When they first met at the bar, right away he was sweet on her. He drove an old oil-burning Buick or Olds, going down the road like a smudge pot. He never kept food in his car, where it would get hot and spoiled. He only picked nice fresh

I cannot find my way back to the bubbling navel of the universe because of Spongebob Squarepants.

Bands: Free Blankie My First Dustbuster Sledge Hammer Glove Compartment Hot Weather Lady Cattle Prod and the Punks The Cowpokes Poker Two Fingers In Occupy This Tidy Up Goal Keeper and The Kneecaps Leslie Sweet And The Kitchen

#2 The Typewriter Inside You by Harmon Gentle—I found this one at a garage sale when I was 15. Intended as a manual for sharpening one's typing skills, by the third chapter it became obvious that Mr. Gentle's sanity had slipped, and that rather than mastering the…

was beaten in the back of the brig.

December scent rains coming down sodden leaves underfoot

The last of the Kazan Tatar Khans. Each dome represents a severed head.

When I bumped my head I almost fell to the ground Not so much stars As flashes of lights That looked like sparklers My mother chasing the dog She never catches it The cat sits on a nearby chair It's head moving as the dog does …

And him, now there’s a him. I’d like if he were perfect, but perfect things never are. My daughter says it best, when she contrasts the two of you, “Daddy worked to forget about his problems. When he works, it makes him feel like there is a problem.”

This is what my summer has come to: me, out of a job, aimlessly driving around the city looking for places to write, places to read, places to occupy my time.

There’s no sky like that, with twisting clouds shot up into by cypress trees that are so like dark green flames, leaping out of the earth as if a dark green oily pool were on fire underground, and this was all that could escape, was its essence. And a

It amazes me that with everything this woman has to be depressed about, what really gets her down is an inadequate lounge chair.

It was cloudy, the way he liked it -- no baking in the sun. People passed occasionally. He sniffed at the joggers, “Health Nuts,” he dubbed them. He hadn’t exercised since his last high school gym class.

The young monk rose early to jog, his appetites trailing like cats in heat.

“I don’t want to scare you,” the stewardess says, “but there are ten police officers waiting for you outside the plane.” I reach into the diaper bag and grab an Elmo raspberry/pear cereal bar, rip it open, take a bite, sip some apple juice fr