On that gray November day we settled into a small town on the west coast of Scotland. Most of the leaves were down and the colors resigned to brown, the red on the roadside you’d mistake for leaves was really… Read More ›
meaning of existence
The soul dies first
At the end of it, the wick is either cut too short or it’s so long, it falls on its side and can’t stand up, won’t light. And so much wax left, in the shape of what remains. This body… Read More ›
That last Sunday in Prague
Brad said he was getting up at 5 to photograph the Charles Bridge. That time of day, it’s only the serious photographers out and the drunks. He described scenes of people on their sides getting sick, some passed out, unclear… Read More ›
Einmal ist keinmal, one more time
At the end of the summer, on the last days before school started, I’d go into the classroom with my dad at the school where he taught. There was a periodic table of the elements on one wall, chalkboards and… Read More ›
Sketch of a Volvo 740 taken from driveway
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 ›
First there is a mountain then there is no mountain, then there is
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 ›
‘Reentry Burns,’ coming back to America
When I got back from Germany Dawn met me at the airport and we went for lunch at the brewhouse. The bathroom smelled the same as it always did and I think the bartender recognized me, even though we’d been… Read More ›
Fallen, moss-covered tree in the aspect of a dog
There was nothing more of it left at the end, the day got sanded down to a pile of dust smaller than the shape it started. The dishwasher ran and the rain looked to stop for a minute, but only… Read More ›
Fireflies trapped in a jar, the days, prose
Some of the days flew by so fast, others you could trap in a jar. They were on the internet or in your computer on a spinning carousel, going back as far as you could right up to the present…. Read More ›
Corpse pose, prose
When we came back from Germany last year I had May, June, July, August, and September off before I went back to work. And before that I had a year not working, starting just before Christmas. How fast the clouds… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 