Scribd Stories

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

we tried to stay away from anything plum, which looks so garish in the cold fog of authority, as the neighbors report nothing new between those two.

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

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

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.

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 untimely closings.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

On the one hand, we have this couple-so young, so connected, so grounded. The balloon they released together into the Memphis air held two cards in tow as it found its way between their hands and the balloon maker's place.