Children are praying, again, on sidewalks And park-gazing fences, chalking holy memes In rainbow colors to turn back the clock, To playground afternoons before the quarantine. Shall I chide them for such puerile instruction? Or grind their metaphysical lenses To … Continued
A toilet paper roll in the hand is worth the five-hundred the clerk swears is arriving in the next delivery. The President has not come to praise America but to bury it. Measure twice, wash your hands sixty-seven times. Early … Continued
The greatest art installation in America currently resides on a telephone pole a couple of blocks from my house. I discovered it on one of those long, aimless walks we all take now. Dogs have learned that what they believed … Continued
Social Distancing: Crossing to the other side of the street when approached by anyone, instead of just black or brown people. Toilet Paper: A mythical object once believed to exist in plenty, but hunted to extinction like the carrier pigeon. Sober: The … Continued
bible-belted: pandemic one why are tanning booths & beauty salons open? an exquisite corpse. bible-belted: pandemic two on south beach, millennials drink and frolic. boomers aren’t worthy of attention. bible-belted: pandemic three at a local hospital, sixty-five year olds are … Continued
Unlike predictable, protest-board-applicable-things this uncaged boomerang returns the plague. Barbs jut in the neck of a dozen deserving men. The difficult decision is to stay the course or stay alive. Let’s lock onto the horizon, see that (from this embankment) … Continued
I Wallace Stevens published the poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” in 1917. The poem references Connecticut, where Stevens would hunker down as an insurance executive for the rest of his life, handling lawsuits from rejected claims. What … Continued
I have need of pancakes, which is to say I have need of a Syrup Delivery System. Not even the Village Inn can botch a short stack, so I head up the street to the one near my house. Carbs … Continued
All that is left of you are words Words you turned into colors Colors you scattered across pages Of your abbreviated life. Shades of Blue: For tears shed by angsty adolescent daughter … Continued
The Rant has a small sample size, but here in Tulsa at the worldwide headquarters, the new Amazon delivery kids seem to really be scrapping. One of our favorite pastimes is following a truck as it wanders helplessly around the … Continued