Another Hundred-Line Drunken Cowboy Sonnet Poetry’s led me here, this far: rethink the ocean floor: trunks of pirate treasure, necessary as red weather, unearthed near the wreck, brought to the surface, up the ladder, onto the schooner, crowbarred: metal casings, gunpowder, bottles, bricks, sticks, a single bazooka, and pieces of a thousand thousand […]
Gestation of “One Much One”: Ditty Went the Long Way Once upon a time, maybe as many years ago as thirty, certainly more than twenty, at a time when my only creative (writing) outlet was the occasional postcard or long (paper) letter to a friend, I wrote a couplet. I copied it in […]
Dead Go Dead go the flowers of Coweta County, Georgia, the morning after. Dead go the voices singing the song of those flowers. Two men walk along a road at noon. One black. One bald. Black Guy’s carrying a couple of fishing poles, Bald Guy a bag of catfish. It’s April 24, 1899. […]
Bird in the Hand “This ain’t Mississippi,” Black Guy says to the bartender. Bartender shrugs and walks a few steps away to wipe glasses with his long white towel. Black Guy surveys the room before looking down again for the extra napkin, the one someone put there while he left to take a […]
Developments Developing The screen test was great, they say. You two were made for this project. Just perfect together. Shared center, lyrically contrasted contours, ever-changing boundaries. And range? Like the open sea. Absolutely global and all to the good. We can make you two fit any setting, any century, anywhere. Globe’s going to […]
The Last Set of Machetes Black Guy is black. Bald Guy is bald. Man, I don’t want to do this, Bald Guy says as he kicks at a rock. Black Guy and Bald Guy are picked up outside the commissary in a studio golf cart and whisked away to the set of Quinn […]
Concrete Jungle Asphalt Jumble In the opening scene of a special episode of Neo-Noir, guest-costar Black Guy kills the fat man in the lime-green suit because he needs killing. At the same time, across town, a city really, concrete jungle, asphalt jumble, split-screen bottom right (the split jagged and running bottom left to […]
The Latest Buddy Team Cashing In Black Guy is black. Bald Guy is bald. They’re buddies. They play city-league slow-pitch together. Bald Guy’s a shortstop with just enough power to be dangerous. Every other game he hits one out of the park, but usually, and often in crucial situations, his shots fall just […]
Slowest, Fattest Curve in Baseball History Black Guy is black. Bald Guy is bald. They’re also buddies. Which means nothing more than that. Couple of guys. Hot-shot Hollywood actors hanging out being guys. Batman and the Green Hornet. Lone Ranger and J. Edgar Hoover. Black Guy and Bald Guy. Just a couple of […]
Numbers Tell Us Things Black Guy is black. Bald Guy is bald. Black Guy and Bald Guy have been buddies since childhood. They talk about all manner of things. Especially after a long day on set and a midnight dinner at a posh establishment with clubbing friends and then an unexpected couple of […]
