Where the Wild Tractors Roam-Part One
The first sign that trouble was about to descend on the peaceful empire known as The Boreen came in Spring. It arrived in the form of a cloud obscuring the…
Room 329
The hotel room, dressed in washes of brown, looks out onto a busy road. I have pulled back the curtains, opened a window. Gray clouds heavy and sodden painted against…
27th December
Events since Christmas Eve as we move into the void before New Years. Present state of being...reclusive introspection. *Mice. Twenty live-trapped and released. No more clearing counters each night. No…
What Price Beauty
The Wedding. The women are wearing ladders on their feet. Stiff legged, they limp out of church. One clomps along lifting her feet high off the ground - "must control…
Mythology
Here comes the walking alligator handbag. Down from the veranda, across coarse sand, lounge chair wedged under her arm. Floral beach bag slung across her shoulder. Rumored to have been…
So Long Polyester
Polyester: Patented 1941. A long chain of polymers chemically composed of at least 85% by weight of an ester, a dihydric alcohol and a terephthalic acid. A man-made material. Durable…
Unspoken
I'm not much of a letter writer. I never feel I have the time to sit and write when it's quicker to pick up the phone and call someone. But,…
Selling Poetry
A small blonde girl wearing worn dirty sneakers squats against a service door in the rain and pees on crumpled papers, wrappers, a notice announcing ‘thirty percent off all dresses…
The Listening Man
The listening man sat in his usual seat on the morning train to the city. He was wearing his usual black suit and round reading glasses. He leaned forward. Intent.…
Rock. Paper. Scissors.
One summer morning over breakfast Arlene, Max’s wife of twenty-five years, announced that she was planning to have an affair. “Who plans to have an affair and tells the…