Scribd Stories

Leaving Iowa behind simply cleared the mind of many a pop idol; Farmers' sons and factories' daughters loved to twist and bellow, flaming out to immoral race records and jungle beats, backlashing furiously in their mudstained carnival velvet.

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.

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 thousand newborn suns, The chained heart learns to leap at the thought of angels and popsicles.

Just expressing my mind.

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

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.

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

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

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 soldiers.

The fish could hardly be expected to remember us- Two sleep-dusted Ohio boys, working a pole with Brother Blake, methodically plinking the glass of Heritage Lake.

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.

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.

Spring and breeze and such were oh so powerful then- I fiddled and I fiddled and I fiddled while Rome was still smoking; I danced and I whittled and I climbed and I giggled, and drank the finest of barrelled rainwater.

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.

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

Now it is a vineyard, like so many others;/But when you taste its wine, you drink the blood of your brothers.' From Red Hill, a French folk song. I let someone else do the driving for a little while- I watched the lines blur behind us, each racing after the next, towards some vanishing point just beyond the Stuckey's sign; I am abandoning Red Hill again.

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 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.