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  • The Palace

    After the wedding, I rode to the reception in a shiny black car. I sat in the back seat between two other bridesmaids. I was sixteen and lightheaded with excitement. I had come up to Chicago on the train to be in my aunt's wedding. I wore a long satin dress, with an overskirt of…

  • Cadillacs and Poetry

    New snow onto old ice last night. Now, errand-bound to town, preoccupied with the mudge in his head, he applied his brakes too fast. And found himself in a big car out of control, moving broadside down the road in the immense stillness of the winter morning. Headed inexorably for the intersection. The things that…

  • From Six Nights on the Acropolis

    Saturday, late at night. I've returned from the outside. I know tomorrow's waking and the daily uphill climb. The streets were quiet; the mind light; the soul with all her windows open. Life's despair, sentiments condemned to end, man's wretchedness, the inevitable death – were circulating through the openings and didn't bother me. I am…

  • This Morning

    This morning was something. A little snow lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green, as far as the eye could see. Scarcely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went for a walk. Determined not to return until I took in what Nature had to…

  • Last Night On The Town

    This is a chapter of a novel: TESTIMONIAL. Earl Loden, 52, gets cancer and he proceeds in a black humour type of way to try to redeem a messed up life. This particular section deals with his first night home from the university hospital after undergoing three weeks of chemotherapy. Lynda is his wife. Hal…

  • The Ballad of the Bullets

    Late summer breathed from earth and stones,      Tall lupins probed the air, The Milky Way was combed-out light,      The sheen off midnight's hair. I watched a long time in the yard      The usual stars, the still And seemly planets, lantern-bright      Above our darkened hill. And then a star that moved, I thought,      And then it…