He told her during their steamy spell she should go crazy on it and so she did. Her fingers caressed his head. She danced her fingers around it as he pulled off his shirt. She kissed his neck. And damn if she didn’t take it all off, cut his hair short, really short. I mean really, really short.

I moved again. Fell down the coast to a small fishing town where I hid at the bottom of a bottle for a while. All the fresh fish I caught wore murky faces, wall-eyed and pucker-mouthed. So I slipped out of Louisiana into desperation, the current state I’m in. Leave me alone. I didn’t do no wrong.

They boarded a bus to City Hall. In the courtroom they waited in a row, nervous around well-dressed strangers. Their names called, they up and shuffled into the judge’s chambers. The room was small and tight, almost as tight as the jacket and tie he sported. The judge asked if they ‘do’ (and they ‘did’) then announced a life sentence: I pronounce you husband and wife. He let them go and off they ran; they never…

Should you ever get back to California, remember it for me for I cannot.

I only have dreams, patchwork gardens of dusty emotion over run with sun and so much growth.

We planted our feet firmly; we never died.…

Crammed in the backseat like wrinkled outfits in a tight suitcase, we messed around in each other’s clothes. Flipping through shirts and pants, all handy and rough, there was a sudden pause when touching upon some underwear. My arms around her waist, we kissed, tasted, licked, licked each other’s tongue as if licking vanilla in an icing bowl only this lick burst strawberry. I wasn’t crazy about strawberry but I was about…

He is the one I look up to. He is popular and funny and all the girls seem to drift his way. He stammers- trips on uncertain words, words like ‘would’ or ‘won’t’, ‘don’t’ or ‘try’, simple words to me that become for him long drawn out sounds as if he were learning a new language. It pains me deeply to see him struggle during these times. Nowadays when we talk, I hear caution in his delivery but no trace of a stutter at…

The letter A- an overused Canadian question mark or acknowledgment

The letters E, O, G &Y- what people say when they arrive in Flin Flon

 …

He whispered in the dark, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” What emerged was a spool of lies, unraveling one after another. “I swore three times, you mean one million; I fought with my brother twice, you wanted to murder him daily; I thought bad thoughts once, you mean like now.” Father forgave him but he wondered how God could not see? You can’t fool me. He began again.

In hand, I hold my extra deck, doubles, singles and triples, cards bent around the edges, some just plain worn out. Most are lesser players, ones I’ve already saved, held together with a thick rubber band like a wad of pure cash. They sail through the air like lazy fly balls. They are all good sports, hoping to hit the wall perfectly, to hang as close as possible for a win. Wilson readies his own deck of losers; he’s hard…

A cop can make you twitchy, his lights - an intermittent strobe - flashing disco. Your eyes cock crooked in the rearview mirror as fingers tighten snug in the glove compartment. You’ve seen this movie before: the tap on the window, the click - HANDS IN THE AIR ASSHOLE!!! You’ve done nothing wrong, well, maybe a mile or two of speed. The cop looks shaky; he’s a drinker too, you can tell; his hand trembles proudly. As…

Please use these when commenting.

AUM: Your piece has produced these sounds from deep within my bowel,

A (aaaa) U (oooo) M (mmmm) - perfection, transcendental like I heard God!

UMM: Your piece was OK but I didn’t hear God.

HUH: Your piece confuses me and God.

OMG: Your piece was really good; your piece was really…

They took us out to a stand, a line of thick trunk trees that poked an opening in the sky. Their canopy caused a shadow to fall upon us though I believe the shadow was there long before. Do you want a blindfold? A smoke? Torres laughed and spat at that, asked for a horse and a gun instead. In silence, they pulled their itchy triggers; the air whistled, that shadow became a flash of light.…

This is 1975. The 70’s were the good years for hair, Jethro Tull and all that. I recall sitting in a car with my brother whose hair may have been longer than mine. My father was talking to someone on the curb. The guy leaned, looked in the window. “Are these your daughters?” I heard him say.…

He leaves on Monday, up early to beat the coming storm approaching Pensacola. His usual room is waiting, the one with all the extras: doctor and nurse, drugs and good science to tickle his body. He drives alone, a private ceremony there and back, month after month, year by year. We don’t talk about it. Much I don’t understand; how he lives this way. I would drive him there, pick him up too, should he ask but I’ve not been…

He works the Melt Down serving classic americans and little meltdowns. Happy faces at the window spend their $8 bucks for the cheesy sandwich. That’s the trend, the trend while at the beach to keep up with the trend. Gotta have it! Gotta fit in! So discard your custom and your clothes because here you walk the resort walk along with exotic faire of goat cheese and cranberry walnut bread, swallowed by the upper crust as you…

She is unhappy again. She flashes and blinks and pings in her “Red Alert” moment. All I did was key her ignition and this is how she responds? We were getting along fine until this. She’s complicated, running old school alien valves and wires, rubber and heat, fluids dripping heavy amber, things I don’t understand, things I can’t touch without wanting to swing a raging hammer. She is a dark beauty when I touch her skin,…