And you lean forward and all of that caffeine anxiety rises up in your throat, the pressure in your jaw, a series of weights and pulleys on your teeth and at the back of your mouth. So when you open your mouth to talk, no sound is made, only the sound of

There's this sepia-toned photograph, which my mother gave me, of my brother and me when we were still both youngsters. In the picture my brother's dressed in a skimpy checked suit whose sleeves were already too short for him — on its way to becoming my

This is not her death. This is absent-minded omniscience. This is impossible. And then again, the inside-out, implosion. And the hall was clogged with bodies; none of them hers, but who could be sure?

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. What on Earth does that mean? What the hell? Earth, hell, heaven, they were good concepts. He took a rib out of Adam and began to write with it.

She tells me I have to face the fact that I have the heart of the Tin Man. I know the story. He had none. She is very sensitive and I have to measure my remarks because words bruise her so easily. So, I…

A cult is one thing; it defies common sense that a commonly educated person cannot escape cultist thinking and belonging. That cult, A.A., is girded by police, fire, therapy, hospitals, insurance companies, and courts.

Push the envelope

published in The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review.

They rise up, a sullen, sorrowful/ army of reproach, staring,// stone-faced but eyed with fire.

Scavenge at that address only if you feel possessed of great courage, a profound faith in resurrection or reincarnation, or an impatient desire for a premature date with certain death.

There is an empty space, between every note in rock 'n' roll, where they have buried John Bonham,

Coward, cuckold, she taunts: So be it. He's not a young man anymore, nor as clever as he once was, or thought.

Both his parents saved their pent up Puritan pasts to fill his ears with brimstone clichés. "Idle time is the devil's playground", he would tell me, scrunching up his face, stuffing it full of meat lovers pizza.

The border crossing at El Paso will soon be arriving. I'm apprehensive about Mexico, all the violence.

I took Annie to the zoo, and the tigers got out. The little tigers, that is. Cubs. Two of them. The zoo employees scurried about, peeking into nooks and crannies.