A friend of mine died and went to heaven. At least I thought he went to heaven. I mean Freddie wasn’t such a bad guy and if he had any faults they were mild peculiarities. Like his girl watching. He was a champion girl watcher. Even in this a

Today is the last day of the semester. It also marks the end of my tenth year as what is referred to as an adjunct, an appendage, a necessary but unidentifiable tentacle in the College of Architecture at Andreas Tangen University in Los Angeles.

Nearly everyone knows of that celebrated poet’s story coming down to us from classical Greek mythology: the tragic tale of Orpheus and his descent into the underworld to rescue his beloved Eurydice. Well, there’s a much lesser known story of a legendary 7

"Asaka-sama, we have been beset by the foulest of demons and nothing we do will rid us of it." The prostrated villager quivered from head to foot on the tatami floor. "Please, we are unworthy but would beg for your help!"Ietsugu's heart raced at the statement, though he…

There were too many laws but not enough of the kinds she wanted. She wished for the right to go shopping. Then taste rather than disposable income or access to finance could distinguish people.

Miles away Coriander was stepping through the forest with a light but determined step. He was exhausted, but the terrors he imagined every time he pictured his beloved in the claws of a dragon were too intense to allow for sleep.

Sometimes the wind comes across the fields and you would swear that it can be known. Going along the one lane there I look out and see those vast spaces and then refocus on to closer on. Swinging the truck into a side road that goes far and far and then left, I pull into…

When I get my legs pumping, I’ll pop a spoke if I'm not careful. Massive fucking energy! And all that fat I was talking about? I don’t even really have that much of it, any of it really. My body fat is like one percent, which the doctors tell me isn’t

You’re a glimpse at immortality, a pathway to transcend the body, to the sphere just outside, where time ceases to matter and the ball of the sun grows warm in our bellies. I’ll love you more than the next lover and never as much as the lovers before y

and, once in a rare while,/ actual pearls.

In an authentic Irish pub in Las Vegas where over much crowd noise the three of us are discussing Yeats, Joyce and Lady Gregory. We’re in an Irish pub after all, plus the fact we’re literature profs attending a Vegas academic conference.

The county sent two crews, one to get Mr. Meyers, the old shut-in, tall and affable, but quiet and bent, like a crooked coat rack with a porkpie atop, the other for his dog, an english setter whom he shadowed like a familiar. I say he was the familiar and

His eyes are wide then narrow and brown. Hers are gray then they look away, toward the back door where a delivery driver has walked in, carrying a tray. Nothing is going to happen today.

You drive that '67 Ford PU down highway 73 like it's gonna take you where you want to go. Pig truck makes you want to roll up your window, but it's just too damned hot. You stop on the shoulder next to a sign that tells you not to, and you look in your glove box for a…

I first saw her about a year after I moved back, when I went to Dairy Queen. I know. Dairy Queen!? Ever since I was a kid, I have had a love for the dipped cones. When I used to visit my father on weekends, we would always stop at Dairy Queen on the way back to…