Author: admin

It seems only appropriate in these days of bedlam and gun-toting that men should be wearing masks. It is as if a holdup is underway, and the countryside is being held at bay. Like a dog alerting on a cache of doves, like a...

I followed a narrow path into the woods. After a twenty minute walk the path opened up to a meadow of tall, yellow grass then a field of marijuana. I looked to the left and to the right. I saw no one. I walked along the edge...

I’ve lived This life Took wife Knew strife Stood tall Leaves fall Paid rent Back bent Lost son Work done Can’t walk Don’t talk It’s time I’m done Richard Epstein resides in the Washington DC area and hosts open mic readings for...

When my grandmother passed away, I acquired a piece of her jewelry as a memento. Nothing had been required, she was unforgettable. Never the type for fancy things, A few familiar dresses, lipstick only, she held your wrist as...

1 Nine letters Dad had written in 1944, addressed to his grandparents, I discovered them tucked away, in an envelope, boxed with old family photographs. A 23-year-old soldier in basic training. Sentences, phrases, thoughts,...

Lilting laughter in the center hall, I looked over the railing, framed by a sea of white spindles, my toddler brother and sister twirled like tops, their arms and eyes wide open, heads back, giggling, probing possibilities of...

In 2003, your dear friend presented you with an African violet to celebrate your promotion, decorating a new office. Her mother had cuttings of an older violet, ready to be divided. You were smitten by this potted plant,...

You fly jets in one war, I teach school to stay out of another. I oar past the Odyssey. You blow past Top Gun. Yet my dog— hyper, smaller, younger— dances in harmony with your bigger, older, laid-back rescue. Never missing, over...

Northern New Mexico On red moon’s night, I pull you from a poem. Bobcat that you are, tawny hunter, hard as I try to write you in, coyote, rattler and you fight the scene. Next day, uninvited, you appear at noon for real. I...

—to the memory of Virginia Woolf, Randall Jarrell, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, Albert Camus, Vincent van Gogh, and Anne Sexton Surfacing, the poets shoulder proven tools—Virginia, her damp green bed, its springs lifeless as...

The lines that held them disintegrate like the veins of a doomed tree. He has grown a new skin—his life house is dense, its breath summer fog among brambles. He used to be deep in her, bones protruding from her fingers, her soul...

Night everlasting—ageless ravens hunched on winter branches. Snow skidding blind windows. I am alone, the poem flown to the crown of the tallest tree. No, I am with my poem; we are cryptic as a raven’s body, and we’re punctuated...