I apologize for the mess, Reverend, but I wasn’t expecting company. Things have gone to hell around here since Delmar moved into that old pop-up camper out back –says he got tired of captivity, as if that filthy camper he bought on eBay is anything but an even smaller cage. That’s the thing about Delmar, … Read more
I’ll tell you exactly what I saw: they had the mediocre man trussed in a wheelbarrow and they rolled him out into the middle of the street and blew him up. He was round, agitated, and full of guts, and he babbled nervously right up until the moment when they set off the detonator. I … Read more
I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realize now that I must give all that I have to possess … Read more
One Sunday near the end of his days the old preacher stood up before his dwindled congregation, and as had been the case so often in recent years he circled and paced in his mind for the familiar words that were still permanently lodged there from long repetition and which were now accessible to him … Read more
I don’t read philosophy for answers to the meaning of life or any of the other ridiculous questions that have caused lunatics to bang their heads against the wall for as long as humans have been able to babble. What attracts me again and again to books of philosophy is the marginalia, the odd biographical … Read more
This country has long been appalling and astonishing in equal measure, but these days the opportunities to be appalled are mounting by the day, and the sort of astonishment America most commonly traffics in is more and more often the stuff of incredulity and shock rather than genuine and appreciative wonder. Perhaps this has something … Read more
I’d ask you to wipe that smirk off your face. This is a serious matter. This world is plunging further into darkness. Okay, so maybe I’m being overly dramatic, but I can barely hold my head up. It’s damned hard to hold your head up when you’re living in a crawl space. Ordinarily in a … Read more
The future is stupid. —Jenny Holzer I have always been clueless, but I am discovering that my cluelessness is constantly extending itself into entirely new continents of ignorance, and even moving resolutely like a glacier over existing continents in my skull that were once green-swept and shot through with sunlight. I guess I could choose … Read more
The tree outside the window wobbled and tossed off light, little sparks like Instamatic flashbulbs in the moonlight. Was it a wagon or a wheelbarrow that so much depended on? Either way, nothing depends on them now. I watched a dog creeping through the backyard shadows, stunned to still be doing God’s work early in … Read more