I have grown tired from too much poetry and these everyday ironies, have sunken inwards, as a spot in our lawn that’s slowly turned to a hole, now something we’re forced to address, the frost level come up, the remains… Read More ›
pacific northwest
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
“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 ›
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 ›
The day I turned purple (2019)
After 10 days without drinking, the swelling in my lower gut finally went down. A balloon losing air. On Monday I was offered a new job, and on Friday I turned in my laptop and said goodbye. The January bugs… Read More ›
Peace and distance
On the day Bowie died, I drove from Stratford to a small town where I met Tish Farrell, a blogger friend. She made lunch and we talked about writing and traveling, and then I said goodbye and drove back down… Read More ›
N/A
I woke at 5, brewed the coffee, and lit a candle. Maybe the first morning in two years I’d woken without any alcohol the night before. I’d done a dry January enough times now, I’d developed some nostalgia with it…. Read More ›
Bill Pearse 