Who Will Cry?
When someone leaves usTheir part in our lifeLeaves with them.It feels like nothing isLeft in our lifeEverything is over.Days and years pass byThinking about...
Letter from the Previous Editor
Did you catch that? Previous. Yes, my wife, Sandra, and I are stepping down from our roles as Art editor and Acquisitions editor of one of the best literary...
Letter from the Incoming Editor
Dear Friends of eMerge,Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Joy Clark and I am the incoming editor for eMerge, as well as the new Marketing Specialist...
After School
I look under bridges, rocks,in culverts and stumpsfor people I can teach.Like Celeste, who hid under the streetto learn long division,with me and my books I...
MY Cousin
The phone rings on a June morning and my voice is brisk when I answer, salted with a pinch of wariness, diluted with necessity. The caller might be a...
2020 Sunsets - July - “Reflection of Serenity and Tranquility”
The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to...
Moon Shadows
Human toils and tidesHardships and bellowsFollows us like the moonYou can see him over there - - -Sitting on your shoulderAnd his shadowGrows longer stillBut...
Is Democracy a Natural State of Mankind?
Sixteen years ago, in this newspaper, I tried to answer a perennial question about American politics. Does the United States look more like the country...
Notes Toward or Away from Something
Between the thinking hill and the tame hillThe night cattle foraging against the hedgeAnd the grey heads of the weeds are brokenThe map of love molded out of...
Lyrical Pink
I look around the room and catalogue the pink items. I sink into my dark pink chair and fall asleep. It’s late afternoon approaching sunset, so the horizon...
Escaping
My hair isf a l l i n g outAs if it just wanted to runaway from my headBut it’s fine, darling o’mine!If I could, so would I do the same
Oatmeal - Fruit - Nut Crumb Cake
Ingredients Cake Ingredients1 cup mashed fruit (your choice of bananas, berries, apples, pears, peaches, or apricots)1-1/2 cups boiling water1 cup old-...
from Dorothy Amid the Sao Paulo Riots, May 14th, 2006
(after Paradiso XXX) “Now, I’d bestcease in this pathafter her lust.”Homes raze to poets' gaffedtorch tunes—steadfastartist instinctswhen we're lost. Soon,...
Kaput
I can just make out ‘beatnik,’ jammed in the back of whatI still call the ice box, its delinquent expiration stickerout of sight behind the Jell-O salad and...
2020 Sunsets - August - “Reflection of Serenity and Tranquility”
The ‘stay at home’ regimen of 2020 due to the pandemic had many down sides, but it did have one upside for myself. Staying at home gave me the excuse to...
BOOM!
I jumped straight upOutta my rollaway bed outsideOur only bathroom.That wasn’t no .38 or 12 gauge.I could sleep right thru those reports by thenAware enough...
Compliance at a Roadside Detainment
The young skinny black manplaced his wrists behind his backand mumbled past the group ofofficers and out into the universeDo what you’re gonna doDo what...
At the Crossroads
I can't recall the precise moment when this weird fascination of mine became a pronounced compulsion: to stand and stare at the unusual. I reckon it all...
Happy People
want the best in lifenot the biggest paycheckmeaningfulness and kindnessfrom helping, bringing peacethat emotional tether of joyand wellbeing in a bag of...
The Last Light of the Year
In the house, the heat kicks on,the refrigerator hums a room steady.The last hedge apple on the tree rollsdown the roof, and the cat jumps on the table.The...