Goines On: Mask down!

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Goines came home from shopping in a giddy mood. He had carelessly splashed gasoline on his pants because he pulled the nozzle out before clicking it off. How stupid or inattentive can a man be who has put gasoline into a car – what, a million times?
    But, he told his wife, though neither Walmart nor Walgreens had had the throat lozenges she required for her dry throat, he had been told at Walgreens that they were still requiring masks even though the governor was going along with the president and the CDC about vaccinated people no longer being advised to wear masks.

Highways and Byways: The Noisy Outback

By Maik Strosahl

I love sounds. Yes, in music, nature but especially in poetry. I used to experiment a lot with onomatopoeia, but have not for a long time.
    I was reading a piece by Vic Midyett detailing an event that took place while he lived in Australia. Our leader put the article under the heading “Thunder Down Under,” a series that I as a newer member was not familiar with. I took a quick look through the archive articles and came across a painting of a Kookaburra done by Vic’s wife Shirley Deane/Midyett.

All Over the Place: The Eighth Grade Teacher/Student Basketball Game

From My Teaching Book

By Michael H. Brownstein

When I exited the “L” train at 43rd on Chicago’s southside, I took a deep breath of air at the top of the stairs and then again in the large empty field leading to where I taught seventh grade. There are days where you smell nothing at all and there are days when you smell violence and chaos. This day there was a soft perfume mixed with the sour taste of wine, the kind of scent that does not tell you anything about how your day is going to go.

Highways and Byways: A Cold and Less Significant Pizza (My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nothing)

By Maik Strosahl

Yes, I am a rebel. Striking out at the windmills that still haunt me. Today, that windmill is change. Specifically facts I was taught as a child that fallen by the wayside.
    For example, I was very good at math. Yet, when I try to explain to my kids how to figure out equations, it becomes an effort of futility as my math has become a foreign language.

Roger’s Reality: The Great Copal Caper

By Roger Owens

We decided to go to Belize in 2012; we just had to see the temples before the end of the world, you know. That whole Mayan calendar thing was a huge joke there, with tee-shirts showing cartoon Mayans saying things like “Down tools, everybody, we lost the contract,” to a crew of stonecutters, or one stonecutter to another, “People in 2012 are really gonna freak out over this!” Of course, the world didn’t come to an end, but we sure saw some incredible temples.

All Over the Place: Evil Is Not Personified

By Michael H. Brownstein

Evil is not personified – the masked painting – the human flesh of face behind a human depth of pain

Explain it to me with numbers – the number blue – the knot on the hemp colored sixteen – a gash as red as seven and twelve.

Visualize it as if you were air – a stinginess in a lack of oxygen – the poison breath of monoxides – a layering of carbon bricks – the thick scent of mustard on sulfur.

Why is it you cannot understand any of this? – the spit in the eye – the lurch of the hand – the half-naked man ordering me to sic my dog on her, the one he loves holding his first born three-month-old gently in her arms.

Copyright © 2021 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively.

From “The Scratching Post”: Interview with a gadfly

By Ken Marks

[Originally posted on The Scratching Post, May 13, 2021. Republished here by permission of the author.]

It’s been a long time since this blog hosted an exclusive interview. The Covid pandemic probably has had a lot to do with that, as it has a knack for shutting things down. But now interviews are back, and coincidentally enough, the topic of this one is the Covid pandemic. The interviewee is a highly placed official in the CDC who insists on concealing his identity. He acceptance letter was signed “M. A. Gadfly,” a whimsical pseudonym.

Moristotle is slowing down

Siegfried slowed down
too . . . before the end

And doesn’t
expect to
speed back up

By Moristotle

You may not have noticed that we have not published something literally every day this month, perhaps because we almost did. But the truth is, from here on out, there will be more and more days without a posting. I just don’t have the energy any more.
    But I continue to get a lot of submissions, which actually helps me, because working with Moristotle & Co.’s fine writers helps energize me and keep me going.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 53. Homecoming

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Blake was in his SUV. “Peter, we have him. He’s a teacher at Aline High School. I don’t have a first name but his last name is Thacher, T-H-A-C-H-E-R. Get me all the information in the world you can find on this guy. I’m moving my people to the high school; we’ll use it as our staging location. Oh! Let June know what’s going on. I’ll need warrants, both search and arrest – and ASAP.”
    He made a group call and had everybody assemble in a parking lot of the high school. A large oak tree provided shade as they awaited Peter’s call. Wayne asked, “Are you sure this is our guy? Is it possible the kid could be wrong?”

Highways and Byways: A Father, a Son, and a Game of Fractions

By Maik Strosahl

Birthdays have a tendency to put me in a melancholy mood. I know that is not an earth-shattering revelation, as many do not enjoy the aging process for a variety of reasons. My reason is really just a game of fractions.
    My father is eighty years old today. I was born two days before his 27th birthday.
    When I was young, I told him I would someday catch up with him. In elementary school, as I learned fractions, I told him that I could prove this fact. When I was 9, he was 36 and I was a quarter of his age. I explained that when I reached the age of 27, I would be exactly half of his age. Then, every year that passed afterwards, I would be gaining until I would eventually catch him. Even then I understood it was just a joke, yet it was a laugh we shared together.
    Due to his religious belief, my father has not celebrated a birthday since I was born. Even so, for many years, two days before his birthday, we talked. Many times it was just a phone call, yet he always remembered my fractured reasoning and would update me what the current ratio was.
    I also did not celebrate my birthdays, but as life happens, I had to make changes in my belief system – some of them not so popular with my parents. And while I respect them for holding to their convictions, I could not continue to follow that same path.
    My father is eighty years old today. I have not heard his voice in years. Oh, he still lives in the house I grew up in, but we are distanced by something I cannot repair. Yet, I know that he knows I am catching up with him.
    He would not appreciate me wishing him a happy birthday, but I will share that the current fraction is 53/80.


I love you, Dad, and I miss you very much.

Copyright © 2021 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 52. Last Tango

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On Monday afternoon, with the artist’s sketch in their phones, Blake, Tony, and Wayne headed to Cary to join Shelley and Taylor. June had chartered a small jet to fly them, because time was running out, and they needed to get to Cary before the killer. Blake wanted to find out who he was and where he lived before he learned they were in town looking for him.
    But there was a potential problem. Taylor had posed a question that had been in the back of his mind: “What if the killer ran for home after the encounter in Dallas? That would mean he is already at home, or packed and gone.” Blake had no answer.

All Over the Place: The Druids and Amesemi

By Michael H. Brownstein

At the crossroads, Hectate was always the one who entertained us.

Latin was never spoken here. How strange.

Yes, we always left gifts, quite a few,

enough to satisfy wild dogs, selfish men jackals,

and Rhiiannon who flew here to satisfy me

watching through the open bathroom door,

the shower curtain missing, shampoo coursing through my hair,

Saturday night, late. (Perhaps it was Sunday morning, early.)

Thunder Down Under: Payback

By Vic Midyett

Here’s another story from Down Under. The events recounted occurred while I worked for the state airlines in Tom Price, Western Australia. Rarely have things worked out so well.


Our town of Tom Price hosted the annual dart-throwing competition for the region. The event is always held, like most things in Australia, at the pub. About 20 men from another town won the competition and celebrated heavily, partaking far too much of the amber liquid.
    It came time for them to be given a ride to the airport to fly home. It was my job to get them to the airport on time, so that our “flight on schedule” record would remain above average.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 51. MIA

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Blake called June as his bus pulled away from its next stop, but it went to voicemail. He told her to call him back. He still hadn’t heard from her at the next stop, so he got off and called her phone again – three times in a row, but no luck.
    He called Peter. “June is missing in action. I need you to track her location.”
    Peter hit a few keys on the computer. “Blake, I’m getting a signal almost two bus stops back from you. The signal is stationary, not moving.”

Highways and Byways: The Death of the Aerialist

By Maik Strosahl

A recent post by André Duvall sent me back to read his first “Father’s Art” column, about his father, Billy Charles Duvall, and his art. One particular piece caught my attention. Originally titled “The Death of the Aerialist,” “The Last Man” depicts a man falling from a wire. It reminded me of a movie I watched when I was young.
    In 1978, Lloyd Bridges starred in the made-for-TV movie The Great Wallendas. I was ten, but I still remember the tragic tale of a family of tight-rope walkers who were driven to keep going high.
    The father, Karl Wallenda, died that same year, falling from a pretty standard walk, high up, between two buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His wife has been quoted since as saying: “All Karl thought about for three straight months prior to the accident was falling. It seemed to me he put all his energy into not falling – not into walking the tightrope.”
    To this day, a new generation of Wallendas still perform on the high-wire.
    Here is my tribute to Karl, with thanks to both André and Billy Charles Duvall, whose painting “The Last Man” inspired it.

“The Last Man” (originally “The Death of the Aerialist”), 1983.
48" x 24". Oil on masonite

I dreamed of falling,
a drop of rain from an
empty sky