From “The Scratching Post”: 2020: Story of the year

By Ken Marks

[Originally posted on The Scratching Post, December 22. Republished here by permission of the author.]

This year has been a tale of two climaxes: one in the virulence of the Covid virus, the other in the seditious antics of Donald J. Trump. Both have been ruinous — Covid to physical wellbeing, Trump to national wellbeing. The two are, of course, intertwined. Trump’s blustery and idiotic style of governing is music to the ears of his minions, who are charmed by bluster and idiocy. Their gullibility gave the virus its greatest impetus as they became its most pitiful victims.

Highways and Byways: At the End

By Maik Strosahl

It has been a tough year for many, but if you are reading this, you only have a few hours to make it across the threshold into a new year—one that hopefully we can shape a little more to our liking, but probably one that we will soon be glad to push away on our march through the years. Here is to blessings more than curses for 2021!


as you sit in darkness,
play with your reading glasses
and wait for the final chime,
take a moment to pause
on the white left on each page,
the falling curtain
of unblemished snow
upon this cruel year

Seeking Credible Stories about the Future of Donald Trump

A challenge for storymakers

By Moristotle & Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

Moristotle to both budding and fully flowered storytellers in search of an idea: I challenge you to write a credible story for Moristotle & Co. about the future of Donald Trump – if he has a future – or about his end, if you imagine he does not. I even offer you a scenario to get started:

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 20. Two More Cases

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Once on the line with Captain Leo Hawkins of the Seattle Police Department’s Special Crimes Division, Blake identified himself. “Captain, your serial killings popped up on our computer and I wanted to offer you my assistance.”
    Captain Hawkins was dumbfounded. “I’m sorry, Agent Harris, but I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. We’ve had some murders that we’re having a hard time solving, but there hasn’t been a serial killing in Seattle in years.”

All Over the Place: New Year’s in the Back Forty

By Michael H. Brownstein

This poem is from my book How Do We Create Love, with a new title.


How do we create love?

In the gum of sweet mud tracing its way through large blonde sandbars puckering

against the ribs of the Missouri, a small ripple of ice cold water drips into the river.

Acting Citizen: Trump Island

Sovereign Nation/ Reality Show

By James Knudsen

I realize I’ve become terribly fond of pieces that involve lists, but hopefully this will be the last one (at least for this year). Trump has mined the Trump Taco Bowl for Latino votes, and I’ve included the photographic proof.

All Over the Place: The Executive of Pesticides Celebrates Christmas

By Michael H. Brownstein

Based on the poem, “The Colonel,” by Carolyn Forché 

    [I wrote this prose poem when a group I was with were trying to get Monsanto to give reparations to the Vietnamese for the continuing damage of Agent Orange. They knocked down our website once – but we did not allow them to do it again.]

John Collier's “Lilith” painting de-snaked for ophidiophobics

Cherishing fur and fabric instead?

By Moristotle

This make-over was prompted by an unfortunate reaction: “My Fear of Snakes” (posted on December 19).

Highways and Byways: Christmas 1974

By Maik Strosahl

Raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I grew up not celebrating Christmas. In our family, it was just another day, but one we got to enjoy together. So, when people asked me to write about childhood memories of the holiday, it was back to making up stories. In the poem below, I wanted to capture kids playing with their new toys and some of the conflicts that came about from the treasures that Santa left for good boys and girls. Happy Holidays, everybody, from 1974.


G. I. Joe wakes on the flatbed
to the incessant whistle
of an angry conductor.
Barbie is escorted
from sitting on the caboose.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 19. Cold Streets of Memphis

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Wayne had had a shower, a shave, and a haircut and been given new clothes, and after a good night’s sleep, he was turned back out onto the streets. As he stood at the curb wondering which way to go, a short black man came out of the mission behind him. “You look like you could use a friend. Are you new in town?”
    Wayne looked down at the smiling face and almost laughed. “I know my way around, if that’s what you’re asking.”

At Random: Infiltrator

By Paul Clark
(aka motomynd)

The deer accept me as their own,
rest easy an arm’s reach away.
They welcome me into the nursery thicket,
protecting them as the new are born.

They trust me,
think they know my mind,
but I’m an infiltrator,
I used to hunt their kind.

All Over the Place: The Christmas Tree of Thanksgiving

By Michael H. Brownstein

When the small boy came knocking,

the wind a blizzard of disease and frostbite,

the old couple opened their home to him,

and offered him from the little they had –

hot apple cider, a stew of potato, warmed flour.

My Fear of Snakes

It arose from early life experiences

By Karen Condley Abbey

[Editor’s Note: The author of this little piece is my niece, so I of course  k n e w  that she was afraid of snakes. But I forgot that fact and failed to cover up the snake in John Collier’s painting shown with Maik Strosahl’s poem about Lilith (“The First Wife”). Not good – Karen subscribes to email notices of blog posts, and she emailed me, “Please remember to warn me if you post anything with pictures of snakes, because I have a real bad phobia, and once I see a picture of a snake, it will keep popping into my head.” By way of saying I was sorry, I invited my niece to write about how her fear of snakes originated....]

Roger’s Reality: What are these things?

By Roger Owens

What are these things? I mean I know what they are, I’m not stupid! But what are they doing, damn it? What are they doing? What are they doing there, or there, or there? What right do they have to just lay around like that? What right? Laughingly, accusingly, disdainfully. Just laying there. Cluttering up the place, getting in the way, serving no useful purpose, but most of all irritating the living hell right out of me. Just a year or two ago, any tool or implement I possessed would scurry in a fright to its appointed station rather than have its master find it out of place. A place for everything, by God, and everything better be in it if everything knows what’s good for it.

The Joy in the Journey: Ode to Beethoven

By Geoffrey Dean

December 17, 2020, marks the 250th birth anniversary of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). Among the most-cherished experiences of my musical career are the opportunities I have had to perform Beethoven’s complete string quartets and cello sonatas, and revisiting his compositions always yields new insights that often extend far beyond the music itself.

Highways and Byways: Ashtapada

By Maik Strosahl

I stumbled across a piece of information that the modern game of Chess probably originated in India from Ashtapada and a few other variations. The interesting fact to me was that Gautama Buddha listed these games as a distraction that should be avoided by his followers. The rules evolved through the years, with the queen and bishop added in the 1400s by players in Spain, and it wasn’t until the 19th century that Chess was standardized into the form we know today. Here is my take on the evolution of the game that has distracted many.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 18. Back in the Saddle

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Blake stepped off the elevator onto the 2nd floor and began his walk of shame, for he truly was ashamed and wasn’t sure how he was going to make it up to the other members of his team. If he had learned anything from recent events, it was that he was no longer a captain in the police force, but rather a member of a team, a team that didn’t need a boss, but only a light push in the right direction.
    He passed Taylor’s door but there was no one there. He walked into his own office and sighed at the thought of no more field work. However, June was right, this was where he belonged.

14 Years Ago Today: Holiday frivolity

By Moristotle

[Originally published, without an image, on December 14, 2006.]

My wife and I went to a party last weekend. The neighbors in a house behind ours [on Ironwood Place in Chapel Hill, North Carolina] (visible only during the defoliated time of the year) were throwing their annual “Holiday Party.” The dining room table was groaning with plates piled high with food. Every wall and mantle on the first floor of their huge house (the house’s floor space probably approaching 4,000 square feet) were decorated with ornaments of the season, whether the pagan Yuletide or Christmas, or even of Eid or Hanukka or Kwanzaa. I couldn’t help but wonder where all of this stuff got stored the rest of the year.

All Over the Place: Angry & Old, Bitter & Torn

By Michael H. Brownstein

[Originally published in the now-defunct “zine” Message in a Bottle.]

In the restaurant of ancient trees
In the restaurant of dried leaves
In the restaurant of creased skin
In the restaurant of splintered bone
In the restaurant of littered ash
In the restaurant of blue hair
In the restaurant of smells
In the restaurant of alone

Poetry & Portraits: Willamette Valley

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Willamette Valley
By Eric Meub

[Originally published on April 14, 2018]

1
A white circus tent
looms beyond the ridge of spruce:
first snow on Mt Hood.

Father’s Art: Works of Billy Charles Duvall [7]

Detail from
original

Detail from
final

A River Journey to Paradise

By André Duvall

My Father’s Art columns up to this point have featured small groupings of paintings with some unifying theme. Today’s post describes the evolution of a single painting that Dad modified many times over the course of several years, and it was one of the paintings that were among my childhood experiences of home.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 17. June Meeting

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Blake parked his Jeep at the A.P.S. building. He felt like a stranger, but it had been only two weeks since he pulled out of the same parking lot to head to Reelfoot. It seemed longer than two weeks ago to Blake, for it was a lost memory ago as well. He had no idea what to say to June Warner, and he wasn’t confident she’d like how he might answer the questions she was sure to ask.
    He gave up and went inside. He told the guard he had an appointment with Ms. Warner and took a seat to wait for the escort to take him on the 3rd-floor elevator.

Highways and Byways: The River

By Maik Strosahl

I grew up a short walk from the Mississippi River. When I moved away, I found that beyond family and friends, the thing I missed most was being able to ride my bike along its bank, feeding the ducks and geese, staring out across the waters and skipping stones while thinking through the issues of the day. I know most people have something they cling to, even if the romance of that piece of home really doesn’t exist.


No one bathes in the river anymore.
its waters have grown dark and deep
with the sins of all those
who have lived along her shores.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 16. Aftermath

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About 25 minutes after Blake left to have dinner with his friend, Bobby received Peter’s report on her. It revealed that Betty Walker’s daughter had been pregnant at the time she killed herself. Bobby was horrified when he next read that Betty’s daughter had died one month before the first murders, and each of the other murders had occurred on the daughter’s birthday.
    He immediately e-mailed Bob Rivers and asked him to check the DNA of the preacher and of Betty’s daughter’s fetus. Then he walked outside to find Shelley, who was outside having a beer and enjoying the cool evening. “It really looks like Betty Walker is our killer. We need to call Blake.”

13 Years Ago Yesterday: An ontological argument for the non-existence of god

A mid-17th century
engraving of Anselmn

By Moristotle

[Originally published, without an image, on December 6, 2007. Dawkins’ reference to the “ironic ‘proof’ ” he announces understates the pleasure it afforded me when I read it again this year.]

In the year 1078, St. Anselm of Canterbury (England) proposed an “ontological argument” for the existence of God:

All Over the Place: A Christmas Carol

A Socratic Discussion

By Michael H. Brownstein

Monday morning. Reading. We’re doing Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and I’m way up for this. I have divided my classes into small five to six people focus groups. We’re discussing the segment with the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come.
    And it’s great.
    “Do they have the right to steal?” I ask.

Goines On: Visit from the nightmare

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It was an altogether strange morning, the one after Thanksgiving. Goines would peg its start to have been the dream of his (or someone’s dream – for could it really have been his?) coming upon a sort of raw croquette and lifting it to his mouth to eat, but, in doing so, waking a living creature inside the croquette (a small but long frog, Goines thought) and causing the creature to begin to struggle vigorously in protest against being taken into someone’s mouth.
    What horrified Goines – and shortly woke him up – was that he didn’t immediately put the croquette down but proceeded to try to kill the struggling creature by squeezing it as hard as he could with the fingers of both hands. It was during the squeezing that Goines awoke, and, he was thankful, stopped squeezing the creature in time – he hoped – to avoid killing it.

At Random: Why I Seldom Have Time to Write

For a bit of thin humor

By Paul Clark
(aka motomynd)

Following some commiseration from a friend who reminded me that people who really want to write will find a time to write, I sent an email explaining my situation...and it became a column – according to Moristotle, anyway.
    For a bit of mutual thin humor about what happens to my writing schedule, here is a most recent example of life in microcosm.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 15. The Killer

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Blake and his colleagues’ work on the church came to an end, as did any leads they might have hoped for, so they started backtracking from the opening scene: first were the two killings inside the church, where the mother and daughter had died.
    Shelley was lying on the floor as if she were the mother when she suddenly leaped up. She moved so fast, Blake and Bobby jumped back.
    “I know why there were so many strikes on the two bodies before they died,” she cried out.

Highways and Byways: The First Wife

By Maik Strosahl

One of our Moristotelians, Michael Brownstein, had a poem recently that referred to Lilith [“In the Morning It Will Still Be OK,” November 15], according to some the first wife of Adam. Created at the same time, she bristled at being put in a subservient position to her husband. After much fighting, she was sent away from paradise and Eve was created from Adam’s rib to take her place. Her appearance in the scriptural canon is sketchy, with some translations using her interchangeably with a night demon or a screech owl, sometimes as other types of birds. Here is my poetic take on the plight of the first wife.


Ah, poor Lilith
as she wanders in darkness,

creeping and stirred to flight
with the nightjars,

wailing among the poorwills
she bore into the world,

After 33 Years...

Michael Hanson has a novel in print!

By Moristotle

Today Atmosphere Press published Michael Hanson’s novel, Nate’s New Age. Atmosphere’s website describes the book as

Darkly comic and fast-paced...A 28-year-old skydiving instructor searches for – and avoids – meaning in his life through substance-abuse and sexual adventure. His most controlled moments are jumping out of a plane at 15,000 feet. Nate knows it is time to plant his feet on solid ground. Will he make changes, or has he become addicted to the plunge?

The Tree

By Victor L. Midyett

[I first heard or read this story many years ago and have no recollection of who originated it. I may have even heard it from a pastor in a sermon. I don’t know. All I recalled was the skeleton of the story and I thought the man in the story’s procedure is a good one for anyone to adopt. This telling of the story is my own.]

I knew a man who had a nerve wracking, stress-filled job, but once he went through the front door of his home to greet his wife and kids, he delivered and was enveloped in smiles and exuberant love.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 14. Through These Eyes

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In preparation for his on-site investigation, Wayne Roberts hadn’t shaved for three days, nor had he bathed, and Taylor Manning was now driving him to South Parkway, where he’d spend the next few weeks living on the street.
    Taylor rolled down his window. “Damn, Wayne,” he said, “roll your window down! You’re as ripe as a dead chicken lying in the sun.”
    “You don’t think I’ve overdone it, do you?”

All Over the Place: A Season One September

By Michael H. Brownstein

[Originally published in the now-defunct “zine” Message in a Bottle.]








The Egyptian Coptics who wore the tunics were angels
until the decade of warning, grave building,
a gravity of no consequence. The waters buried themselves
into the earth and the voices of the living dead
flowed beneath the ground until sands covered everything.
I too believe in one Deity, but I am unsure if I can
die for it. Study the pattern of lines in this poem. Do you see
blank space or do you see a belly full of living?

Acting Citizen: Kinky Rights

By James Knudsen

The Moristotle & Co. blog has a well-earned reputation for being family friendly, Rated ‘G’, adhering to the Hays Code, and Safe For Work. Nonetheless, in order for this month’s column to work, I must introduce the topic of sex.
    A dear friend who passed away several years ago, summed up the varieties and complexity of the human sexual universe thus: “Everybody’s got their trip.” For all our genetic similarity as a species, when it comes to sexual congress, regress, redress, and ultimately, undress, the scope is 360 degrees of all extremes, from the completely ordinary to the…well, I’m afraid I occupy one of the more ordinary solar systems of the universe, so I can’t speak to how extraordinary the x^th extreme may be.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 13. Next Day

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The next morning, Blake awoke to the smell of frying bacon and brewing coffee. The clock showed 7 a.m. He pulled on a pair of jeans and walked toward the front of the motorhome. He expected to see Shelley cooking away at the stove, but it was Bobby, happily breaking eggs in a bowl. “Where’s Shelley?”
    Bobby threw the eggshells into the garbage pail and faced Blake. “She went up the hill, to the tree where the preacher was killed.”
    Blake started to look out the door, but from behind him Bobby said, “You need to put a shirt on, boss. It looks like you went a few rounds with a wildcat last night.”

11 Thanksgivings Ago Today: Thanksgiving what-if

I didn’t take this photo;
we didn’t have any
green beans or tomatoes

By Moristotle

[Originally published on Nov. 27, 2009.]

All day yesterday, even as I was enjoying our company for Thanksgiving, enjoying the bright afternoon (after a foggy morning), enjoying the turkey, the candied sweet potatoes, the Brussels sprouts and carrots, the fruit salad, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce, the Vouvray, and the whipped-cream-topped pumpkin pie, I was bothered by something just not quite right about Thanksgiving.

Highways and Byways: Char #5

By Maik Strosahl

A friend of mine recently took some pictures of the aftermath of wildfires in Colorado. His simple title to the series, “Char,” seemed to be a perfect metaphor for the destruction that some who went beyond peaceful protest felt they needed to inflict upon this country to make people see their viewpoint. Thanks to David Hartley for inspiration.


In the land where
Roosevelt meets the Arapaho,
Cameron Peak is ablaze—
the spark still a mystery,
but the understory,
the down and dead,
the beetle-killed lodgepole
have raged for three months
until 200,000 acres
are nothing but char.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 12. BBQ

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The three of them drove up the driveway to Betty’s house at 6:00 sharp. Blake parked among the seven or eight other cars out front. As they disembarked the Jeep, they heard the sound of country music and loud voices coming from behind the house. “I don’t believe this 6-pack of beer is going to go very far,” Bobby said as he pulled the beer from the back seat.
    Blake nodded in agreement. “She never said it was a party, but then again she never said it wasn’t. Shelley, will you get those camera pens out of the glovebox? We might as well start getting pictures now. They walked around the corner, each with a ballpoint pen equipped with a small camera tucked in a chest pocket. Two clicks and it was on; one click and it was a writing pen.

Correspondence: We didn’t even get a road....

Prisoners working on
R504 Kolyma Highway

Edited by Moristotle

[Items of correspondence are not attributed; they remain anonymous. They have been chosen for their inherent interest as journalism, story, or provocative opinion, which may or may not be shared by the editor or other members of the staff of Moristotle & Co.]

Between 1932 and 1953, more than 250,000 Gulag inmate labourers died while building the R504 Kolyma Highway through the Russian Far East. Historians often cite the loss of these lives as a horrific example of Joseph Stalin's brutal leadership of the former Soviet Union – but at least the country wound up with a usable road that functioned through impossibly inhospitable weather and across unbelievably rugged terrain.

All Over the Place: Thumbprints

By Michael H. Brownstein

[Originally published in the now-defunct “zine” Message in a Bottle.]

currants of color
as in spices and herbs,
as in safety and ginger—
currents of water
have a way with words, too,
paddlefish, large mouth bass,
tiny vertebrae, bottom feeders

Goines On: Todd’s power

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As Goines pushed a shopping cart past Costco’s exit door to join Mrs. Goines at the entrance, Goines overheard Todd sending another shopper on her way after checking her items: “Have a won-der-ful day!”
    Todd’s only duty ever seemed to be to check carts on their way out, and Goines couldn’t say how many times he had heard Todd say “Have a won-der-ful day!” It had to have been dozens.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 11. Situations

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Two days later, when Taylor arrived at his office, he noticed Wayne moving around in the – what everybody was calling his – “situation room.” Taylor could see much of the room through his own door and the room’s glass paneling along the walkway.
    Taylor headed around the walkway, and as he approached the “situation room,” he could see that Wayne had a cot against the wall. He opened the door. “What’s going on, Wayne?”

No Country for Young Children

Not for My Son, Anyway

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

Living where we do in Virginia, we are surrounded by Trumpists. Trump won about 85% of the land area of Virginia. Biden won three counties west of Richmond: ours wasn’t one of them. Across Virginia and the country the lines seem more firmly drawn than ever: overall, Democrats win with higher income, more educated voters; Republicans win with less-educated, lower-income voters, the main exceptions being elite rich white people and disadvantaged urban black voters. [See the Newsweek article, “Trump Counties Make Up Just 29 Percent of U.S. Economic Output, 2020 Election Study Shows.”]

Highways and Byways: Broken Bow

By Maik Strosahl

This poem was inspired on the road. I like to look up information on the places I deliver. When I got to Broken Bow, Nebraska, I was disappointed that I could not find a backstory for the town name, so I created my own. I tried it several times and finally got it to work in this prose poem.


He wore three feathers – an eagle’s for strength, a falcon’s for speed, a hawk’s for keeping alert and the ability to see how today carries tomorrow in the balance. His hickory bow strained to the pull of sun-bronzed arms ready to war, string taut in his hand, twisted turtle’s neck held the nock of an arrow set for launch and piercing death for the proud white man staring through his looking glass, high in the saddle unaware of the enemy under cover of brush.

West Coast Observer: Will Trump Be Indicted for Anything after January 20?

And how do you feel about it?

By William Silveira

The question atop today’s observation is on many people’s minds. How likely do I think it is that Trump will be indicted for alleged crimes or misdemeanors after he leaves office? My opinion has nothing to do with the fact-finding that I did as a judge when I had a dispute before me. But I do have an opinion, based on news published in credible newspapers, such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 10. Road Trip

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When Blake pulled the 35-foot Fleetwood into the A.P.S. parking lot at 6:00 the day of their departure for Reelfoot, Bobby and Shelley were waiting for him, their luggage sitting on the ground. He opened the front door and they climbed aboard. As he watched them store their stuff, Blake felt as though it were a family outing and he was the grandfather.
    October had been cold, but November had turned into Indian Summer with the temps in the mid-70s. Shelley was dressed in shorts and a cut-off T-shirt and sandals. Blake had to admit she had a body that made it all look good. Bobby, on the other hand, was dressed in jeans, tennis shoes, and a T-shirt with the name of some heavy-metal band on the front and their concert dates on the back.

All Over the Place: In the Morning It Will Still Be OK

By Michael H. Brownstein

[Originally published in the now-defunct “zine” Message in a Bottle.]








This is not who I love. This is not what I love.
Love is a god-stone, thick and sometimes valuable,
strong-wristed, one arc of a finger
stretching.