If you walked a mile in Hangman’s shoes you’d end up a mile back of where you started because brother Hang’s shoes never took one step forward without taking  two back. He rode a Trailways  from…

The regal goddess Athena stood on Mt. Olympus and saw mortal men in sandals and flimsy togas (I know toga is a Roman term, but they look the same don’t they?) down around the unfinished Parthenon,…

The iris stalks have stood sentinel for weeks now promising flowers.

Early Monday morning after the thunderstorm one lone periwinkle bloom shakes out its chiffon sleeves, singing a high…

When I hear the song Wildfire by Michael Murphy, time folds back to 1977, to a convention center in Waco, Texas where a T-bucket hotrod with flames painted on the doors revolves…

His nightly routine is more than mere habit, it is ritual, sacrosanct.…

Daddy, I remember when you got me my first rifle for my birthday the year I turned 8.  It was always my favorite, and we sure had fun those Saturdays in the woods by ourselves, didn't we?  But…

Mistress Kitten wants to know why you are late for your appointment, as she does not like to be kept waiting, but as soon as you begin to explain, she tells you to shut your mouth and take off…

I see the guitar that my cousin played in prison, is floating with the tv in the swimming pool. A topless girl is sleeping sunny side down on the picnic table, her hands tucked prayerfully under…

After closing up the school, after all the students have gone home for evening, after all the doors have been locked and the lights switched off, I usually stand alone by my car smoking, and…

I have to sleep in this bigger bed sometimes, if only to show the living interest, and it’s not as if I’m faking it, I very much sustain that primary attraction, but it…

In some respects, the way the thing took him was out of the book of horror-movie cliches: it really was a dark, stormy night on the moor, and aside from himself the moor was deserted, and in that…

I want to write sentences that scream out from the page, blow your hair back, rattle your bones, and I want these sentences to be free of words in all caps, exclamation points, and italics,…

Last night I dreamt I was playing basketball.          While wearing hiking boots.         After eating a gallon of tri-colored sherbet (orange,…

Mistress Kitten thinks it is very important to refresh and renew oneself  after periods of strenuous activity, so she takes off her black patent leather lace-up boots with the spike heels and…

She'd be seventy-four today, and I picture her face like I do some years, age it another 365 days or so, gray her hair more or change the shade of Clairol so that it's not too dark brown,…

When she was two years old her bib caught on fire, and like heat does, it traveled up to her face, burning her, burns that transformed .

After the fire went out, after the screams…

From your doctor:  I’ve never seen anything like this before.

From a former student who failed your class, now working at the doctor’s office:  Don’t worry, Mrs. K – this won’t hurt a…

September:

Poor Cleever! He's the gang's dog and he does everything we do. Wherever we go Cleever goes. We took him to Woodstock and he even got stoned and tripped on Orange Sunshine. The…

Night at the edge of the world and I'm in your eyes looking out past Japan toward the forests that clothed us when Asia rose out of the sea.

Destiny's children and, well, here we…