Boldt Words & Images: Other Observations

A golden shovel poem¹

By Bob Boldt

“Since we both share this accommodating hell, and because I know you, like so many others, will never leave, this flaming shade will gladly tell you his confession.”²

Ghost Fish (Part 1 of a Story for my Son)

Full moon rising over the Salmon River,
less than 2 miles upstream from
where it pours into Lake Ontario
at Port Ontario, NY. This photo
was taken a few yards from where
I caught Ghost Fish – and Ghost Fish
hooked me – more than 40 years ago.

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

The dream always begins the same. The moon has risen barely above the horizon, turning the gently riffled current a soft, undulating gold. The fish materializes, wraithlike, mouth agape, moonlight reflecting from its broad sides; it appears huge and menacing as it surges through the shallow water directly at me.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [38]

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Chapter 38. Oil Thieves

The moon had yet to come up and the night was so dark the men were falling over things on the ground. Mr. Tompson and his four armed men were moving into position for an all-night stakeout. They found a good spot among the girders of a well across from Claude’s capped wells.

My Life [4]

I become a computer programmer

By Jim Rix

Following my stint as a high school mathematics teacher, I took a job at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, in Sunnyvale, and began a career in computer programming. After seven months at Lockheed, I was offered a better position at Tymshare, Inc., another computer company. Tymshare transferred me to Seattle, Washington. That lasted a few years, after which I was laid off and sold furniture for a while at Levitz Furniture. I don’t think I had realized how versatile I could be.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [7]

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7. When he first arrived, Ras

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Roger’s Reality: Karma Kitty

The Faces of Jack

By Roger Owens

Mike and Bonnie have our cat, Jackie. Mike and Bonnie live over on the next street, and Jack has essentially moved to their house. It’s OK though, because he won’t stay home anymore anyway, and at one time we had their cat. Jackie Jack never really lived at any one place; he’s always been a vagabond.
    Maybe I should go back and start at the beginning.

All Over the Place: Reparations – Part 3 (2014-2016)

Because it never ends

By Michael H. Brownstein



Because America is not fair,
Because racism needs to stop,
Because ignorance has to end,
Because the police need to know their job,
Because we no longer can put up with bullies with guns.

The Loneliest Liberal: Misguided Paths

By James Knudsen

Do you remember electives? I recently learned that one of the community colleges I’m employed at has made the decision to implement a program that eliminates one of the most cherished aspects of community colleges.

Goines On: Without exclamation

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Mrs. Goines said to Goines, “I saw you outside without a coat on.” It had frozen overnight, and the temperature was still in the 30s. It was Mrs. Goines’ way of reminding Goines he hadn’t followed one of her recommendations, which failing she seemed to him to take a bit too personally, almost as an affront.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [37]

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Chapter 37. Here Today/ Gone Tomorrow

Claude’s move back to Houston had been a good one. Through the telephone service with his people in Beaumont, he was able to be close to the action at the same time. The new century was opening like a box of candy – one happy surprise after another. In 1901, Mckinley was assassinated. The Stock Market took a dive, as did oil stock, but with Teddy Roosevelt came a calming. Things were looking up for the country as a whole. But life will always throw you a curveball when you least expect it.

Conformity and nonconformity

Food for thought

By Victor L. Midyett

My father gave me directives only. He rarely gave me food for thought. He brought me up in an atmosphere where everything was according to his “black or white.” My directive was always to follow what he said was “white,” or his way. Being by nature skeptical myself, I very early developed the attitude that in life very, very little is black or white. And what anyone tells me or directs me to do must be questioned.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [6]

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6. Tabitha Taft was sick

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Goines On: Relics

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Goines thought he spotted a vacant handicap parking spot near the head of the row nearest Walmart’s grocery entrance. As he approached the spot, a huge rear-window version of the “JESUS SAVES” sign accosted him from a large dark vehicle in the top spot.
    Goines took a photo of the rear window, feeling strangely subversive, as though he were doing surveillance and being observed doing so, if not by a Walmart security camera then perhaps by a local police officer in the patrol car parked across the road alongside the store front between the two entrances.

All Over the Place: Reparations – Part 2

By Michael H. Brownstein











1898, election day, Wilmington, North Carolina,
the business elite include all races, all ethnicities,
lawyers and doctors, teachers and store owners,
no color boundaries, no issues with racism –
the city an integrated government duly elected –

Boldt Words & Images: The Frankenstein Monster’s Artificial Intelligence Lecture

The Oxford Union at night

Delivered at the Oxford Union, after Greg Santos’ “Hulk Smash!” poem (Hey, we could start a genre)

By Bob Boldt

Fresh from his eviction from the Arctic melting ice flow, the Frankenstein monster stops by the Oxford Union in Great Britain to express a few opinions on the artificial intelligence controversy….

Goines On: Jesus signs

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Inside Walmart, Goines had to go to the entrance on the pharmacy side to find a recycling station for plastic bags before getting on with his grocery shopping. On his way along the main traversing aisle, he passed a man in a suit (it was Sunday, after all) who was holding something out in front him, a little tent sign Goines could now see, in bold all-capped letters. The sign read:

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [36]

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Chapter 36. Rafael’s Funeral

The new century brought new and wonderful things, but it left some old things behind. The first of these was Rafael Rodrigo. On November 6, 1905, at the age of 57, Rafael died in his sleep of a heart attack. Even with his bad back, James made the trip to McAllen, Texas, to say goodbye to his old friend. He had to go first to Brownsville and there change trains for McAllen. No direct line from San Antonio yet existed.

My Life [3]

Marriage and teaching

By Jim Rix

After being graduated from TUHS, I entered San Jose State University, on a football scholarship. For my football promise, I’d also received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland, but I didn’t pass the entrance exam in English. At SJSU, I even had to take bonehead English. Halfway through the semester, the teacher told me she didn’t know why I was in the course. I guess I had had a bad day when I took that exam.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [5]

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5. Byron Clayton Tottenmann

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

No Ill

By Cory Adamson












Speak no ill of the dead.
They wait in rapt attention
for every allusion, cadence,
and wordly illusion –
to avenge every slander.

All Over the Place: Reparations – Part 1

By Michael H. Brownstein











Outside the Mark Twain National Forest,
a cemetery, small and tidy, African-American owned,
and inside the park down a rough unmarked path,
the town that was before it wasn’t – a freeman’s space,
safe from the war racism constantly creates.

Poetry & Portraits: Munchkin

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Munchkin
By Eric Meub

[Originally published on March 8, 2014]

That smile’s not just for anyone. You know
your falling houses, gingham dresses, To-
to too, with flowerbed discernments keen
enough to tell the good witch from the green.

Brexit: What happened?

A journalist explains it

By Rolf Dumke

I have enjoyed British novelist Ian McEwan’s excellent novels Amsterdam and Saturday and others because of their ironic, satirical portraits of British society. And now, in a February 1 article in The Guardian (“Brexit, the most pointless, masochistic ambition in our country’s history, is done”), McEwan tries to disperse the fog of nationalistic populism, or “populist stardust” that has confused debate on Brexit in the UK. In the attempt, he enumerates more than enough reasons to convince me that Brexit was a huge mistake, but how Brexit nevertheless happened remains open to discussion.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [35]

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Chapter 35. Beaumont, Texas

With the oil came the boom. Ricardo opened a bank in Beaumont and Claude had an office three doors west of the bank. Both were on the main street and a short walk to the local cat house or bar. Spindletop’s oil flow was slowing down, and there were no more exploding gushers, although plenty of oil was still being pumped. James was drilling test holes on Goose Creek, and at a couple of other salt domes along the Gulf Coast.

Father’s Art: Works of Billy Charles Duvall [3]

Detail of “Passing”

Four Original Paintings

By André Duvall

Today I present four original paintings by my father, Billy Charles Duvall. The first and fourth of them incorporated elements from photographs in books.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [4]

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4. The first time they had gone

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Within the Void

“Three-Corner Plane in Space,”
by Max Bill (1908-1994)^*

Inspired by a sculpture

By Blake Adamson










Eventless
If there was anything before, now there is no trace
Eventless
Not a sound or a sight to behold in this endless nothing
Eventless
The void is invasive, disturbing, it scares, it worries us, it jars
Eventless
Until it comes; the single reminder of what was once us

All Over the Place: 1939: Eviction Day

By Michael H. Brownstein




We planted cotton
and scarred our hands,
came home to make love
and fell asleep instead.
Greed is a wicked half-sister.

Boldt Words & Images: Cherries

A poem

By Bob Boldt













Ripe, white cherries fill a 1941 Noritaki bowl
on my kitchen counter as the sun slants,
three days younger than the Autumnal Equinox,
September 23, 2019.