From the high school football player to the rodeo cowboy to the steam shovel operator they boast of their deeds, and break their horses and buy expensive power tools and stomp the mud from their manly boots onto her clean floor.

They slam wedges into blocks of wood and build roaring fires in the hearth scattering ash thoroughly into the air until the whole house is coated gray, but they turn pale when the baby faintly smells or the garden needs digging or it is her mother's…

A new layer of snow must have fallen in the night, covering up the tracks we made yesterday, but still the ancients flew in on the dreams, from around the world, wearing their different feathers and fronds, to sit around the fire with me and ask their puzzled questions.

"Why are your people so scared of death that they give bottles of blood and take little pills and allow the wise men to put them to sleep and invade their bellies and shoot them with poison instead of allowing them to…

From his position at the end of the small cue up the steps, Aloysius O’Leahy gazes down on one of his daughter’s more curious confections.  The cap she’s knit Jimmy from her scraps of wool does nothing to camouflage the boy’s flagrant red…

The dark-haired boy who approached me was about seven, crying because he'd wet his pants at school; I was a stranger but the only one who could help him, the only one he wanted help from.  He couldn't speak well, was overly distraught and I knew he couldn't clean himself alone, so I bathed him as other teachers around me stared, and sensing his embarrassment I told him it was okay, that I'm a mother and would protect him, and the tension in his body melted…

He's a deist, but prays anyway just in case the gods listen, and as he sits in his broken chair he peers outside the cracked window and falls into an uneasy slumber. Regretting life's achievements he ponders his past... reared in a poor family on the streets of Hell's Kitchen, soldier in WWII, retired textile mill workman, and family man. Tears roll and he broods... What…

Loki got word at seven that night from that little Ice Princess he used to see, and he said, "Well I'll be goddamned," and went to tell Thor the good news.

"I told you those fuckin' Ice Bandits were Tricky McGirks," Loki said, and proceeded to tell Thor what really took place, with old Bill the Cat, and then all those oceans, and then especially, that nasty-ass bitch who looked like she'd been in the graveyard for 9,000 years plus forever, and six days of…

I got no proof but I have my certainty. One day I'll walk out of here. I taped my four windows with duct tape, all waterproof and air tight so the dark can't leak in, can't sneak in like a thief, and rob my peace.



I live in the short end of the L-shape, third floor, on the top story of this hundred-unit apartment building and it’s the oldest part of this rickety joint, but there's an up side to everything because it means…

As I entertain my lustful thoughts, I am closer to creating a reality, and one that will surely hurt my tailbone for landing on my ass. I seek warmth not only in my dreams now, but in my wakeful life, in the arms of a man not my husband. Pretty soon, imaginary brushes against my face, or a gentle touch on my shoulder will not be enough, and my husband will lose me. I sang "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" to the bear man while he carved away and worked, he smiled a smile I needed to see. The…

My Inipi sister was called by the spirits to give a flesh offering.

She did this with grace  in preparation for a sacred ceremony.

Only three of us entered the tipi, the pipe carrier, her, and me.

I sang prayer songs quietly and held her hand while he carved.

He carved seven small half moon crevices from her upper arm.

The smell of sage, sweetgrass, and burnt flesh filled my head.

Dragon ships rail the edge of the world. I have seen them on my knees in the cold sand as the tide rushed in, the tips of Atlantis rising up red and gold behind concave sails. I was not fit to sail with them, as I am unfit to carry water to the Blacksmith.  Odin's crows refuse me for carrion, and no hero would foul his blade with my misfortune.

But one day the Blacksmith will cease his tempering, put down his hammer and sleep. Then I shall fold me into mighty dreams, and he will see…

I noticed in awe, the beauty of dusk's sky...mostly a light blue with pink hues of the setting sun.

Within the scheme I see darker, shapely puffs of clouds, not menacing, but deeper blue as if paint-by-number in perfect color tones.

And streaming into somewhere beyond, white, thin lines of a jet moving away at great speed.

Through barren tree…

It's like a small city's version of the Port Authority, the confluence of streams of buses and trains from and to somewhere else, but it's back in a time when you could stretch out and sleep on a bench, or in one of those chairs with the coin operated television built in, without being molested - well, without being molested by the police anyway. You're down here with the other runaways, in the same vicinity that is, but not together -all alone. You pretend not to recognize each other and…

Upon the advent of his fortieth birthday, Finley McCormack decided to unwrap his carefully constructed life with the same careless indifference he had approached the wrappings of the few meaningless gifts proffered by colleagues and often absent relations.

A trip to the ‘Old Country’…

The Glittering ball dropped as  millions cheered  the incoming new year.

A nondescript pair of men,the elder one with an eye patch as his only noteworthy feature and his thin weasely shifty eyed companion shared a nip as they witnessed the celebration together silently both holding their breath for just a second as the ball disappeared and the screams of "Happy new year!!!" filled the air.

'You know the warriors would be pissed if they knew you had tricked Thor and the kings of…

I thought that if there was a parable of Jesus making water in the desert or making some fresh for fishermen adrift at sea that we could have  other order of sacrament.

And then i found this: Holy water fonts have been identified as a potential source of bacterial and viral infection. Bacteriologists found staphylococci, streptococci, coli bacilli, Loeffler's bacillus, and other bacteria in samples of holy...…