Two things that are considered priceless are human life and master works of art. In The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt weaves a tragic and wondrous spell of a boy who loses his mother in a domestic terrorist bombing at a museum. In the confusion, he listens to a dying old man who was with a young …
Denis Johnson’s last collection of short stories, published posthumously, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is the crown for the dead king of writing about the addicted, the downtrodden, and those people who haunt the world while yet alive. Each story reminds me of the line Jim Morrison sang in “Roadhouse Blues.” “The future’s uncertain …
Legendary Punk-Poet-Memoirist Patti Smith’s slim book Devotion centers on the question of “Why I Write,” which is the subject of the annual Windham-Campbell lectures at Yale University. Because Smith can’t explain the why without the how she writes, she takes us on a journey to France on book business and ends with her writing the …
In Sam Shepard’s posthumous novella, Spy of the First Person, we are the young observer or the observed dying old man confined to a mostly likely stolen rocking chair when at home or a wheelchair, whose reflections on his life, family, immigrants, medical treatment, and the people who have haunted the changing American West drift …
With Nationalism and Fascism on the rise and, and actually taking power in the United States under the guise of conservatism, readers have been turning to classic dystopian novels such as 1984, Animal Farm, It Can’t Happen Here, or The Handmaid’s Tale, and these books rocked the best seller list too. The novel that hasn’t …
Enjoy these poems of mine published at Rabid Oak. I am honored that editors find my work worthy to publish. It is also a good sign for literature that small independent editors have the will to read through submissions, and then select and publish them. They are publishing the small voices. The voices of poets …
Daylight Savings Time, Falling Back Jeremiah said, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” It’s not that the nights are so long, But the days so short. It’s the reason charred beef fat sprinkled With salt Still tastes good to the vegetarian, Even if it insults their soul. Fuck …
When you walk on a winter day you turn the corner, and the afternoon sun catches you against the wall. Sure, ice patches the road and slush still fills the gutters, but you feel the late season warmth fall on you like a long slug of brandy. It almost burns. It feels so good. You …
Before First Light Not even the stars shine through the window when I awake – tilted from some surreal dreamscape. I reach into the emptiness beside me, think you’re in the bathroom. I stare into the darkness until the cat jumps on me. She kneads my chest. The purr and pricks of claws, a gesture …
Hello all. Yes. I am going to make a book trailer for my forthcoming fiction collection from SFA Press. Maybe I’ll make more than one. It is a collection after all. I will journal the process and post snippets as we go along. So stay tuned. Shipwrecks and Other Stories is slated for a September …