Author Archives

Bill Pearse publishes memoir, travel journals, poetry and prose, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.

• The moon’s broken head in our lawn

  By Bill Pearse on May 12, 2017 • ( 4 )

  Though they said it was full there was no sign of the moon behind the clouds. The dog’s muzzle started to go white, we just noticed. We asked one another if they’d seen the same thing or it just happened…. Read More ›

• Sugar for the pill

  By Bill Pearse on May 11, 2017 • ( 16 )

  

  I left work, got in the car, turned up the heat. Stopped at Whole Foods and spent $59 on sushi, beer, incense, an organic squash and head of garlic. Caught myself chewing the hair that grows beneath my lip driving… Read More ›

• The clouds above the development like medical gauze papery, multi-layered

  By Bill Pearse on May 10, 2017 • ( 2 )

  In the area where they’re building new homes, where before it was trees and native plants and now they’ve cleared it out, razed and re-sculpted it, planted new grass and trees to make it look like it was always there,… Read More ›

• Fugue in G Minor (“keep it like a secret”)

  By Bill Pearse on May 7, 2017 • ( 19 )

  

  It was hard to understand my relationship with that CD. I remember the day I bought it in Portland my last visit to Loren before Germany. I knew the record but felt I should own it on CD, I only… Read More ›

• Blue skied an’ cleared one Saturday 

  By Bill Pearse on May 6, 2017 • ( 7 )

  

  The slow collapse of order brought me comfort, the release to chaos. The house in disarray with shoes everywhere and kids and unclaimed cups and odd dining hours (10 o’clock for dinner) that reminded me of our times in France… Read More ›

• Right before the storm the sky turned a queer pink

  By Bill Pearse on May 5, 2017 • ( 12 )

  

  The wind came on hard so of course I had to go out in it: why does being out in extreme weather make us feel so alive (because at any moment it feels we may not be)? Is it really… Read More ›

• Poem for the first sunny day in Seattle

  By Bill Pearse on May 4, 2017 • ( 1 )

  

  How the underside of the crow’s wings glowed when it was dusk and the light dropped so slow from the sky a two-hour cue and the spaces between the leaves went from peach to pink, and all about, a tapestry… Read More ›

• Sketch of a Volvo 740 taken from driveway

  By Bill Pearse on May 3, 2017 • ( 26 )

  

  It took long enough, but it finally hit 70 in Seattle. In the morning driving in how the mist clung to the trees, and it was Double Stamp Wednesday at the coffee shop, and when I left work about noon… Read More ›

• Now my heart is full

  By Bill Pearse on May 2, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  Perhaps our hearts are different sizes like cups made by joining palms, closing seams— we don’t know their size until they’re empty or full and even then, it’s unclear: their only job is to hold, a place to store things… Read More ›

• First there is a mountain then there is no mountain, then there is

  By Bill Pearse on May 1, 2017 • ( 23 )

  

  There was the outfit I’d worn the day before and probably the day before that, in a pile on the floor by the bed. I sat up and got into it like I was going in reverse, stood up, slapped… Read More ›