Visit Author's Website
Judge, not Judge-?
Ladies and gentleman. a prosecutor shuddered, Fingering his rep tie and silk-wool vest,. The girl murdered her mother. Her mother! The least you can do is put her to death. Evidence shows a single shot to the head Killed the victim instantly. Pow!! The accused and her sibling may not have been fed, But that [...]
Ollie Ollie Home Free
Second childhood? First ’round here some’ere! Stay IN, I say. Wait ’til I signal things are cool. What does she do? She goes and runs, leaving me with this stick-in-the-mud grown-up who is forever checking the world’s most beat-up watch or bending to a rule she needs to break. Miss you, you rat. Feel like [...]
Battlefield, Night
The boy who hopes to paint a masterpiece {still a boy, make no mistake} calms by letting himself be awed by phosphorescent flashes gorgeous as a blood-red sun, saving a particular orange and that peculiar green edging a 4th-of-July stunner for his repertoire, already daubing them in his mind between Mars black and that color [...]
Carve our Initials Next
Drunk on playing hooky and Wild Turkey, slip to the creek to make love, oblivious to the danger presented by sharp rocks and woken snakes. Any minute now, a camper’s going to stagger from a nearby tent, waving a flashlight with one hand, grabbing his fly with the other. Spy us and forget to pee. [...]
L o n e s o m e
L o n e s o m e is the click of the lock on a door as it closes in your face then the chain slides home is the sliver of light silence swallows laughter leaving you out all night whispers is dark torturing dusk before moving in for the kill raising gooseflesh as [...]
Your lap, Your Chinese Checkers
The little eggshell bungalow sporting the racket-making swing, pink and blue hydrangeas big as conch shells and a woman who knew a child needed – to be held — to be fed – - to be sat in a corner – - to be let out to dream in the shade of a sweet-smelling magnolia [...]
De-iced, now What?
It was as if she were a comet, then he, then she, on and on, orbiting faster and faster, first gathering ice, then burning it away by veering close to the sun. First he, then she, then up for grabs. Neither chose to be a comet. Certainly not a pair. What, and be content to [...]
Book Review: A Brother's Journey
A Brother’s Journey, Richard B. Pelzer, Warner Books, NY: Time Warner, 2005 It is not often that I am at a loss for words. Yet weeks after finishing A Brother’s Journey, I am struggling to find a way to describe the horror and sorrow the story evokes. Ordinary terms feel wrong. Children were tortured. Many [...]
Dancing Still
One moment you were on your sagging porch cavorting to the sturm und drang of an August strangler. Cymbals clanged and thunder clapped, telling us it would be your final performance. Telling you? Rain! you sang with all the voice you had left. Rain!! God, but I love a good storm. Lightning pale and lightning [...]
