Between the Lines
The new parking lot is already becoming sketchy. The yellow lines laid down just last year are fading. You can barely read them anymore. Soon they’ll be gone altogether, erased by sun. Drivers then...
Category: The Word from Pandora’s Tavern
Brick Church
Brick Church was the name of an appliance store on Main Street in New Jersey. Its namesake—an old redbrick house of worship—stood next door. Its congregation was in slow decline. The appliance store, on...
Midsummer
What meaning—if any—to dreams? Tonight’s, for instance, that clear jar of Connemara poitín left on the kitchen counter—by whom? The memories evoked upon seeing it, many of them not mine, nor yours, surging ascensional...
Supermarket Sweep
At the end of that great novel by Plato called *Republic*, Odysseus is spotted in the underworld standing amid a crowd of other souls in front of a big box store. It’s Black Friday...
Incidental Thoughts at Midday
It’s Monday and the noon fire-whistle blows. For whom? Not for me. Or not just for me and these collies walking around in the woods together. It’s for everybody, I guess, or anybody who...
Before It’s Too Late
On the cover of a book of poetry in my possession is the photo of a White Castle restaurant somewhere in New Jersey. The crenelated edifice of the restaurant glows eerily against the night....
Agree to Be, Photographed
As I was out and about capturing images, a voice from the shadows whispered: “All these arrested moments are soon out on bail.”
The Visitors
A respite was needed from the hospital vigil. A small visitors’ lounge midway down the corridor offered the only refuge. The two went there. It was a windowless room furnished with three uncomfortable chairs....
Hope Springs Eternal
During Dour Hour down at Pandora’s Tavern, the bartender–after dredging and disinfecting–walks out from the bathroom gripping something soggy and unspeakable. “Okay,” he growls to the handful of patrons dozing over beer, “who dropped this...
The Scholarly Life
A few days ago during Dour Hour down at Pandora’s Tavern I brought a book with me to kill whatever time remained. As often happens, I got distracted by things overheard in the tenebrous...