Venal
This word is miserable old zucchini left to rot on the vine. This word has a face like a bowl of angry corn flakes. Its eyes are the color of split-pea soup. It watches and smiles as angels are beaten to the sidewalk. Its heart is made of concrete. This word is frequently found smoking cigarettes in snowstorms. Passion...
Read MoreUrsine
This raw-boned word was born to Brunhilde and Richard Wagner in Bear Dance, Montana, where it still lives. It has the gruesome smile of Ivan the Terrible. Its scowl makes floor tiles curl and smoke. Its voice is a slow certain rumble. It has the starlight eyes of a prophet. Passion...
Read MoreSimpatico
This word has the splendid eyes of Sojourner Truth. Its heart is a tiger lily. Its tears smell like orange blossoms. It was conceived in a Shinto temple. Its parents are Bilbo Baggins and Mary Poppins. This word is a concerto in E flat. Passion...
Read MoreElectricity’s Ghost
By 1966 I still hadn’t read a book, thought history was for dead people, math for those who didn’t count, and that there were three sexes: men, women, and nuns. And now, for Junior year, the worst of the worst: Sister Johanna would engineer English, slap down Speech, and herd us into Home Room where, one day, she’d tell my friend, Paul, that he wasn’t worth the postage it would take to send him out of the country. All summer I listened to Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna” for guidance but learned only that the “ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her...
Read MoreFather John Clermont’s Hands
His hoary hands hang like fish. Unexpressed, they fall from his wrists like lake pike caught and up strung with lidless staring eyes aft hung. Unaware with his lifeless extremities, of the shook light bursting by degrees of epidermal hemorrhage of bright and shine squinting through pores and life lines; A miasmal kaleidoscope of forgotten tales; of hands healing and soothing others’ travails; of Christ’s use of John’s hands to bless God’s folk; raised a thousand times to lighten their yoke. His hands, swollen with years and a bit stiff with age, still...
Read MoreOn the Limbic Art of Time
For Liberty This three-month wheaten cairn’s old soul whose middle name might be Cajole has sniffed out all my tick-tock past. She’s stopped the clock. Time’s far surpassed by all she does to entertain — to coach my heart and limbic brain — with capers played throughout the day at which I am her protégé. Passion...
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