Death appeared in the town of Markowa in March of 1942, and Aleksander and Julia both saw her at the same time. From a distance, she looked like a beautiful woman, a lovely Aryan maiden, but the closer she came to them the uglier and uglier she became.
“Spectacle of Spectacles”
My Spectacles watched me seek for them
lowered their head with mine.
A clear silhouette of every
Twist
Turn
Bend
“Elegy for the ‘Mule’ ”
No idea where it came from,
The pipe-threading lathe
Just presented itself
On the job when it was needed.
From the truck and tools,
We rested the Mule near the alley
“My Near-Death Experience”
As near-death experiences go,
it was one of the best.
What more is there to tell?
Final Conflict
Sand ground into my shoulder blades. Scratch scratch on aluminum. I opened my eyes to a sky white on white. I blinked. Blue clouds with yellow edges. Against the hull of the canoe, lake water rocked and licked.
“So Far”
We’re on our last legs, and the legs are last to go;
the best metaphors die young, reborn as cliches.
The Chaplain, the Tao Te Ching, and the Long Game
Arkansas Department of Correction: Grimes Unit, 2000
The inmates leaned on their shovel handles and gazed up the long, sloping fairway. The man in a clerical collar and black shirt stood on the tee box.
“Ostrich?” one inmate whispered.
“No. Lower body is too skinny. Stork?”
“I got it. Praying mantis.”
What Was It You Wanted
The days were long and yellow and the heat thick as syrup. Ron was itchy in his work clothes, plump now because Joan cooked so well. His heaviness and the strokes in his face had people he didn’t know calling him Mister or Sir. It was funny. Only a few years ago, he was slim and rigid.
Occupy
Lindsey’s family was heading to San Francisco to celebrate her father’s journalistic achievement at an honorary luncheon, but she had other plans. She kept this to herself as they piled onto BART, her sister and parents whooping when they found three empty seats in a sea of Oakland Raiders jerseys.
Tipping Points in Fiction
Ever since the publication in 2000 of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point – about tipping points in the world of business – the term has been used increasingly in a variety of settings. Sociologists speak of tipping points when a community has so many minority members that white flight begins. Climate experts speak of tipping points when climate change becomes irreversible. Physicians write of tipping points in determining when a disease becomes an epidemic. What I haven’t found yet is a full-length book on the issue of tipping points in fiction, a discussion which is sorely lacking, for tipping points are an essential element in any work of fiction.
Luca
Nobody wears flip-flops in the middle of December, but when Luca called at two in the morning, they were the only shoes I could find. I stood shivering in the street outside his house in my pajamas with a fleece thrown on top, my toes turning red.
By the End of a Rope
Erik received the news of Pappa’s death in the summer of 1979 while he was away teaching philosophy courses at a study abroad program in Paris.
“The Winters of the Sun”
Like a title that keys no theme
Except an atmosphere, I slip into my clothes.
A doorknob, a checklist, a podcast
On an unsolved murder.
“Crisp the Surface”
Shards of invention over
crisp dirt :: secreted
mouths whisper about
asexual
union and definitions :: small
The Storm
The storm swept up a week’s worth of clouds and binned them far to the east into the sea. Tanya stood in the doorway, surveying her yard. Cool mountain air entered her lungs—though she lived far from any mountain—and the sky was clear and blue.
“Takers”
Picking at the bones,
they feed from residual
ligaments left
post quiet carving
began with disinterest
proceeding to tsks tsks then
disregard
How to Write a Work of Magic Realism
As a preliminary matter, let me state that I do not believe in “rules” for writing fiction and certainly not for writing works of magic realism. The following essay will provide guidelines and nothing more. I will be describing what I have learned by writing short stories using magic realism and hopefully give you some ideas as to how to do the same.
1600 Scientists: A Jeremiad
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST DECADE OF THE 20TH CENTURY, 1600 scientists, including 100 Nobel Laureates, signed a “letter to humanity” which concluded, “We the undersigned, senior members of the world’s scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.”
The Feminine Brigades of Saint Joan of Arc
The two Cristeros were sitting at the Abajeño Cantina in central Guadalajara after having spent several months in the mountains of Jalisco waging war against the military forces of the anticlerical President Plutarco Elías Calles.
Joshua Tree Project
The images are part of a larger series created in the Mojave Desert around Joshua Tree in the fall of 2023 that explore the shifting state of the desert.
White Winter
—Come here. Closer. I know you love a good story, but the thing is…this is a long story…no, it’s not even a story…it’s a complete fugazi!
Hero of the Unsung
The Bourbon Restoration had a dark cool ambiance and friendly young servers and was a hit with local professionals. No matter that its name evoked antediluvian attitudes. After a couple of visits, Chuck Sullivan decided it was his favorite place to go after work.
A Gathering of Crows
Tom Cuthbert opened his garage door. A light snow topped the denuded branches of his crabapples and lay like a pale gauze over his yard. Winter’s depressing, steely-hued clouds clung tenaciously to the lake and its surroundings, still chafed about the warm air that had broken their hold a few weeks earlier.
“I Need Yesterdays” and “If Only to Look”
reprieve thickening
in threatening
the still winter light
encrusted as a high
gray sky in thickness
turning in another silence
as in the waiting