Pollick Stories

The Allegheny is an ancient river by most standards- You'll find plenty of evidence that shells once ruled the Earth; It was on this river that my Dad used his firs...

and with each passing day he shoulders the weight, as if he were the only strongman left in his own heart's circus-

Five disabled dollars later, this man is cleansed- Briefly allowed to borrow some human sunlight On another stranger’s bench.

My gas-stained hands touch her steel, and for a moment all the world seems unemployed. (I stand in a hole reamed out by greedy oresmen, and silently wait for their own...

A collection of humor essays about growing up in the small Midwestern city of Stow, Ohio

I could never understand her need to wash His feet; I did not come from Magdalene's world, That nervous sticky world of anonymous diddling, Which mixes its shekels with...

#1 Darkness, and what stays Falls too close to the heart-Poor enough for beggars.

The five older ladies have poured their tea again, And look to each other for recognition. This has been quite a summer, yes it has, And Charles and William and my boy W...

These are the warning signs of a visceral God at work: The repressed hands become tender and forgiving once again, The calloused eyes begin to see the wonder of a thous...

We should all sweat long enough to meet the man who beat the law of averages. This man is not the sum of his words, but the total of his actions. The books grow col...

Let us skip, you and I, through certain half-smelted streets; where time and conscience dissolve like watches, and glass shadows catch the first sun's rays fully on thei...

all pardons on us, most heavenly father, for we have had your wives for breakfast. revolution should be a poor man's fist, covered in shit and fleeting promises; we d...

and when all that remains of our dimestore dances are scuffs on aching linoleum, I shall consider you carefully, and know that we were gods once.

This is where the desperate stitches begin to take hold - In the wary edges of unproven cloth; In the delicate fears of virtuous women, In the fevered robes of noble sol...

Somewhere in the white hot core of the Dancer's spirit lie the remnants of too much vision, lies the residue of a thousand broken treaties: lies the child who bartered w...

Pol Pot's deflowered now who used to ride a water- smooth buffalo and kill onetwothreefourfive million traitors Justlikethat -- Jeezus, he...

Pilate is doomed to clean his rifle forever- The walls will not forget these nights. If you decided to brave the waters of sanctioned terror, be sure to wear your Christ...

I sit beside the Cuyahoga creek and wonder how he done it- Pursued by motivated Native Americans across the burning Midwestern grass, until he found himself caught betwe...