Author Archives
Bill Pearse publishes memoir, travel journals, poetry and prose, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.
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Frost circus, Portland
Peeling potatoes I took off my finger tip and imagined a piece of it there among the red bliss skins in the sink, something small and pink you’d find on a beach. But it got me out of cooking, and… Read More ›
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The weight that won’t shake
After a week of snow it finally broke, and started to melt and with it sliding off the branches and dripping off the gutters it looked like the sky was crying, the earth collapsing in on itself and with the… Read More ›
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Nowhere, slow
The spent tea bag stapled at the top, the icicles dripping on a Saturday afternoon freed from any thought of what time it could be, spread out like a soft cheese with hair unwashed, snow with nowhere to go, nothing… Read More ›
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Man, 48, transmogrifies to Indian salmon pictograph on Cougar Mountain
In the dark my dog and I set off to climb the trail, crawling beneath trees, drinking from streams— up the switch backs hugging the hillsides with only our night vision and senses to guide us At the pass, the… Read More ›
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The complicated way you express your love
The rain came back, so long since we’d seen it I went outside waiting, listening for it, trying not to draw parallels to my dry January: Dawn and I got a table at the steakhouse, a split of bubbly, and… Read More ›
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This time on earth
Where does it go, when the hair recedes—and why does it leave? And will I go like that too, without any notice but more a long, slow fade like snow thawing in a field— And are we just that then,… Read More ›
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“Believe”
I grind my teeth at night, I clench my jaws what’s troubling me, beneath the surface? big, prehistoric fish swimming low? my fears, my desires, combined to one? you clench your jaws for all you want to say but cannot,… Read More ›
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First time hearing Can with my percussionist friend, Loren
How many memories do you keep in a jar on that shelf? Here’s one from my 20s, driving across a bridge at night with the stereo up loud. Were we out of our minds high on the energy of our… Read More ›
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“Little time”
In the late, gray January morn you have already moved on. Though the evergreens stand like Japanese watercolors in the fog, you’re making breakfast in your mind, making plans for the day. Though springtime stirs, but has hit the snooze—… Read More ›
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4:59, Friday
In my time of darkness I go back to the old haunts, to Raymond Carver: I closed the book and he looked back, and in the morning spoke to me on the toilet, in my bathrobe with my phone: He… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 