THERE IS A TOWN in Central Europe where I have spent some time. For many years I enjoyed strolling down to a café nestled under a large willow tree. I especially liked the old wooden furniture which I imagined must have been perhaps 200 years old. The walls were painted a dark green and lighting … Continue reading Can Furniture Affect The Soul?
On break, I walk the dirt trail behind the library branch and sneak a smoke. There’s some wild blackberry brambles back here, too. I pick some berries off and annoy some birds because they want what I have; I want what they have; we’re all some sort of screwed up animal with a weak wing. … Continue reading Gutting A Blunt
AN AUTOMAT AT NOON. A comely redhead in a cornflower blue dress sits by the window, showing too much cleavage for 1958. A man on his lunchbreak at the next table, eying her hungrily as if she's the meatloaf special. A room with no other occupants. This painting must be worth eighty million, Howard says … Continue reading Art History
SO I STARTED BRINGING MY OWN, in my own damn aluminum bucket like the ones the steak house used to have, when they served peanuts, but not the same kind of bucket exactly, since mine was to tote beer around in and had the “Miller High Life” logo painted on the side, but the logo … Continue reading They Stopped Serving Peanuts At The Steak House
I GUESS I OWE everything to the old moose head hanging over the front desk at the Beaver Lake Lodge in Wild Duck, Minnesota. It is a rather large obnoxious thing even for me and it usually needs dusting. The first time I visited the lodge I was just out of college likely trying to … Continue reading Why James Tate and I May Write Alike
Here are Hidden Peak Press' 2025 Pushcart Prize nominees.
WE'RE ALL IN the same space and time, but experiencing different perspective realities. The woman next to me is prosaic. The guy behind me is screaming his esophagus out. And I’m bug-eyed with excitement because I know I’m the winner of a one-in-a-trillion experience. I’m always in the present, and that keeps me balanced and … Continue reading Bliss of Perspective Reality
IT'S A WARM DAY. Kind of hot. Almost too hot for June. Sitting in the car doesn’t help. Hair up, sweat on the neck. Home-dyed ombre. $1,015.01 in savings. Phone buzzing. You free tonight? Tinder. He never texted me back. Lorna. Reminder, you have an appointment on July 20th. Press Y to confirm or N … Continue reading Sheila Is A Queen
THE SHOW WAS UTTERLY and unapologetically high-budget trash. That was practically its title. Its actual title was For Love Within Reason. The premise was that an elderly king had three sons, all of whom had married good and sensible wives. The king had ten grandchildren—played by attractive actors in their twenties—who were allowed a bit … Continue reading For Love Within Reason (High-Budget Trash)
MY MARRIAGE WAS DEEP into a tailspin when the video of Bigfoot hit the news cycle and the world shit a brick. Drone footage — 46 seconds of incontrovertible proof. No digital trickery, no blurred imaging. No hillbillies tearing through Umpqua National Forest in a padded-out gorilla suit. Journalists and cranks flooded into the Pacific … Continue reading Now Is The Time Of Monsters