Dec 20
Slightly Beyond Immediacy Let there be Slightly beyond my immediacy The intimacy Of a distant train Maritime horns of ships leaving port The dull skyward roar of hourly airline shuttles Let there be in my Indulgences of sanctuary The still continuing urgency for connection The highway hum of Ever turning radial wheels of Dharma, dampened …
Dec 19
Monday Nights in Middle Age My wife covers the brown rice on the stove, grabs her purse from the kitchen table and blows me a kiss on her way out the door. “Dinner is ready for you,” she calls to me over her shoulder. “I’m going to bingo.” I’m sinking into the couch like the …
Dec 18
Three Ways of Being Poor 1. The Moonshine A frosty night, windows covered in patterns that never repeated, right on Christmas Eve. I mean the Orthodox one in January. That day just meant parents at home, guests coming over, bowls of meat jelly, and drinks. Where we lived, Jesus wasn’t part of it anymore. A …
Dec 17
Pella Felton reviews Super Cherry Extra by Misti Rainwater-Lites. Rainwater-Lites, Misti (2025) Super Cherry Extra (Poetry Collection). Swooncake Press. 80p. In her delightfully bitter poem “Most Likely To Recede,” Texas poet and future camp icon Misti Rainwater-Lites expertly and correctly identifies the moral failings of MFA poets as a species. Having been herself rejected from MFA programs earlier in her career, …
Dec 16
There’s This Syndrome Going Around, But It Only Affects Imposters My wife says I’ve been leaning too heavily into the wore down working man persona, lately. Not in my written work, mind you. She doesn’t bother to read that shit. Just in how I comport myself during the natural course of my everyday life, hobbling …
Dec 15
The Last Thing tonight here I am again sitting under the ground getting drunk on sweet tea and bourbon while listening to a Van Halen record one of the earlier ones with lead singer David Lee and the music still sounds good after all of these years and I’m sitting here trying not to think …
Dec 14
Peace-Sign Sweatshirt Upstairs from a Presbyterian church, a third-floor Montessori school opened its doors to children with disabilities, poor kids, delinquents, and misfits like me. We were given complete freedom, while teachers sat in classroom corners, smoking endless cigarettes. Miss Terry puffed on Eves. Her lipstick-smeared cylinders featured rows of dainty flowers, dancing as they …
Dec 13
Just maybe I like the casino because It’s not like other places It’s not like the grocery store It’s not like the offices or mailrooms I worked It’s not like the gas stations Or the strip malls And the fast food places And just maybe it’s the bigness of the place The bright lights and …
Dec 12
The People Are Like Wolves to Me by William Taylor Jr. William Taylor Jr.’s The People Are Like Wolves to Me (Roadside Press) is a book steeped in the wreckage and radiance of contemporary life—an unvarnished, booze-stained hymn to the broken, the searching, and the almost-resigned. The collection reads like a long walk through San …
Dec 11
Advice from the Boss Upon His Retirement Bosses are not your friend. Nope. If we want your opinion, we don’t want your opinion. If we pat you on the back, examine for stab wounds in the bathroom stall. If the Boss enters the bathroom, vamoose. You might hear something you can’t unhear. Your Boss’s heart …
