"What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love." Fyodor Dostoevsky I first encountered Charles Bukowski in a used bookstore, quite by accident, while browsing the stacks for William S. Burroughs. Notes of a Dirty Old Man? The title itself was enough to make me laugh. I paid the … Continue reading Finding Bukowski
Memoir
A Riverine Christmas
I drink coffee while everyone else is asleep. Alone in an armchair, I stare at the yellow rectangle of light coming from the kitchen. The furnace groans and floorboards creak. The house is like an old man farting. Five more years and it will turn one hundred. I think of the other families that have … Continue reading A Riverine Christmas
Cawing into the Abyss
Crows assemble at this U of M tower like children around a birthday cake, hoping for the killing to begin so they can have lunch. You are fools they say, everyone is black until you pick our feathers. Each December they fill the sky along the river in flocks too numerous to count. Such gatherings … Continue reading Cawing into the Abyss
Man on the Moon: an End of Days Soundtrack
“That planet called “normal” is small and blue in the distance, close enough to see but too far away to touch.” Read more from “Man on the Moon” at https://atticusreview.org/man-on-the-moon-an-end-of-days-soundtrack/ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dLxpNiF0YKs
Graffiti Bridge
I decided to put the words and the worries aside and just take some pictures. The suburbanites hurtling over us in their cars had no idea about the art and the wonder below. I could leave the city, put myself deeper in debt and find a nice spot by some lake. I might catch bigger … Continue reading Graffiti Bridge
Redcoats
The value of a human life is not diminished because there are seven and a half billion of us. Can you remember that scene in Schindler’s List when the little girl in the red coat ambles through the black-and-white rubble of a devastated city? She is that anonymous statistic bestowed with color, that rare … Continue reading Redcoats
Remembering the Hobo Day Riots of 1990–The Skinny Kid Goes to College
I remember the day my father dropped me off at college. I was eighteen years old. I gazed into the mirror after he had gone and said aloud to my reflection, “You’re never going to make it here.” The room was spartan with concrete walls, a bunk, a dresser and a desk on each … Continue reading Remembering the Hobo Day Riots of 1990–The Skinny Kid Goes to College
Primatology
I walked down the hallway to my room. As I passed the bathroom, I saw my mother press her wedding ring into my father’s hand. “I can’t take anymore,” she said. “I’ve had enough.” He laughed at her and tried to give it back. I continued to the sanctuary of my bedroom and closed … Continue reading Primatology
The Skinny Kid
My father taught me how to fight when I was so young that I probably would have had trouble beating up a chicken. He started by showing me the proper way to make a fist. I was never sure who I was supposed to be fighting or what sort of brawls, if any, my … Continue reading The Skinny Kid
Crow City 