Article

1930

Because the shadows are sepia all the little precisions seem soft, a quaking of leaves that extend their tenuous web We imagine it gold because it is August there is Marjorie       there is Ian eyes averted, modestly, so great is their pleasure in each other And you see his bare arm, exactly as graceful…

Letters from Ireland

October 28, 1980 Dear Gail, Caroline and Pete, I am finally in residence at No. 8 Brighton Vale, having been in the meantime in Scotland, namely Glasgow and the Lochs, Belfast, and Dun Laoghaire for an uneasy five weeks while waiting to get finally into this beautiful pink house, pink like the powder on an…

John Williams: Plain Writer

" plain (plan) adj. 1. clear or distinct to the eye or ear: persons in plain sight. 2. clear to the mind; evident, manifest, or obvious: to make one's meaning plain. 3. conveying the meaning clearly or simply; easily understood: plain talk. 4. downright; sheer: plain folly. 5. free from ambiguity or evasion; candid, outspoken….

Appleseed

For John Chapman (1775-1845) It is not the man of action that we in the fragmented world envy, for often we know too well why we ourselves do not act. It is the man of mission, the one who embodies his purposes naturally in all his acts, whose days interweave, he is the one we…

from The Sleep of Reason

     (from a novel in progress) The sleep of reason brings forth monsters. Francisco Goya He lay prone on the rutted stone path, his bare torso raised and supported by his right forearm, while his left arm and open hand reached vainly toward the empty cave where late had rested the dead body of the Christ…

The Henyard Round

1. From the dark yard by the sheep barn the cock crowed to the sun’s pale spectral foreblossoming eastward in June, crowed,      and crowed later each day through fall and winter, this grand conquistador of January drifts, this almost-useless vain strutter with wild monomaniac eye, burnished swollen chest, yellow feet serpent-scaled, and bloodred comb, who…

True Love(maybe)

The Greek takes Trixie on midnight walk, not much talk except she points skunk and he runs after it. Which started Trixie thinking, “Gee this guy’s different. Maybe I feel better if I let him move in.” When she finds out his love ever after stuff means give up stripjoints cut down drugs — He…