We’ve Been Warned this Would Happen

We’ve been warned this would happen, obliteration from our privileged spot huddled between Venus and Mars, fidgeting with both love and war. The sun, our blazing mother would eat us like some animals devour their bloody young. Some suspected that before our hot mama...

a sunny day

a sunny day is incomplete without morning fog without noon sirens blaring the riskiness of time without six o’clock news declaring unoriginal sins without earth’s rotation sending the sun toward night without the moon reminding us there is light ...

What Is Poetry?

What’s the difference, let’s say, between a poem and a recipe. Both feed. Or a brochure on cool spots in Cleveland some funky local thinks visitors should see. Poets suggest different ways of seeing. How is Dr. William’s red wheelbarrow scribbled on a grabbed...

Absolute

I do not utter the word ‘absolute.’ Don’t like it. Don’t use it. Don’t dream it. Nothing is absolute. Absolutely nothing~ -nothing without limitation -nothing unbounded -nothing unrestricted -nothing absolutely absolute Facts are absolute but need...

A Short List

A short list of people who were never born, not conceived, not dreamed up, not a gleam in someone’s eye. Romulus Baird Laurel Frankenstar Bertram Bacardus Willy Simgrip Ivor Pollingham Missy Darman Hans Harlow Renee Tussore Tuzla Niderstill Rosa Effel They will...

Mother Lode

July 5, 1955 11:30 p.m. The house was hot. I couldn’t sleep. I got out of bed. My father was in his study with the fan on. My mother was nowhere to be found. She was sitting on the steps of our front porch. I came out and sat down. No clouds. No moon. A blazing...