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Catalog of Backgrounds

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nowhere after nowhere

Cocoa Instead

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While waiting for the water to boil she formulated an excuse that the Saitos would be forced to accept as to why she must drop Isuko as a student. Suddenly the kettle sung out like a soprano, desperate to be silenced.

Emotion is a Weather in a Basket of Clouds

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If you can imagine a ghost taking a shower then you can imagine the kind of emotion I have in mind.

The Rats

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I climb up on the sofa and stand next to him. I smell something.

Novemberku

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Dark day.

What I Learned From Magazines This Week

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At least ten people have been shot by their dogs since 2004, usually in hunting accidents. (AARP Bulletin, January February 2016)If somebody phones you claiming to be with the IRS, it's a scam. The real IRS will only open communications with a taxpayer via the U.S.…

The Breakup -- I was Always Yours, You Were Never Mine

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One cold winter's day she met what she thought was the love of her life. He had everything going for him but his age. You see the sweet young thing was a lot younger than her. One might say that she had lived many lives before he had been born.

The Unbearable Thickness of Meat Loaf

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This morning I found A big black crow Working over a flattened Squirrel in the middle Of the road First day of winter Longest night Shortest day No problem The rest of the year Should be a breeze

Uncle Ned

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There was this old guy named Ned. He swept floors. No one knew much about him. He'd been around for years sweeping the concrete floors of the hangar-sized buildings that housed the major mechanical service departments at an old amusement park.

All These Poets

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All these poets with their wrinkled hands full of freshly poured over poems are driving me into the dried wheat fields like a black block of crows. Offering a collectable cigarette, they light the damned thing with another hand-rolled poem,…

Harbinger

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Smoke from the oil lamp traced the wall. It gave Nana something to read.

Shooting Smoke

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In our first conversation, she tells me love is a dragon: she has come across it’s destruction, hears of it’s size, mythology, of it’s immorality. I sip my hot cocoa (God, I pray she thinks it is coffee)...

Trajectory

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Soon the world is on film that is burning.

Vitamin D

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I caught her a-feasting with her eyes and smilin' at that Jesus- haired Waffle House cook, Dennis Roy, again and I said, “Merlene, my tiny kitty-kat, they's no reason to carry no torch for him ‘cause he may not be with us very long ‘cause, if you notice, they's no…

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 52

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In his dreamlike state the pianist turned into a preying mantis.

R.I.P. Ann Bogle

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It is with great sadness I announce the passing of Ann Bogle on February 28, 2023 after a brief illness. Ann was longtime contributor and editor of these pages and a champion of small press and emerging writers.I knew Ann since the late 1970's when she was an undergraduate…

Non-Self: Light, Dark

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You gather their faces in the palms of your hands and their purple eyes blink, blink, unseeing.

Monday

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Always in a hurry/to spoil your/weekend

The Evening News

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When I got home from work I parked my briefcase in the hall, acknowledged our dog and immediately went into the kitchen where wife, Sherry, was cooking supper. Without turning around at the sink, she said her usual, How was your day? I said, Fine, and yours? She turned…

The Secret of Healers and Monsters

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If there was a single constant in the boy’s life, it was that he had always thrown knives. In his youth he had thrown them only in his mind . . .

Mirko's Morning

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"Your loss," she cackled, stumbled to the bed in the corner, hummed a tuneless song, and began snoring, too.

Sapphics

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SapphicsSlumber comes too late to scare awakening; I know, before, there was a life to bind me. I cross the streets instead and watch the rainfall Murmur without ears. It can know no sound but seems…

Boil

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Boil (n.)––1. Pus-filled pustule inflammation of the skin, usually painful. 2. Slang boiled pus, bucket of (n. phrase)“Your asshole brain is a bucket of boiled pus.” (see also pus, SCOTTISH derogatory term for face.

cross-quarter days

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sentinels in a frost-blackened field

Cifesboren

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He nodded six times, and waged his stubby fingers repeatedly, forgetting she was simply two wags of the forefinger and a thin waif of girl came running over.

The Adversary

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When He had built the Universe, there was no greater joy in putting it together. The angels themselves were perfect constructs of concept and design, embodiment of breathing principle over particle waves. They each had their purpose; each mortar or a supp

Lord of the Poets

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I almost caught a poet today.

Leap

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I was driving by with a dampened eye

Propped Up

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Christmas Muzak was piped through to every store in the shopping mall. Giant red velvet bows adorned reproduction Victorian gaslights. Yards of glittered cotton pretended to be snow. A Santa rang a brass bell.

Henry Ground

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Henry Ground was a healthy and well adjusted English man who excelled at chess and folk dancing. One day, for no apparent reason, he decided to fill his guinea pig with helium. He carried the animal under the light of the stars into the shed at the bottom of his garden.…