Poetry
Wasted Blues Villanelle
All that you see is a matter of taste The First World trolls with a fist full of ones Maybe the mind’s not a bad thing to waste In fact, it’d be better to spit out the bait Run away … Continue reading
Bizzy Blues Villanelle
I chase my life but my life gets away My mental hinge is sitting pretty loose Heavy Monday runs down the day I warn my beard, but it still turns gray Kiss the Coppertop tryin to steal some juice I … Continue reading
The Flautist
Her shoulders round over the line of light while she betters the wren’s dangerous song, fingers ticking to channel air. The flute gleams, trills, organizes flight, the crowd struck as she doubles over birdcall. The scene is small, the making … Continue reading
New Year, White County, Arkansas
Air vent streamers wag like tongues from the wall of the Ozark cave. Cold stiffens the stream splitting the floor, and the cracking ice pops. Beneath the glaze, blind fish swim, pale sloops defying the current’s mute push. Outside, … Continue reading
A Roadside in Kansas
In every direction, the American Dream with center-pivot irrigation. But not on this land-boom Wichita & Western’s remnant right of way. The rails went for ordnance after Pearl Harbor, the ties for firewood. Loam of glacial till, minerals locked … Continue reading
Collectibles
Goofy was piloting a paddle-wheeler in your favorite cartoon when I awoke. Your arm at the same time as his pulled the steam whistle, a jaw hinged open to fill our living room with its cry at every landing. … Continue reading
Conversation with Two-Time Mid-American Conference Relief Pitcher Douglas Dean Stackhouse on Winning, Losing and Learning to Fiddle
A Complaint by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH There is a change—and I am poor; Your love hath been, nor long ago, A fountain at my fond heart’s door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; … Continue reading
Social History
My hands were on the wheel but no one would have called it driving that morning Rube Lacey took me for a ride on his tractor. “The boy won’t forget this,” I heard my father say as he boosted me … Continue reading
Lost Highway
you’ll curse the day… —Hank Williams Years after the fact, he would say it was just the right time to make a move when he was invited to come into the bank, but he could see his path blocked by … Continue reading
Who and How
Emily was a body when she wrote “I’m nobody.” Now she is no body everybody knows * The way the flower takes the bee and the bee the flower * Her life was simple at the beginning. She died … Continue reading