Here, at the end of Sam Wittgenstein’s life Surrounded by grandchildren, children and wife He comforts his family, then he converses With his tender, latest of the hospital’s nurses As she goes about all her medical tasks She asks him what many have previously asked He answers the question, remarkably patient: “Ludwig? Alas, miss, he’s…
The old toad had stolen the crown again. He sat on a rock by the moat-fed pond and called to any and all young women who happened to pass by. Pretending to be a frog – nay, a frog prince – just so he could get a kiss. The lecherous old bastard. It was the…
We grow the lantern fruit in warm soil Warm with sunlit days and life given Whispering in anticipation Start with a cutting from an ordinary husk cherry plant Physalis, my mother called it Proper in her naming But foreign, too Keep your seedling safe and healthy Water and manure, as you do Until it stands…
Don’t you dare say it, boy! Don’t. You. Dare. [I already did.] It’s about the Mason’s art and nothing else Erect as in raise a building up “How much do you measure, erect?” For shame, boy. [He shakes his head at me. Haha, shakes his head.] For shame. Those words are sacred Handed down from…
My hands grow cold and my fingers numb
Beating on the winter drum
Waiting for the wind to come
and sweep away the light…
Do not sing,
my sister tells me
Do not sing
for they will hear you
and wreck themselves on the shore
“Beg fockers, they were. Beg as a huys!” The rugged sailor shook his tankard for emphasis, spilling more than a few drops of his brew. His dialect had been difficult enough to understand while sober. Now, with him near three sheets to the wind and myself a fair one-and-a-half, I had to struggle to keep…
‘One’, Katie counted as she went around the stone circle. ‘Two… Threeee.’ She had given each of the stones a number, and as she passed them…