Approximately 465 Words of Sterling Wisdom
This has not been an easy piece to write, for it deals with a very odious category of people, those who are so unpleasant that, upon sight of them, many flee and hide. Are you such a person? Ah, you automatically declare “NO!” I assert, though, that you must study my words of sterling wisdom before you can be positive. Now let’s move on to today’s probing topic: How to tell when it’s time to work on your attitude and general demeanor. I proffer to you six ways you can tell: (1) Just after you run a stop sign, yell obscenities out the window, and flip someone...
Read MorePet
My wife elbows me awake. Clawing and chawing up in the ceiling has stirred us out of slumber again. In the quiet dark the critter sounds more immense than a mouse— maybe it’s a fisher cat, or a raccoon. The gnawing and clawing and chawing panics us, flat, prone, staring into the universe of darkness— frozen in fear over aware of the thin fabric of our PJs, (we whisper because we are afraid it will hear us), we imagine the animal will bust through the ceiling in a shower of sheet rock and splintered wood, land confused and angry right on top of us attacking with shredding claws and...
Read MoreFeatured Works: Week of Nov. 6 (Travel)
One of the most wonderful discoveries to me as a young reader was that, through words, I could go anywhere. Let’s take a trip with this week’s contributors. “Automne Memoires en Provence” by Larsen Bowker uses evocative images of a place to recall a friend. “Flying to New Jersey” by Michael Fraley whisks us across the country in a trip as full of anxiety as wonder. “The Church of Los Corales” by Julia Torres provides a snapshot of both a place and a community. “The Mad Girl Remembers Leaving the Old Year Behind in Madrid” by Lyn Lifshin shares the experience of...
Read MoreThe Mad Girl Remembers Leaving the Old Year Behind in Madrid
flamencos past the catacombs, gypsies past the monastery of cloistered monks. How little she supposed years past those days her hair hung past her wrists she’d ache for nights when it struck midnight and everyone who mattered to her would be a moat around her aloneness, wildly swallowing green grapes as the clock banged at each bell and cheers and sparkling white wine filled the ink blue air. Those dozen grapes gulped in the square, fast, faster to insure a good year to come. How she’d look for the smallest green grapes, giggling and swallowing for luck and love and then the...
Read MoreThe Church of Los Corales
The cold wind was unexpected. After all, it was the middle of July, and this was the Caribbean. The church of Los Corales was cemented into the side of a mango-covered mountain just west of Santiago. It was not nestled like most mountainside churches; rather, it was cemented. A new building for an old generation. White painted cement, a slate porch, and frosted white doors. Around the church, there were a few strikingly new houses owned by returning Americans, and a bodega that filled at eleven in the morning and was empty again soon after. On that day it was raining. A heavy downpour...
Read MoreFlying to New Jersey
Slap some wings on me And I’ll fly easier, thirty thousand feet Above the ground of dusty shoes. Seen from above, the San Francisco fog Has flattened out and spread across the state. Rivers, peaks and plains Form the features of its airbrushed terrain. Suddenly, green land appears, Sliding underneath a broken coast of fog. I hold my breath and say a prayer. Superstition is reflexive; earnest pleadings Bring a sense of calm as I commend my soul. The pitch of apprehension fades When I notice that the air is stale, the quarters Cramped. Next time, I’ll take the...
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