There was a rocket set loose in a tangled yard. Neither stone nor weed nor any living thing could deter this beast of bone and fur from its newly appointed rounds. Circle after circle, stone after stone, weed after every darn weed. Eventually escape velocity is reached and Zelma banks hard around the final fence…

for The Boat by Aaron Fowler and Peter Mader We all enter this life alone, in a boat of our own. We all wonder – just how big is this ocean? Where will it take me? What will I need along the way? And, most importantly, who will join me? We spend a lifetime answering…

First, the original herb, locked in chocolate – soft, mysterious and aimed at the heart. It can be followed only by the arabic elixir, god-like in its dreaming and chilled by lightning bolts. Then, as the night deepens, there will be the angry root of ginger – brewed sweet and steeped in limón and roses,…

I saw an image of myself the other day, a portly older gent sitting alone at the front table, nodding to Monk, content with some French roast and a baguette, some rumor about an outside world filters in. I don’t think that’s me. Neither am I the guy impressing (or not) the wanna-be fashion model…

Loft is a factor of air density and wing shape velocity is a product of forward thrust and the sheer joy of flight, altitude  is determined by the shape of the ground below. Persistence is essential in the history of flight, just old bicycle parts and bias-stretched fabric over light ash. We can hold hands…

The Earth swings away from winter tonight drops those tiny kisses on our foreheads  and loosens up the rust from our frozen toes It’s just a lumbering beast that we’re stuck on the back of, we can’t abide the passing of seasons without his true and harmonious self We just play the same record each…

Tonight I built a fire to honor the Flower Moon. She is waiting for me, standing full and luscious in a cloudless, windless sky. The air is neither cool nor warm but is fragrant of both ice and fire. If I position my chair just right, I can see bits of her through the hackberry…

A woman’s sixth and last child is born on Mother’s Day. The child carries water borne on the shoulders of the others, in pouches of cloth and leather, filtered through lives and days of the common, the unusual and the fantastic. The child dreams in metaphors, touches colors, speaks in lost tongues, waits in long…

Bearing the first name my mother gave herself at approximately the age I am now, and the middle name of her maternal grandmother, great grandmother and two of her aunts, not-so-Little Liza Rose James entered this astral plane at 3:17 pm on Monday, April 12th, weighing in at nine pounds four ounces and 21.5 inches…

You know that lingering smile, before the payphone clicks through, when the moonlight falls like loose change on the bitter blue tiles and the person next to you begins to move like someone you almost remember. Back when dreams made sense. Back when colors ran across the night sky but made no sense at all Plate glass reflects the quick lights…