• BOTTOM LINE

    They are dying but it really doesn’t matter since the bottom line doesn’t recognize their plight, and never mind that we paid for its invention, for that is the beauty of this age. God is no longer in charge of things, bought and sold, and now assigned to watching the corn grow in central Illinois,…


  • MILES FROM NOWHERE

    Three hundred fifty miles along today’s highway the giant green sign reads Harriet’s Bluff Road and you cannot help but wonder what stories Harriet’s true road is holding back from telling you.


  • JIM AND JIMI

    I made it past 27, which says I’m either an optimist or have almost no musical talent. When I made it through 54 I knew I’d never get burned buried in Paris, never be mourned as a great talent taken or taking myself too young. Now it’s five years until 72 and I know if…


  • SOUTH OR SO IT SEEMS

    It was tacky then, it’s epitome and six decades and unknown views later it hasn’t changed at all. You don’t expect tackiness to accrete, yet like a black hole this is irrefutable evidence it has. To say it is garish to insult the term, since it is so much more, beyond anything the term can…


  • LIBERACE WASN’T HERE

    The white crested duck waddles from the pond headed for the path on which we take our morning walks. He is accompanied by wives or girlfriends, we prefer to think one of each for propriety’s sake. Want to tell him that Liberace tried that hairstyle years ago, and it never worked on bad hair days,…


  • A CALL

    The thing about it is it is so damn quiet I can hear myself think but I can’t think anymore. And I’ll tell you this box is so cold it just leaks air and water has seeped in. Somehow I expected more it isn’t at all what was promised and the stone is not set…


  • INSIDIOUS

    They come when you least expect them appear seemingly out of nowhere at first so small they go unnoticed but never unheard, for what they lack in size, they make up for in volume. The get beneath your skin, take root, steal into your heart, and find themselves in the brain’s synapses. Before long they…


  • WHO WILL BE KING?

    Tell me what you see, he says, and be as precise as possible. I suppose I see exactly what you see, we are looking at the same thing, at the same time, so how can it be any different for me then you? Are you seeing through my eyes? He smiles, for if so, I’d…


  • FOR THE BIRDS

    I’ve always been a bird person, perhaps it is just jealousy their ability to fly unencumbered, encased, to lift up by will alone. Here it is all about water, the Muscovy ducks waddling up to me each morning, pleading for the handout they should now know will not be forthcoming, at least when anyone else…


  • TOUCH

    I would reach out in touch you but as it is my fingers barely reach the keyboard. I would take your picture the next time I see you, but it would appear instantly, no waiting for someone to tell me as you were merely a blurred image appearing days later pulled from an envelope. Perhaps…