Scribd Stories

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

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; should you decided to share your scraps of hard-won Gospel, sharpen your sword against the bars.

I see in her mottled skin such visions of dishwater pain, The desperately overturned second-hand furniture, stripped bare of our lunch money.

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 first Pearl Killer.

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 with discount Angels. She will no longer mistake the gardeners for her Messiahs.

Your tattooed stigmata is showing, my dear- that spot of willful blood lies dormant; while greedy hosts of Angels draw illicit lots, and seek redemption in performance.

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 colder, the papers scatter, the disciples pray elsewhere; but the teacher (oh! the teacher) is still with us.

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 blood and lies and spit, And leaves its spineless remains In the bellies of involuntary Beasts.

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 Walter Have really taken a shine to their new garden, Says one, steadying her cup for emphasis.

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

Theodicy is a philosophy which examines God's apparent silence during times of human need. I wrote this piece as if God had returned to Earth and no one even noticed. The first time he said anything, I was slightly amused and wrote it all down on a gum wrapper. (Wrapper's gone now.)

I picked up my first stray when I was five, and it promptly died. He was a fine catch, as strays go - Strong in spirit, eminently playful, relatively grateful; But he soon discovered the highway the hard way, And I discovered that traffic does not slow down for grieving boys.

Looking north up South Water street, the dying stand solid as parking meters, finding finer spirits underground than the ones they were promised.

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.

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 between the Devil and the wide blue stream.

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

she never once minded the dust, as he carried them both into town, his mind filled with thoughts of discounted hardware.

Four small whispers can now leave rehearsal, the last cigarette has been ground to ashes. It was once important for us to kill some Negroes, no matter how many times they claimed to fear God― no matter how pretty their dime store dresses were― no matter how late they were for choir practice.