I have a friend, old and retired, who keeps busy helping the poor. Let’s call him Ted because he wants to remain anonymous. Some of his ideas, he says, wouldn’t make many of his neighbo...

Annie has a nice washing machine n… but she remembers the one her mother had with the wringer, the old-fashioned kind. Her mother took in washing and whe…

Black flag on the lawn falls in pieces from the sky. Starlings in command. Donal Mahoney

Many years later when I meet her… on my way out of the Russian Tea… I notice how beautiful she is dini… a man more attentive than I was ba… But I see chaos dancing in her ey…

Unable to sleep Bill watches preachers on TV after midnight. The preachers warn the Saved Satan is coming to get them. Bill wonders why preachers do this…

The tale’s a parable and it scares Bill more than any creepy clown hiding behind a tree

This morning I woke up early feelin’ good, feelin’ the way I felt 50 years ago, no aches, no pains, can’t wait to shower, hop on the El, go back to work,

The others, of course, are more ra… but less apt to show it. Whenever I strike, I never romp o… I stand with the wrist that I’ve… from the lady locked in my teeth

It’s pretty simple, really. The world will end whether we believe the Bible is a myth or truth. If the Bible is the truth,

On the table by the window balanced on its spine this leaflet butterfly open and still as a

We’re equal we agree in the eyes of someone Fred says isn’t there and I say is and we agree

If you’re a reprobate in recovery you have to be careful what you do… You’re no different than an alcoho… always in danger of falling again. At least an alcoholic has a diseas…

You can learn a lot, both true and false, in a dingy all-night diner where old men gather at a table in back

Do you remember how to tie a Windsor knot the way your father taught you on graduation day in eighth grade

Been in trouble all my life childhood through old age. I took the alleys