is it god or the devil I should thank for my lack or fill of courage, no matter the outcome when it is what it is, this apologetic bout of promises from the son of a vagabond gone looking for what to undo and with a heavy-handed promise to fix that, too, sometimes I think […]
Chasing Home, or a trip to Cahokia Mounds
Just outside of St. Louis, due east of the Mississippi, if you’re willing to escape the concrete towers and smoking sewers for Illinois farmland, there’s a set of 13th century tribal mounds known as “Cahokia” on a plot of 2000 acres here. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, at one point Cahokia was the largest […]
Caffè e Tavolini
she sat in the corner and watched the grey world go by, and out the window, one person lost in thought at a time, another gabbing on the phone, walking on, as she bit into her cookie and let it be all that mattered, and laughed quietly, thinking to herself how nice it was to think […]
Crickets
there are crickets in the city if you listen, chirping to the hum of the halogen lamps, and behold, the concrete gods there above them have collected what the sun once willed for a field of grass, but now it’s nighttime when the moon peeks thru the sultry summer city, and the steel-and-glass are planted […]
God [Bless] You
A week or so ago, on my way to the metro in downtown St. Louis for a ride to the airport, I was stopped by a man who begged me to buy him a meal. I don’t usually say yes, partially because I don’t have anything to offer. Every once in a while, though, I […]
At the Ford
I look down my Death and stare her in the eye sometimes, and it’s when I know she comes for me that I am wont to draw the sword, to meet her dead on, engaged on the battlefield for a fight entirely up to her, even though I live for pretend that I could knock […]
Some Thoughts on Robin Williams and Mental Illness
When Robin Williams died a few days ago, I got a text asking if it was real and was a little bombarded by all the online commentary about it. I didn’t want to think about it; I didn’t want to acknowledge it had happened; I didn’t want to write anything about it, and all that’s […]
The Curious Case of the Toilet Seat Picture Frame
A few years ago, when I was working at a church near Nashville, I took my youth group on a trip to do service work in the Appalachian Mountains at a summer camp there. It was a week filled with hack saws, lots of paint, and conversation with poor or elderly folks of the Grundy […]
Gateway to the Somewhere
Walking around St. Louis lately, I’ve noticed how the city changes for me the more I get to know it. It’s like when you walk down an unfamiliar street, and the first few times you do it, the color of the pavement blends just enough with the dull tone of the concrete buildings to almost […]
Perspective
you gave rest and recompense against the wayward wind, and whistled through the dripping rain a call to arms of friends who came who came who called back through the other side of the storm, not I, not I, they yelled back to the thunderclapping form from here the clouds that hover nigh, you thought […]
