Every year I have a birthday, and every year another of my friends succumbs to cancer or suicide. That's a shitty gift. That is devoutly not to be wished.

The thrum and the thrust// have beaten conviviality out of me.

At the annual Earth Day celebration, Frieda looked up in the sky and saw a lone goose. It had caught her attention with its call, echoing off the buildings and trees.

You're sitting in a darkened theatre with Gothic ceilings and one exit watching the latest Alan Ladd film with William Bendix and Veronica Lake.

“I can't go to sleep,” Jonathan said, laying on the doctor's couch. He counted on his fingers to keep his mind active. “I'll certainly die if I do.”

let it lie

"I want more grandchildren to spoil," the woman said. Will took a swig of beer at such moments. Maxine only answered with “someday” and looked over toward her husband. She knew it was his fault, didn’t really know why, but blamed him anyway.

Goodbye comes in stages. At first you recognize that you will “miss” someone when they are gone. Then you have to accept the fact that they are leaving. And finally accept the fact that they are gone; and not particularly in that order. If only it

A Satire We are the Social Justice soldiers, we parrot platitudes and lies, And expect you all to worship the same things we idolise. We ignore Islamic extremism and domestic terrorism too, Because we are Cultural Relativists whose brains are up our…

poked in the eye

For Derek, Remembering Odd Jaunts in Overtoun I here remembered how we smoked and swam Under the cadenced pleasure of our under-days, Congealing cross-thoughts under oaken breeze, And watched the Turnered ocean of that swarm Last…

the strength in you i envy/ leaves me naked, sweating in the dust/ while you possess what ethic i pretend to have/ in the face of those who expect from me/ so much more.

Late in the morning, standing in line, clutching a bag of Meow Mix, I listen to the woman waiting behind me. She's having a cell phone conversation about the Treasures of Ancient Egypt exhibit. It‘s in New Orleans, she says, and the kids liked the mummy. I slide…

I find that I am keeping silent more often. I don't like repeating myself.

“Tell me how sad they are.”