Help promote edRogers’ latest published novel

By Moristotle

“Readers play a significant role in selecting the winner,” says Amazon’s announcement of its 2019 Kindle Storyteller contest with an award of £20,000 to an outstanding writer publishing in English through Kindle Direct Publishing.
    Personally, I think edRogers’ latest novel, BODY COUNT: Killers, deserves to win on its own merits alone, but Amazon’s judges will look not only at the books entered, but also at reviews of the books on Amazon.

Goines On: Ziggy’s scarves

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Usually Goines didn’t take his morning walk until after Mrs. Goines returned from hers. But this morning he went out before she returned, which was what used to happen when Ziggy was still alive. Goines would look for “Ziggy’s mama” on their round, and all three of them enjoyed the encounter when it happened, which depended on their relative routes. He wondered whether he would spot her this morning and, if he did – and she spotted him – whether she, too, would think of their encounters when Ziggy was with him, and of how they would stop and she would give Ziggy a sweet potato treat.

On Franklin Hill Farm: Mind your own business

By Bettina Sperry

Early this morning, the last fox cub was lost to some unknown cause. Perhaps entangled with the hoof of a horse, I really don’t know, but I found it in the pasture next to the house – not in the dog run, not in the road, but with the four horses kept close to the house. Its body was still soft.

All Over the Place: Measures of a town’s health

A long poem in two parts

By Michael H. Brownstein

About two months ago, my town, Jefferson City, Missouri, experienced a very strong tornado – actually missed my house by about 300 yards. The whiplash was incredible – so much debris I filled too many garbage cans again and again for almost three weeks. In addition, the Missouri River flooded. A 10-minute ride to Menard’s for supplies – we had a bit of very, very minor damage – that usually takes 15 minutes round trip turned into a 2-hour fiasco.

The Loneliest Liberal: Electric fans

By James Knudsen

If you’re a fan of electric guitars, the preceding several weeks have seemed like the grown-ups fighting at the dinner table. A little background: in mid-June, Gibson, the legendary, iconic, revered, guitar maker, released a video titled “Play Authentic.” The video admonished guitar makers who make guitars that resemble, emulate, or otherwise copy the legendary shapes for which Gibson is known. Many guitar players felt this was a shot aimed at them as well, and the fallout on YouTube and other social media sites was swift, fierce, and unfavorable toward Gibson.

Goines On: Time after time

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Goines tried to remember how long ago it was he’d concocted a theory why his battery-powered toothbrush seemed to beep its 30-second signals sooner early in the morning than it did at night. It must have been about a year ago he’d emailed a friend his conjecture that the difference had something to do with variations in the operating rate of whatever device a human brain uses to estimate the passage of time.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [7]

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Chapter 7. Empire

1881. The post at Fort Griffin is abandoned. Residents of the civilian community begin moving to Albany, the county seat of Shackelford County. Lt. Bullis and 30 Seminole-Negro scouts pursue a band of Lipan Apache raiders into Mexico. It is the last action against Indians conducted by U.S. Army units in Texas.
    1882. The Texas and Pacific Railroad reaches El Paso from Fort Worth. The San Antonio-El Paso stagecoach line goes out of business.

James began to buy land in 1882. He was 33 years old and his empire was growing. He didn’t buy just any land. He bought ranches that surrounded the open range. The open range was government land that everybody could use, and comprised well over 5,000 acres of grassland. It was open to anyone who paid a small fee to the government to graze their animals on it. James couldn’t buy it, but he could block access to a large porion of it.

Goines On: Sinning

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A niece of Goines emailed him that she wished they hadn’t made the vicar in the new season of Grantchester “quite so weak sinfully.” Goines and his wife hadn’t watched it yet, but they decided to catch it that evening. And when he told her what his niece had complained of, Mrs. Goines told him what the first vicar she had ever heard had to say about churches. Goines realized instantly that this was the stuff limericks are made of:

All Over the Place: I lie about food

By Michael H. Brownstein

I lie about eating.
Don’t eat that,
my wife says,
that’s not good for you,
you’ve had enough.
She asks,
What are you eating now?

Movie Review: Midsummer Desert 2019

Midsommar: The worst movie ever?

By Jonathan Price

We live in a movie desert. Those of us not fortunate enough to live in LA or New York or some other hub of creative movie theater distribution encounter a summer full of sequels or remakes, no longer just the second or third, but now the fourth or perhaps the tenth. Or we can learn the sordid details about nearhistorical events with which we are mostly familiar. Or we can see the fantastic monsters created by CGI, or their mighty and clever semihuman superantagonists, who use wit and special weapons and skills to defeat them. Into this theater desert enters a film with an “o” and an “ar” in its spelling of midsummer, and I’m hooked by my attraction to foreign films, and to the memories of great Swedish movies.

Goines On: Longevity

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Goines was starting not to think of Mrs. Goines as “nagging” him. The truth was that most of the time she was giving him useful advice – about getting exercise, avoiding contamination of his sinus rinse, protecting his medications from the moisture of the kitchen, and quite a few other things that she stayed on top of more closely than he was always comfortable with.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [6]

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Chapter 6. Rio Grande

True to his word, Rafael spoke to Juan about giving his daughter’s hand in marriage. Juan wasn’t happy about it, but, J.F., as James now wanted to be called, wasn’t someone who took being told no lightly. While Juan’s daughter Juana was sweet, gentle, and loving, J.F. Jaudon was hard and in some cases cruel.
    Juan cared for and loved his daughter a great deal, but in the end, the welfare of the whole family came first. Juan, at 40 years old, would have a hard time finding another job if he were let go from the ranch.

Goines On: The human head

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On his walk this morning, Goines saw a human head lying in the grass alongside the house ahead. He realized in the next half-second that it wasn’t a head but rather a possibly over-inflated football. People, especially children, left all manner of things out in their yards overnight.

All Over the Place: Wild weeds that flower

By Michael H. Brownstein







The carcass is a meadow.
Love slugs and crows,
Maggots and an incessant humming.
Tourniquets are made with these materials
And asphalt, teeth, metal sculpture.

Poetry & Portraits: Elektra

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Elektra
By Eric Meub

They call me Amber. You can hazard why –
Some rock you rub on fur to make sparks fly.
And I’ve been rubbed, all right: Dad went to war;
Mom found herself a dandy (she’s a whore).

Goines On: All us creatures

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Goines could still remember a dream he had the year he was twenty-two, while taking a nap on a delightful, rainy Spring afternoon in the Berkshires of Massachusetts.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [5]

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Chapter 5. Guadalupe River

By the time the U.S. Army decided to address the Indian problem, the 200-300 Comanches had stolen a reported 3,100 head of cattle in New Mexico. Many had been stolen from Mexicans and were never reported, so the count could be much higher. But there is no way of telling how many cattle crossed the Texas border.

Mary’s Voice: Posthumously Speaking 13

Detail “San Simeon Lighthouse”

San Simeon Lighthouse 
& Cabin in the Mountains

By Mary Alice Condley (1925-2007)

[Editor’s Note: We are grateful to Maryjo Williams for sharing two more paintings by my sister Mary Alice Condley. Maryjo is the daughter of Chloe, a sister of Mary’s husband, Elbert O. Condley.

Sketches from the Twin Cities: Hennepin Day Parade

June 7, 2019

By Geoffrey Dean

The fire trucks up in Anoka
Are white like fresh-bleached from the soaka’.
    So shiny and new,
    Lights flashing in blue —
Father Hennepin’s parade is no joka.

Goines On: Back yard in emptiness

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It was evening, and night was quickly darkening. A wave of sadness enveloped Goines as he walked out to the compost bin in his back yard to empty the day’s accumulation of unused vegetable matter – rinds and peelings of fruits and vegetables, plum pits, apple cores, mildewed bits of lettuce, coffee grounds.

All Over the Place: Turning into a ghost

After a Jewish tradition

By Michael H. Brownstein








One moment you feel a weight of gravity,
A blanket, for example, the first light,
A slight draft and then, out of focus,
You come into yourself and understand
The confusion of ghosts. How unsettling to be

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [4]

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Chapter 4. San Antonio

1866. On March 13, the United States Congress overwhelmingly passes the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first federal legislation to protect the rights of African-Americans.
    On March 27, U.S. President Andrew Johnson vetoes the bill.
    On April 9, Congress overrides the veto.
    That year, the first big cattle drive takes place over the Chisholm Trail. Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving round up wild longhorn cattle and, with other ranchers, drive them to Kansas.

The Jaudon party rode into San Antonio with high expectations. James and Rafael led the wagon this time and were prepared for trouble. This was their last stop before heading into the backcountry.

Goines On: Earth to earth

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On Goines and his wife’s first drive to the airport the morning they would fly to Minnesota, before they discovered they’d left a bag at home, she had told Goines of spotting a couple of young deer on her walk the day before, as they were emerging from the remaining forest of the housing development adjacent to the Goines’ neighborhood. That had been the first time she’d seen deer in there, and she attributed it to their loss of habitat.

America’s Froth of July

By Moristotle









Worshippers pump up his act of demigod,
rallying to bump him to an epilogue,
    playing their role assigned, his chumps,
    repeating loud his smashing thumps,
humping to install him two-term demagogue.

Copyright © 2019 by Moristotle

Roger’s Reality: We heard it

By Roger Owens

His son. His son. He buried his son. We heard it. Not the actual, physical interment – the funeral. For hours we could hear the black women wailing, the preaching, the church music. It was across the little branch of the Layou River known as the D’Leau Manioc. The D’Leau Manioc runs right in front of the bungalow at Zen Gardens, where we were staying, in the tiny Caribbean island known as Dominica. Zen Gardens is in Bells. Bells is a tiny village in a tiny island. To call it a wide spot in the road is to denigrate the road. When something happens in Bells, you can hear it.

Empathy (a poem)

By Geoffrey Dean















When you sought the self-same size
Was it really me you thought
Or yourself in soles disguised?

Goines On: Nature trails

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While Goines had enjoyed his cardio walk following the slender, dark-haired woman and her dog for a couple of blocks, he later felt a bit uneasy about having done it. How could Goines not be shy about people knowing or even just suspecting that he was attracted to a number of women in the neighborhood, that he was drawn to attractive women – attractive in either body or soul, if they had shown him their soul.