Last night I told a stranger all about youThey smiled patiently with disbeliefI always knew you would succeed no matter what you triedAnd I know you did it all in spite of meStill I’m proud to have know you for the short time that I didGlad to have been a step up on your wayProud to be part of your illustrious careerAnd I know you did it all in spite of meIn spite of meLate last night I saw you in my living roomYou seemed so close but yet so coldFor a long time I thought that you’d be coming back to meThose kind of thoughts can be so cruelSo…

Experience is like hemlock; small quantities over time eventually make you invulnerable. – Posted from my iPhone

by Peter Schmitt If he had been paying more attentionto whatever my mother was sayingfrom under her hat beneath the umbrella, or watching more closely over my brother,off playing somewhere with his shovel and pail,or me, idly tracing my name in the sand, if he hadn’t had that faraway look,gazing out to where the freighters crawled alongthe horizon – so that when he suddenly pushed up and off, sand in his wake, visortaking wing behind him, you could believe,as he churned toward the glassy water, that it had just come to him to chuck it all,this whole idea of family, and makefor those southbound freighters and the islands – then…

Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. -William Wordsworth – Posted from my iPhone

By Allison Adelle Hedge Coke Feet firmly perchthinnest stalks, reeds, bulrush.Until all at once, they attend myfemale form, streaked throat, brownness. Three fly equidistantaround me, flashing.Each, in turn, calls territorialtrills, beckons ok-a-li, ok-a-li! Spreads his wings, extendsinner muscle quivering redepaulet bands uniquely bolden. Turn away each suitor,mind myself my audience.Select another to consider,He in turn quiver thrills. Leave for insects.Perhaps one male follows.Maybe a few brood of young,line summertime. Silver Maple samaraswing wind, spread clustersalong with mine, renewing Prairie. As summer closes, I leavedragonflies, damselflies, butterflies,mosquitoes, moths, spiders, crickets for grain, see, Sunflower;join thousands to flock Sky—grackles, blackbirds, cowbirds, starlings—Swarming like distant smoke clouds, rising. – Posted from my iPhone

The ribbed black of the umbrellais an argument for the existence of God, that little shelterwe carry with us and may forgetbeside a chair in a committee meetingwe did not especially want to attend. What a beautiful word, “umbrella.”A shade to be opened. Like a bat’s wing, scalloped.It shivers. A drum headbeaten by the silver sticks of rain, and I do not have mine, and so the rain showers me – Posted from my iPhone

by Gerald Locklin All the food critics hate iceberg lettuce.you’d think romaine was descended fromorpheus’s laurel wreath,you’d think raw spinach had all the nutritional benefits attributed to it by popeye,not to mention aesthetic subtleties worthy ofveriaine and debussy.they’ll even salivate over chopped red cabbagejust to disparage poor old mr. iceberg lettuce.I guess the problem isit’s just too common for them.It doesn’t matter that it tastes good,has a satisfying crunchy texture,holds its freshnessand has crevices for the dressing,whereas the darker, leafier varietiesare often bitter, gritty, and flat.It just isn’t different enough andit’s too goddamn american.of course a critic has to criticize;a critic has to have something to sayperhaps that’s why literary…

Every day there’s something oldto feel sorry about–what I should have done and didn’t,or what I did, and kept on doing. I want to believe everyone’s forgotten by now.Then I picture them thinking back. And those who’ve diedand earned the wisdom death allowsjust shake their heads and sigh.“Very funny,” my father would say after my sister and I played some cruel little joke on him.“Ha, ha,” he’d add,to let us know he got the point. We want to forgetuntil we start to forget.We want the past to change,and we want it back. “Enough is enough,”my father used to sayto tell us it was over. – Posted from my iPhone.

When I moved out of my house into a small cottage in the spring of 2009, the loneliness got to be a little difficult at times. In my kitchen I placed a G4 iMac on the granite counter, with the intention to use it for email, web surfing. The counter had two stools and was already used as a breakfast nook. The iMac (to me) fit perfectly. I installed iTunes on it, lots if music . Then bought it a Cepstral voice (the British male voice) which made any spoken voice feedback sound terribly proper. I named it Alfred. I wrote some applescripts, turned on the built in voice recognition…