Brad Zellar

I’m got the car loaded with music, my dog, and blankets, and am headed west into the teeth of a blizzard. I’m preparing to be erased by the endless range and big sky. Wish me luck. I’ll be back in a week, and if I figure out how to use the technology I might post … Read more

Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? —Stanley Kunitz, from “The Layers” Two days and two nights the tiny ship sailed into the great lake. Just after sunset on the third day the ship … Read more

God says if you love me you will make me Beef Wellington. Even though you are a vegetarian. We will go bow hunting for angels. Aim for the heart, even though they do not have hearts. They are most vulnerable when they are playing the harp. I hate harps. They keep me up when I … Read more

—Abel Pann But when he came home there was no one to tell what he had seen –and if he picked the flowers and brought them home in his hands, there was no one to give them to. And when at evening, past the dark blue shape of a far-off island, the sun sank under … Read more

Again and again we put our sweet ghosts on small paper boats and sailed them back into their death, each moving slowly into the dark, disappearing as our hearts visited and savored, hurt and yearned. —Jack Gilbert, from “Kunstkammer” Another flower shall spring, because the soul of sweet delight can never pass away. —William Blake … Read more

Many people are understandably concerned about the status of their beloved companion animals in the afterlife. We receive queries on the subject all the time. Before I address that issue, however, I’d like to clear up a few semantic misunderstandings regarding Paradise. We’re decidedly old school up here, as you might imagine, and so far … Read more

A man went out to his car one night, started the ignition, inserted a Chuck Berry disc in the CD player, and drove off into the darkness in search of space. He wanted to get out from under the street lights and the general overglow of the city, out beyond the tangle of freeways and … Read more

All night in my dreams, a battle raged, destroying the only world I loved, bombs falling on the city where my beloved slept, in another house, another bed, on the other side of a lake. Deep in sleep, which I surrender to willingly, if seldom, I felt such despair and tried without success to kick … Read more

I do not wish to go below now. –Henry David Thoreau I’ve got no stomach for demolition. Hell, I can’t even stand the thought of dismantling the Christmas tree. It tears me up, so there it sits, six weeks beyond the holidays and still strung with lights and hung with ornaments, the needles showering to … Read more

I close my eyes, whistle, and send the dogs off into the brush to see if they can scare up any words. I’m not sure how long I sit here –it varies, I suppose, from night to night. When it gets quiet like this, though, and I can’t even hear the rustling or baying of … Read more