Ten Years Later
“No limits, just edges.” –Jackson Pollack You were so fantastic, reminded me of Gene Wilder with wild eyes, green and lashed, red hair spun by Rumplestiltskin into breakers that broke at your forehead, something primeval in the way you understood the world, a Willy Wonka who spoke, but did not speak the same language as […]
Shopping at Walmart in January
Walmart ordered way too many bicycles this year to sell over the Christmas holidays. They outline the entrance to the store all the way back to the Garden Center, blue and pink bicycles, waiting like lost puppies for a family to take home. It is January, post-holidays, several weeks since we’ve gone shopping. Provisions are […]
Mandela Elegy
On that day in Oakland,
Every concession stand sold your t-shirt,
a silk-screened picture, fist raised
for the last leg of a world-wide tour
Ernest Gaines at Northwestern State in Natchitoches
“He knows a history unknown in history books.”
Buttery Nipples
It was in the South Side Salon in Keithsville, Louisiana where I discovered buttery nipples, a drink that my bartender friends tell me is composed of two main ingredients: butterscotch schnapps and Bailey’s cream.
The 99% in Crossett, Arkansas
When you’re in the belly of the monster You don’t consider if your lipgloss is sticky Or if your hair spray is crunchy Or how Steve Jobs, if he found himself in the same situation, Would’ve connected the dots. Even when distraction and evil influence rule the day, And the EPA is scheduled to show […]
The Bookworm Club: Part I
Cal Robert’s was either a genius or insane. But the general consensus was, “That boy’s crazy.”
Sitting in Duck Country
Find the university police office opposite the Burger King on DeSiard. The library is down the street from the KFC, the Farmer’s Market for satsumas is tucked around the corner from the P.O., but not the one from Eudora Welty’s story, it’s the one that’s here in Monroe. Without numbers, a GPS device is worthless, […]
Yahrzeit Candle
For a big man, you left a small footprint, on your shoulders people created arabesques, formed pyramids as I watched from the edge of a plaid blanket knowing you were my father, the hand-balancer. Monday through Saturday you made orthopedic shoes near Second Avenue in New York City, now divided between a tarot reader and […]
Civil War
Broken-in shoes gather molded arches beneath an army of dangling limbs. Some wait, collars upturned, yearning to be made whole. Bare wire hangers dig meatless fingers into sagging woolen shoulders, the only warmth this place knows. Purple tinged fluorescence bruises her whites, exposes her blacks. A yellow bird sings through half-lit bars.