When I look through the trees at the park near our house they are all pretty much the same as when we started coming here—like me, a bit older but still the same, mostly unnoticed. And the kids were so… Read More ›
mid-life crisis
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 ›
The flavor is in the blood
Any cook will tell you, when you brown meat and rest it on the plate, blood will accumulate there and you always use that blood, or whatever juice comes out, when you put it in the pot. I sat in… Read More ›
Near to fall
And so at last it was done, the book of poems I spent all summer with it seemed. They weren’t my poems, but became mine more and more each day. I sat on a chair in the grass and put… Read More ›
Gone are the 8 o’clock sunsets
How much was left undone by summer’s end, in the corner of our back yard by the maple tree. The work was coming in again, with everyone coming back from vacations and wanting their things fast-tracked, rush jobs. Learning all… 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 ›
Walking down the unlit hallway of life
Outside in the mid-afternoon there was just the sound of birds and kids and cars going by. It was too hot for anything, everyone hanging onto the edges by the shade. I’d gotten up when the church bells struck six… Read More ›
A jarful of days
In the corner of my yard in the mid-afternoon heat in my hammock with Pablo Neruda between my legs, my glasses off, bare-chested and unbathed, I think about death: my body a lump in a sack swinging here: all this,… Read More ›
The life of a dog
The sunset was now 8:51, sunrise 5:39. A thick layer of marine clouds on my morning walk to the lake, suggestion of fall by the gray color tones and ripples around the shore. Leaves starting to fall like a bunch… Read More ›
Going back to Lehigh Street
The fins on the air conditioning units were cold and bent in places and dripped on the pavement. I noticed that, and the texture of mortar between the red brick on each of the apartment units, the red berries on… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 