Our Other Sister – Jeffrey Harrison The cruelest thing I did to my younger sister wasn’t shooting a homemade blowdart into her knee, where it dangled for a breathless second before dropping off, but telling her we had another, older sister who’d gone away. What my motives were I can’t recall: a whim, or … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Jeffrey Harrison
Smaller Dog – Stephen Cushman We can’t all be brightest in the sky or the biggest guy in outer space. But I don’t envy anybody’s place or need to feel I have no worth because I’m far from Orion’s heel. My yellow-white double star delivers its light to nearby Earth in eleven years flat, which … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Howard Cushman
First touch, seventeen years ago. A hotel room in Hangzhou. 102 degree heat and a tiny baby in a striped split-pants outfit who has just been handed to you. Diaper rash. You take off her striped outfit and diaper and pull up your t-shirt and lay her down, stomach to stomach. She sticks two fingers … Continue reading Skin remembers how
Flossie at School – Alden Nowlan Five laths in a cotton dress was christened Flossie and learned how to cry, her eyes like wet daisies behind thick glasses. She was six grades ahead of me and wore bangs; the big boys called her “The Martian,” they snowballed her home, splashed her with their bicycles, … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Alden Nowlan
All day today I kept returning to the photo of an old friend, lying in a bed pushed against a bank of windows in her house. Her husband sat in a chair and leaned over the side of the bed, her son held one of her i.v.-tubed hands and her daughter the other. She was … Continue reading From the archives, in honor of Lissa
In the Middle – Barbara Crooker of a life that’s as complicated as everyone else’s, struggling for balance, juggling time. The mantle clock that was my grandfather’s has stopped at 9:20; we haven’t had time to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still, the chimes don’t ring. One day you look out the window, … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Barbara Crooker
Jenny Kissed Me – Leigh Hunt Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in; Say I’m weary, say I’m sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I’m growing old, but add, Jenny kissed … Continue reading Poem of the Week, by Leigh Hunt
On James Baldwin and Diverse Literature
Putting those recalcitrant toddler cancer cells to bed...
your own PDK for writing
a collection of beautiful words.....
Objects, Memory and Meaning
If it can't be said in a hundred words, then it can't be said in a thousand.
sewing a handmade wardrobe
"drink from the well of your self and begin again" ~charles bukowski
The Good Things Black People Do, Give and Receive All Over The World
Musings on poetry, language, perception, numbers, food, and anything else that slips through the cracks.
Thoughts on the world around me
the literary asylum
Bipolar is my superpower
