Writing

One day my brother Simmy and I were playing out back.  We were sitting on the bank.  In red.  We were wearing brand new matching red jackets and red hats with the word BASEBALL printed on a patch that was supposed to look like a baseball.  Mom got our outfits at the Farmers Market.  She couldn’t resist.  They were on sale and they had both sizes.  Even though Mom knew nothing about baseball, she thought anything having to do with it was for boys.

One day my brother Simmy and I were playing out back.  We were sitting on the bank.  In red.  We were wearing brand new matching red jackets and red hats with the word BASEBALL printed on a patch that was supposed to look like a baseball.  Mom got our outfits at the Farmers Market.  She couldn’t resist.  They were on sale and they had both sizes.  Even though Mom knew nothing about baseball, she thought anything having to do with it was for boys.

One day my brother Simmy and I were playing out back.  We were sitting on the bank.  In red.  We were wearing brand new matching red jackets and red hats with the word BASEBALL printed on a patch that was supposed to look like a baseball.  Mom got our outfits at the Farmers Market.  She couldn’t resist.  They were on sale and they had both sizes.  Even though Mom knew nothing about baseball, she thought anything having to do with it was for boys.

Memory is a murky tarn.  Momentary perceptions are fleeting.  Tomorrow is a mere belief.  There is much that one does not know and much that one cannot know. Indeed, the mysteries of love, pain, or death are too far beyond human grasp to bring more than bits and fragments into certain existential understanding and comprehension.  It follows that, as writers, we must acknowledge this conclusion.  If we as writers acknowledge the extent of unknown in human experience, it follows that…

I could have, I suppose, picked up enough at the market for several parties all at once.  But I liked the immediacy, the excitement, of rounding the aisles at prime speed.  Hungry people were coming over; and throwing a party is important business, especially when it’s for classmates.  So, straight from Philosophy 457, as I’d done all semester, I threw my book bag on the back seat of my old Saab and headed over to the market.  A pound of extra firm tofu, some tomato paste (3 cans for a dollar)…

a suit that goes bathing,
a suit that’s so spare,
a triangle of sparkles,
it covers a square …

a suit that costs hundreds,
a suit nipple small,
a fraction of fabric,
it makes my skin crawl …

Dad was always erecting something: porches, additions, steps, buildings, sidewalks, and signs. He was a preacher. He said he worked for God. Spirit-filled and hell-fired. If he wasn’t sawing, he was typing sermons, two-fingers at a time. If he wasn’t hammering, he was praying for souls, loudly, pleading like blues singers do with women. It seemed I was always involved. Sometimes I pretended. “Raise up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord,” he’d say. Dads, good dads, employ their sons in the work of the Lord.

Saint Thomas:  In a photograph of you posted on the Internet, you look pretty dapper for an introspective fellow with a liking for nocturnes and willows.

Arthur:  I’d rather focus on words than photographs, though how the two relate can be interesting.  Sometimes I think books should appear under pen names and without author photos (or with photos of different/random people), so as attention is kept firmly on what’s written.  I mean, does it really matter who wrote something? 

Covid

Just

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Frying