• 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…


  • INCARNATION

    I had been sitting for an hourin the coffee shop areaof the now gone Borders bookstoretrying to piece together the shardsof a life shattered by the impendingend of a long marriage that wasgoing to last for a lifetime.And I was hoping, perhaps,to meet someone, ready or not,to try and fill the smallest cornerof what was…


  • UNSAID

    There is so much you wish to sayand yet silence envelopes youwhile those who spoke are led away and you feel a moment’s dismayat what you were forced to do.There is so much you wish to say Gods and men you would inveighbut it was not your lot they drewwhile those who spoke are led…


  • NEXT TIME

    He is certain that in his next life he does not want to be a dog. Having to go outside in all sorts of weather for basic bodily functions is not for him. And he has never been fond of leashe,s on either of their ends. He is not sure, given where the courts have…


  • RECONSTRUCTIONS

    Night descended on herlike an elevator untethered,her memories in freefall into darkness.She could not forget the storiesthe elder ones quietly told,the numbers always clothed over,their smiles forced or freely given,depending on the directionof the ever-present winds of emotion.She knew she was a prisoner of her past,her inheritance both joys and horrorsinterwoven into the fabric of…


  • NOTHINGMAN

    So when you asked me whichsuperhero I would like to beI would’ve thought you mighthave narrowed it downto the Marvel or DC universes,or did you mean that I couldcreate my own superpower and persona?All of this matters, of course, for anyperson under 75 and male and manyfemales in that cohort as wellknow the vast gulf…


  • IN PASSING

    As we walk along the shoreof the man-made lakein the planned community’s “town,”the birds array themselvesin a ragged single fileas I pass and I imagined eachlooks up at me posing.Once I would’ve stopped,raised my camera, capturedthem, or their facsimilebut those days are donefor I no longer blog themone thousand posts gone byand my back and…


  • ON THE CUSHION

    The day has slipped away,or mostly so, as they often doas if nature provided a hiddengrease that lets them outof our grasp no matterhow hard we try and hold them.It is little consolation, laterin life, that nights demonstrateand equal unwillingnessto remain very long, as ifour dreams must be hurriedas are our days and nights.Sitting on…


  • SEASIDE

    The ocean wind sweeps through the citya sudden rain washes sidewalk, shop, and street,carries both dreams and sins back to the sea. For the young child time slides by easily,life a campaign that allows no retreat.The ocean wind sweeps through the city, rattles church windows, so that all can seethe priest stripped of dogma. Christ…


  • MOTHERS’ DAY

    This is the day I am supposedto honor my motherbut I am torn as to which motherI should pay tribute, or is itboth or possibly neither.One carried me, bore meinto life and departed,for my good, for hers andthe grave has sworn her to silence.Is it the woman whoadopted me, I her onlyuntil her new husbandgave…