether to use seitan or tempehin tonight’s Singapore-ish noodlesI thought back to the afternoonswaiting patiently in line at the onceand then still gas station, the two bays“converted” to a seafood marketwith large tanks of lobster flown intri-weekly and frozen King crab legsand pointing as the attendant, the onewho used to change…


  • STANDING AROUND

    They said they would take a stand. They meant to take a stand but they never quite got around to taking a stand. That was the problem with taking a stand, you had to act, you had to stand. So much time passed they forgot they had said they would take a stand. Then they…


  • DEALING WITH IT

    How strange it was today to takethe younger of our two cars, this onesoon to be ten, but low milageby anyone’s standards,under 2,000 miles a year,to the dealer after needinga jump start on a battery lessthan a year old, and knowing froma lifetime of such visits the havocthey wreak on your wallet, and thenwaiting more…


  • IN BAKERSFIELD

    In Bakersfield they don’t give a damn about hurricanes, he realized. They might watch them on the news, be amazed at the force of the wind, the water, the destruction they could cause, but they were abstract, like blizzards now were to him, a curiosity of nature but having no bearing on his day to…


  • NO ENTRY

    . Each night we go off to bedand close the bedroom doorbarring the cat from entryinto our sanctuary, the onlyroom in the house she is notfree to roam at her will.We do this because we are allergic,because she is a cat and cannotbe trusted not to do somethingwe might regret in the morning,because she is…