TEN PERCENT DEAD At first I thought it was an expanding mole, But instead on my face was a penny-size hole. I looked a little closer and the mirror said, “It looks, my friend, like you’re ten percent dead.” I…

THE LINGERING LIGHT CAIN AND ABEL One tills the field, one tends the flock, No more in eternity; now bound to the clock. In these early days of The Lingering Light, One will follow the true and right. One will…

MR. HUGHES When I was a boy, four or five, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes lived next door. Their house was half the size of ours, Ours barely big enough for four. Mr. Hughes would sit on his stoop most of…

NOISE Motorcycles, leaf blowers, Music blasting at partygoers. TVs blare every damned where. It’s all the equivalent of audio glare. Jackhammers hammer, Airheads yammer while the angry clamor. Sirens scream. How can anyone pray or dream? Yet our civilized noise…

REASSEMBLE ME My parts are out of whack, So many pieces that I lack. Because you don’t resemble me Perhaps you can reassemble me. My bones were shot and shattered My limbs lopped off and scattered. It’s uncertain as to…