FALLING OFF HORSES (Note: I wrote this piece a number of years ago, and published it in Terry Ross’s Magazine BLACK LAMB. Those of you who’d like to read about riding to the hounds in Moore County, North Carolina, back in the 1950s, should read Almet Jenls’s eerie parable “The Huntsman At The Gate,” available,
The old forester Died alone in the woods. Now his skin is bark.
The Second Day Terce The same boy who had brought the Senhor’s summons and the strange instrument woke them early. He was a cocky little fellow, Jannequin thought, with something of the catamite about him, and as he rousted the musicians awake he made it clear that he was an important personage. “Senhor Bernier has
Oh Donny boy, your poll numbers are falling In all the states, and now on every side Those you despise are rising up and calling For you to go, to go away and hide. In November the vote will lay you very low. When all your fairways turn to mud and muck, No sunshine for
“If an agent submits a manuscript written by a gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of school at seven and travels around on a mobility scooter, it will be published” – Lionel Shriver, author of “We Need To Talk About Kevin,” arguing that even if a book is “incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible, “it will
The Yellow Violet – by William Cullen Bryant When beechen buds begin to swell, And woods the blue-bird’s warble know, The yellow violet’s modest bell Peeps from the last year’s leaves below. Ere russet fields their green resume, Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare, To meet thee, when thy faint perfume Alone is in
The Second Day Terce The same boy who had brought the Senhor’s summons and the strange instrument woke them early. He was a cocky little fellow, Jannequin thought, with something of the catamite about him, and as he rousted the musicians awake he made it clear that he was an important personage. “Senhor Bernier has
A boil of hatred festered in the heart Of our Great Pumpkin. When it burst. It spewed putrescence on all parts Of our sad nation. Then bad came to worse: The MAGA Hatters rallied, and they cheered When poor George Floyd was crushed to death, and jeered When black folks rose in protest. His last
Last Night I Dreamed The Strangest Dream Last night I dreamed the strangest dream I ever dreamed before. I dreamed the world had all agreed To put an end to war. I dreamed I saw a mighty room, And the room was filled with men, And the paper they were signing said They’d never fight
Three Years Later The First Day Nones “He’s crazy,” Geraut said. He was hunched next to Jannequin, both of them wrapped in their cloaks with their hoods pulled down to their noses, backs against the rough front slats of the cart, trying to doze as the old mule plodded along. Eastertide had come late that