Author: admin

ABOVE A SPIRE BY RICHARD ERIC JOHNSON clouds color shadow shades grays make black thunder heads white lightning sounds quake destiny departs left over moon bloom to blue clear skies vision in...

fresco baby Jesus high in the dome grown man features a mocking smile looking down his blue gowned marble mother meditates in sanctuary her head cocked sideways lidless eyes staring past high altar towards some unknown where...

They said she had cancer. People did. That’s all. They whispered it like a scandal. I was just divorced. My emptiness had pockets. We were both in The Optimist Club. She called me up one Sunday. Would I pick up her paper for her...

It is such a cruel, casual world, the nuns told me. It will betray you as it betrayed Him. It is to be feared and forgiven, this life on fire with sin. Yet as I leave the Sunday School I release my hands from my handlebars...

There is much to praise in a heaven for pigeons and poets who like to wander and wonder in circles, and Dome’s Peanuts has its own ars poetica, seeks no explanations, simply assumes its steamed window purity, knows to abide the...

By the shores of the Nile, languorous on her pillowed chaise, Cleopatra stained her lips crimson with crushed carmine beetles, while Mesopotamian girls strolled along the banks of the Euphrates, their smiles drenched in powdered...

He purloins words, plants them in clay pots, hoards them in mason jars, hides them in drawers, stows them between socks and undershirts. Sometimes he pets them, runs his fingers along their intricate contours, coaxes puzzle...

Gravity seems to pull less, and feet drift above asphalt. The street flows far beneath my invisible sneakers. I have no hulking form, no limitations in this murky evening air. Cracks in the sidewalk try to slow my pace....

Drive down small-town streets with pastel green lawns and white-painted porches— with treelined sidewalks and no one you know. Get out of your car. Tiptoe to a window at dinner time. Observe the family, good or bad, maybe a...

Its emptiness lies in the forest. The canopy has yet to echo conversations with dear friends, this lack of color not a muted memory of understory greens dancing by a campfire. The smell of decay fails to call up laughter as we...

A man pushes a cart. Papaya beckons me. I don’t know Which is louder— The color orange Or his nasal call? Đu đủ! Đu đủ! Waiting for my guide, Sticky sunrays Gather strength. My shade umbrella, Its ellipses of primary colors,...

Sphecius speciosus, you’re shocking, sickish! How you paralyze cicadas with venom, drag your victims down ground tunnels, lay eggs under trembling wings so your babies can grow up munching on slow death! From above, your nest...