The House on Chestnut Street
People on Chestnut Street said the house was haunted. That didn’t bother Paul and Mary in the least. “They say that because it’s a big, rundown Victorian,” Paul said. “It just needs some love. Then it will be a home and not a house,” Mary said in that nonchalant way the young say such things, … Read more
The Sermon on Gnosis
(As delivered by The Reverend Emerson Whitbread, Indianapolis, Indiana, July 25th 1976) Brothers & Sisters Such Precious, Precious Souls you are in this very moment with your Minds & Hearts turned towards the Lord’s Goodness and the Heaven His Word has promised but the true Kingdom of God surrounds you unnoticed. My Children there are … Read more
A Purloined Sentiment
There is a line about her in a song that is not about her but another girl instead, a popular tune he overhears on the radio from time to time still. It was lifted word for word from a poem in his first collection, published two decades ago by a small university press. When first … Read more
Café Pearl Diver Song
in a moment of buzz and bustle hustle and sensual overload filled, brimming up with lazy guitars from the stoned balladeers playing for beer and winks foaming over with laughter glasses & plates clinking, bells ringing, transistor kitchen fuzz, rubber sole … Read more
Central State Śāstra
one more day to go as days are measured as life is measured but when i think about it there are more holes than memories more space than i matter while all the things i wish to be and would rather not ebb and change spare and easy in a beggar’s palm i should have … Read more
The Last Last Train to Clarksville
the warped record spins & sounds just fine but i want to fix it like i want to fix everything but else nothing is as mutable as pliable as i think brittle old acetone breaks beneath my soft fingers my heart drops you i promise weep and sob to buy you another but they never … Read more
On Brevity
(Untitled) snow tires roll on a street downhill stark branch clutches a fan of dark leaves stubborn against the satin screen of freezing fog falling like a hush (Untitled #2) just before morning’s first light the sky seems deeper & clearer & bluer then the dawn rises to discolor the day with doubt
