Distressed trees dot the neighborhood, drop whole branches, not leaves. Those will come—golden, burgundy and pumpkin. Lawn crews will blow them to the curb and city trucks will vacuum huge and expansive piles. All so loud. I...
Read Morea golden shovel after Amy Berkowitz Twenty years in California. The tally of true friends, lines from heart to heart to heart. Then, bigger wants drew us back east—daughters in NYC, a sister and brothers in Ohio, home. Snowstorm...
Read Morea golden shovel after Basho In the animal kingdom of tigers and eagles, within that menagerie, is the singular octopus, a creature some say was planted here, potted on Earth by aliens. Does it study our world, trap and examine...
Read Morea golden shovel after Kobayashi Issa One after another, each massive tree seems to explode from within, each trunk to get torqued by a giant hand, to be destroyed, splintered. Hundred-year-old oaks and elms felled by...
Read MoreDon’t follow the tod. That’s what his Nannan had always told him. She had made him promise but, of course, the young never listen and he had moved to the city and was invincible. And he had thought there would be more of a...
Read MoreCarl and Melissa had been on the road for more than an hour and still hadn’t gotten out of Los Angeles County. Their phones were telling them they still had another two hours to cover the forty-five miles left to get to Ventura,...
Read MoreTwenty digits pass the time of sunken earthen dirty lies A heart torn with bitten nails holding onto the ripping frail Twisting to ribbons of red and blue furling under sordid hue A tale of pure madness seen where nothing exists...
Read MoreThey hadn’t seen each other since that summer twenty-eight years ago. Marian was now music director and youth group leader in her church. Ann, a public defender, had never visited the out of the way southwestern town...
Read MoreSnowflakes falling aimlessly through the air Not caring nor even aware Of morning’s promised horizon of light. I walk the street with downcast eyes. Like the trillions of humans before my time, I question every facet of...
Read MoreI do not Use my fellow beings as pathways On which I walk for my own intent. My ego is not my God And vanity not my true love. I pay close attention to every word, every gesture While you impatiently wait for my voice to fall...
Read MoreThe snow had been coming down for hours with no sign of letting up. Outside Rose’s bedroom window, roofs looked sugar-coated. Coconut-colored mounds in car shapes dotted the street. Trees were dusted. All these sights recalled...
Read MoreI. Heard But Not Seen The children noisily assert their existence around the corner of the school building down the street. Raucous laughter and screams erupt through the otherwise subdued suburban neighborhood. Everything is a...
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