In the kid culture I experienced, we all knew each other’s religion, but it was not a significant separator, or even a reliable indicator, as to who you were likely to befriend. Greater significance might be tethered to whether you rooted for the White Sox or the Cubs. (nonfiction)
“No book, simply by being read, can affect such a transformation. Vincenz’s book does.”
(review by Raymond Barfield)
Someone pulls me
from the dream
of riding
a winged horse
into an ambulance.
(poetry)
In the morning Hank Jenkins sold me a ten-foot by sixteen-foot United States flag and cautioned me about terrorists. (fiction)
After a long hospitalization, my father returns home to die on January 2025’s coldest day—the Thursday after Orthodox Christmas. The packed snow on the steep, gravel driveway leading to his house is a slick, icy sheet… (nonfiction/Ukraine)
I see Jesus watching people sell grilled chicken and nutritional porridge.
I see Jesus watching people trade real estate.
(poetry)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new and recent books.
there are trees. A tall one
that has shed all its leaves,
has its roots in my heart.
One, still bright with red
and orange, touches
the great loves of my life,
while a spruce, evergreen,
keeps me shamelessly naive.
there are no street ads anymore,
except for advertisements for death and patriotism.
this is our, no one else’s, autumn.
I’m a bit queasy from freedom,
from undercooked pasta with stew and raw water.
under artillery shelling
we are all as free as wheat,
as trees and birds,
(poetry/translations/Ukraine)
And in the immediate aftermath of the divorce, Real Adam understood that if ever there were a time to start again—to remake himself—it was now. Among friends, I took to calling my new experience Life 2.0. Like a software update.
(nonfiction)
Lamb’s ears plucked where
the stairs are, prairie
grass, steeple here, and
dandelion bends,
(poetry)
