Sweater Weather (a poem)

By Ralph Earle

[First published in The Way the Rain Works (Sable Books, 2015) and republished here by permission of the author.]




She had a flair for choosing
clothes that made me look good but
that winter after she moved out

Leaked “Fox & Friends Access” tape reveals Trump’s proof that the mainstream media peddle “fake news”

Satire in the style of Andy Borowitz

By Moristotle

Donald Trump met with friends Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade at Fox on May 12 for a program on the lesser news media, particularly CNN, CBS, the NY Times, and the Washington Post. The show had been scheduled to air that weekend but was scratched after someone realized that Trump had divulged a secret that, if it became known, would enable the lesser media to wiggle away from his “fake news” label.

Love is the Only Entrance (a poem)

At Central Carolina Community College
Creative Writing Program, October 2015
[Ashley Memory: Exploring the Joys of Creative Writing]

By Ralph Earle

[First published in The Way the Rain Works (Sable Books, 2015) and republished here by permission of the author.]










We descend into the rocky womb-like cave
where Zeus’s mother kept him secret from
devouring gods until his time arrived.
Our guide gives us candles. Later
we discover Eleusis, of the mysteries,

Correspondence from around the world

Public toilets
near a bridge in Taito-ku, Tokyo

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.]

When quirky isn’t inconvenient: “Quirky conveniences: the toilets of Tokyo – in pictures” [The Guardian, May 8]. Excerpt:

Poetry & Portraits: Sondheim

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Sondheim
By Eric Meub

[Originally published on August 13, 2016]

Has no one seen? Has no one yet been told
      a star is being born in me at last?
Who grouses I’m too old, that I’m a mold
      from which one character alone is cast?

Masonboro Inlet (a poem)

Photo of author in his book
The Way the Rain Works, Sable Books

By Ralph Earle

[First published in The Way the Rain Works (Sable Books, 2015) and republished here by permission of the author.]











The jetty starts in a barely perceptible
uplifting of sand and extends
stone by stone into a jagged hem
of breakers that undulate in the distance.

The reason snakes frighten us (a poem)

Inspired by Ralph Earle’s
“The Way the Rain Works”

By Moristotle





I’m not the only one digging in the earth this morning
My trowel unearths other diggers digging there
They wriggle, woken up or frightened
by the earth’s sudden movement.

Six Years Ago Today: Retired to turf-turding

By Moristotle

[Originally published on May 1, 2012, which means I’ve been retired a year longer than I was thinking I was. Time goes by quick when you’re having fun?]

Post-retirement employment wasn’t long to seek. My wife and I agree that May is our month to aerate our Bermuda grass lawn, and I started the job today, using my Hound Dog Coring Aerator¹, bought in anticipation months ago at Lowe’s Home Improvement, Mebane.

Cheap Sacred Wine (a poem)

By Ralph Earle

[First published in The Way the Rain Works (Sable Books, 2015) and republished here by permission of the author.]


Pale green, pear-shaped
half-gallon wine bottle
layered with different-
colored seeds—millet,

The Loneliest Liberal:This Day in History

Photo by Jim Rix, 1976

By James Knudsen

Did you know that on this day in history, April 28, 357, Constantius II visited Rome for the first time?
    Me either. Or that April 28 is the day on which Benito Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans? Or that Charles DeGaulle resigned as President of France on this day in 1969? None of those events are committed to memory for the simple reason that they haven’t had much impact on my life. However, on this date in 1967 something did happen that has had a profound impact on me (and many others), I got another sister, Morissa Camille Knudsen. Here are some things you may or may not know about her.

Look alive!

Stay awake!

By Moristotle

Our friend Mark, the Man of Montmartre, wrote recently that he was “back from you-know-where...and currently exhibiting a primo case of PDS (Paris Deprivation Syndrome).” He reported that a main bus that serves Montmartre “passes in front of the building where Marcel Proust used to live...,” which led him to ask how I’m doing with my reading of In Search of Lost Time.

Every Field of Paradise (a poem)

By Ralph Earle

[Previously published in StorySouth, Summer 2015, and in The Way the Rain Works (Sable Books, 2015). Republished here by permission of the author.]





In the moment between day’s
end and settling into sleep,
things that have broken
vanish in a glowing sphere

Eleven Years Ago Today: 443rd birthday/391st deathday

AIFS Study Abroad

Today it’s his 454th/402nd

By Moristotle

[Originally published on April 23, 2007, but without the image or the second footnote.]

Let us today remember the birthday of William Shakespeare, born on April 23, 1564—so far as scholars can make out. One measure of Shakespeare’s enduring memory is that the Sixteenth Edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations¹ devotes sixty-three 2-column pages to him, while devoting only two-thirds that number to The Holy Bible.

Brain Tangles published by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Under the imprint Change Foundation

By Moristotle

Brain Tangles was released three days ago for world-wide distribution. Barnes & Noble and Amazon are already selling it online, in paperback or as an electronic book: Barnes & Noble; Amazon.

A Schroeder Etude

By Geoffrey Dean

Like so many other cellists, I grew up using a collection of studies that are often affectionately referred to as “the Schroeder Etudes.” In 2012 I started thinking about the man who compiled them just over a hundred years ago, and I realized how little I knew about his life. What more could I learn about him? The few brief biographical paragraphs about Alwin Schroeder that were readily accessible online didn’t seem to do justice to an artist who was once hailed as “America’s Greatest Cellist.” I set out to learn more about him and give him the more complete biography he deserves, using mainly online resources such as historical newspaper and magazine articles and especially performance reviews to create a picture of the kind of performer Schroeder was and trace his career path from Berlin to Leipzig, from Leipzig to Boston, from Boston to New York, and then (briefly) to Frankfurt, and finally back to Boston. Written over the course of 2012, the resulting sketch was, as far as it goes, adequate and in any case an improvement on the biographical information that had been available to that point.