The Unimportant Life
Every step broils ungodly pain in my legs. Up – Up – Up. I’m quite certain death is near. First there are beads of sweat, then trickles...
Through the Shadows of Ghosts
The mannequins of the Biltmore arrest my thoughts – a haunting appearance of shadows fading darker, existing less. They are ghosts...
If Asheville Goes to War
If Asheville goes to war, the world will be gasping for and wheezing with the last good breath God deposits into the collective nostrils...
Sharon's Rose
When John Keating lectured his students in the hallway at Welton Academy he had Mr. Pitts read Robert Herrick’s famous poem, “To the...
The Gods of Charlotte
I am in Charlotte, again. I go inside Rite-Aid and buy another Mead, flip-top notebook exactly like the one I bought last time I was...
Before Was
Herewith. These birds living near me. The laughing gull, settles on a post, satisfied to perch, looking over an ocean of food. A wary eye...
Alleyways
February 7, 1982, not long after 8PM, my dad told me “It’s time to go up.” I didn’t want to “go up,” that is, go to bed, but when you are...
When I'm Back
I am flat on my back – again. Today I’m just taking a picture. Most times, though, it is a position of defeat, of humiliation. On my...
Out of Focus
The Red-winged Blackbird skittered just a feather’s tip above the marshy spikes of smooth cordgrass and glasswort. It seemed less a...
The Urgency of Finding Beauty
A fistfight broke out on an airplane. The President of the United States repeatedly lies. Whether or not the poor deserve medical...