After the big wind storm last fall and all the downed trees I thought it was time for me to learn how to buck a tree and use a chainsaw properly. I bought the safety gear—the protective chaps, the integrated… Read More ›
pacific northwest
The Pale King
An hour before dusk the birds start going bananas. Clicking their tongues, chirping, tweeting. The pollen is like lime-green cocaine covering everything. I get to the park so early it’s still dark and the little streams reflect the pale light… Read More ›
Sunday sermon
I went outside and sprayed coyote urine on the tulips to keep the deer and rabbits away. I don’t know if it’s coyote urine but it smells like hell. I don’t know how they get it in a bottle either…. Read More ›
Don’t stop now
Now they are back at that shady music venue on the edges of town by the freeway on-ramp. Bill and Mike, college chums. A weeknight but they pretend they’ve still got it in them. 2005, mid-thirties. Neither of them have… Read More ›
Over the Neptune
This bar is his bar. What he’s like matters less than the personality of the bar he conforms to. We enter by the restrooms off to the side. It smells like what you’d expect from a city bar. But they… Read More ›
Post to 1970s me
I want the innocence of the 1970s again. Of rollerskating to disco music as a kid. Roller coasters, carnival food, the Jersey shore. Fireworks displays, sidewalk chalk, the ice cream man. I miss the feel of an old phone, a… Read More ›
Morning’s mantra, April
Springtime is one of the most beautiful times where we live. It’s a bath of sensory delights, especially in early morning. The distant woodpecker rattle, the sweet birdsong as it builds. Some crows and repetitive sounds all layered together. I… Read More ›
One more wish
That was it. Sometimes I could see how the rest of my life would play out by the way it was going day by day. We watched the sequel to Dune, that world’s lore, the large underground worms and the… Read More ›
Birth, rebirth
That janky toilet seat always leaned left, the toilet paper holder too. In the early morning the body signaled what it would feel like later in life. Early morning or late night it was hard to tell which was which,… Read More ›
Portrait of a snowman with dead grass for hair
All this snow lying around still, like frosting on a gingerbread house. At the park when it’s still dark walking a path between the setting moon and rising sun. Bit by bit the snow receded, leaving splotches of black stains… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 