2144 13 13
|
Talking about a Friend Over a Cup or Two of Coffee “Their first fight was over school lunches. Free school lunches. She taught Kindergarten in a public special ed center for emotionally disturbed children. The…
|
214401
|
“I heard your dad took out the Dairy Queen drive-thru,” said Pat.
|
21441313
|
He stays a couple of yards behind me as we slog uphill. I try to diffuse the tension with a coy toss of head, slip on wet leaves. My ankle rolls and I splat noisily down. From my new angle his beard looks less stylish—bristles straggle all up his neck. He maintains…
|
214486
|
His middle name was Perceval. He judged the first Miss America contest in 1922. He saw himself primarily as a storyteller in the Dickensian mode.He claimed to be an illustrator rather than an artist. He disliked driving but loved to walk, and preferred…
|
214482
|
Later that night, he lay his shivering children in his own bed, the bed that betrayed and abandoned him just a few years ago. It will protect them now.
|
214300
|
[continued from part one...]After sweeps, my schoolwork started to slip. I had trouble paying attention in class, and my workbooks and tests came back from the teacher marked in ketchup red ink. I had always been a good student, and this academic…
|
214300
|
Oryn woke up in her desk. Sweat trickled from her forehead. Staring at her notepad, with her latest calculation, she forgot to go home. Her thoughts of Alysia calmed for now, but still lingered from her dreams.
|
214363
|
Doc and I talked for several hours. When I told him Mona was pregnant, he turned his head and looked at me. “Who's the father?” he asked. Don't know, I said. Mona didn't know, either.
|
2143128
|
Two-way conversation with God.
|
214265
|
We didn't wear shoes in the summer, except for Sunday school and church. The soles of our feet were black and tough as shoe leather.
|
214221
|
“Cheng Ho didn’t go just Cape Horn; treasure ships visit Australia and America. His very advanced compass. Not just point north-south. Show east-west too.”
|
21421611
|
He runs a mail-order business from a storefront and distributes a catalog of disappeared things.
|
214234
|
Out the window is an empty birdbath, dry flaky concrete ring, no birds.
|
21421616
|
There's a mirror in front of me and I thought it was so I could see myself, but I didn't want to see me.
|
214274
|
When they called him down there to the morgue to identify the body, he drove behind the wheel of his truck like some steady maniac on a long haul. The Ford 150 cried out for new shocks, but that hardly mattered. Mud plastered side panels and…
|
21422115
|
“Last night the Scots invaded Sweden,” I wrote, “to retrieve the silver filched from the Irish the Norwegians had in their coffers when Sweden conquered. The Swedes offered the Nobel to a Scots writer to keep ... the peace."
|
2141105
|
I scare my daughter when she sleeps because she thinks I'm going to kill her.
|
2141104
|
"I sighed heavily. 'Goddamn it...' I spat under my breath. 'Every motherfucking time..."
|
2141157
|
the boredom inherent in living in the suburbs
|
214161
|
I can feel the souls
of those who perished
here
They’re still here
like old kites
hanging in the sky
tattered, but they
won’t come down
or can’t come down
just yet
because they haven’t
fulfilled their
unborn promises
t
|
21411510
|
chet baker shades my eyes
rippling through the cool water
sometimes we feed the fish
|
21411314
|
I don't know if we'll meet again in the sea of light. Circumstances aren't only up to human beings. After all maybe it's all drunk circumstance, but that doesn't answer the blinding question, it only poses some more. This is…
|
214031
|
I have never met Joe’s brother, of course.
|
21402912
|
Night fell and the photographer slept, one hand between Prue's legs.
|
214098
|
Birds FlySeven Poemsby Darryl Pricefor Charlotte and Mel, as always"We should insist on joy in spite of everything."--Tom Robbins“I don't need your love. I don't need you to understand. I just need you to listen.”—Perfume Genius1. I Want to Sing to…
|
214062
|
It’ll die in there and the stairwell’ll stink for weeks, Greg says in the car. We’re quiet, considering that.
|
214085
|
I ask for your patience with this form message, as it is part of a system that ensures
every submissive ex lover is considered separately, since I am involved in a lot of anonymous sex.
|
214032
|
'Yer a cool, cool glass of water baby....'
|
2139122
|
...a blunt thrust of a face, uncongenial in profile, and the ubiquitous green cap that says John Deere, with the yellow ideogram of a deer for graduates of our local schools.
|
213988
|
You just watch, the schoolteachers’ll be next and then you’ll see shit go down. Imagine what happens when a fifth-grader sees his teacher getting frog-marched through a crowd on YouTube.
|
