Goines On: Talk to your brain

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As Goines drove himself and Mrs. Goines toward their community’s exit on Halloween afternoon, he stopped to talk with the neighbor who had invited them for beef sliders in her family’s garage that evening, the family’s last evening there, because they had just moved all of their belongings to a smaller house near the middle of town. She sounded hoarse, but said it was only because of allergies and the dust of emptying the house. But she said the beef sliders were off. “They’re forecasting 60 mile-an-hour winds tonight. We’d better not.” The Goineses said they understood, and certainly not, no party, no problem.

All Over the Place: An embrace of trees

By Michael H. Brownstein











How powerful to swim into your arms.
How steadfast and stubborn. The curl of your palm.
One finger finding another. A gathering
Of love’s flesh like the glorious crown of a tree
Reaching beyond a fence of silver brush
And goldenrod to lay a hand of leaf
Upon a friendly arm and find whatever wonder
Lives in the wind, the brightest day, a cool evening.
The squirrels at play. The murmur of doves.
A warmth turning everything valuable into good.

Copyright © 2019 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s latest volume of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else, was published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018.

Goines On: The birds must wait

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Goines hasn’t put out the bird feeders, and the sun is shining brightly after a Halloween night of thunderous downpour. It is already 8 o’clock and Goines is just serving his wife breakfast and about to have his own. He shaved and showered after getting out of bed, too tired to do either the evening before, after nodding off in the afternoon trying to read again the passage in Jane Eyre in which she goes into the room with the fortune teller, and nodding off several times in the evening trying to watch another episode of Goliath about the disastrous water situation in Southern California and the second episode of Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens’ 2006 dramatization of Jane Eyre, in which the fortune teller is not Rochester in disquise (he’s just hiding around the corner). Uncharacteristically, Goines decided to go ahead and eat his own food before letting the birds have theirs. Sometimes he had to look after himself first, and let others wait. He thought he could forgive himself, and the birds would have to.

Copyright © 2019 by Moristotle

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [21]

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Chapter 21. Eiffel’s Tower

Joc had a reserved section at the Wild West Show, dead center in the front row, just below the dignitaries’ section, with its bar and waiters. He had ten guests including Claude and Dominique, who sat alongside him.
    The show featured lots of gun shooting and horse riding. Indians attacked settlers and stagecoaches alike but never won a battle. Bill Cody was always the hero that saved the day, riding in on his white horse with both guns blazing. Joc kept asking with great excitement, “Is that real? Does that happen? Have you ever shot an Indian? Do you know any of the people in the show?”

Goines On: Fewer weeds, more flowers

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The woman walking her dog toward Goines seemed to be treading waste. Not really – the sidewalk was clear. Treading waste metaphorically. Something in the look on her face provoked the thought. And he had seen the look on his own face many times – in the bathroom mirror, in selfies that – if he shared them – frequently prompted some busybody to tell him to smile.

All Over the Place: Brown Shoes

By Michael H. Brownstein



—after Amy Gerstler’s poem “Watch”

For some strange reason I had wanted to have [my father’s] shoes, the shoes he was wearing when he died…and was sad to learn they had been incinerated.
        —Amy Gerstler, commenting on “Watch”

They were just a pair of old shoes, untied,
Scuffed on the side of the left one
Deeply scarred near the front of the right one.

The Loneliest Liberal: In above under out yonder

By James Knudsen

A close acquaintance recently offered the following. “Life’s roads are often difficult, but there’s always a map to take us in a new direction.”
    Given that I was born under the sign of Pisces, one might expect the water of the oceans to be the place I go to chart adventures or a new path. I suspect geography is playing a larger role than astrology in this case, because born in California’s Central Valley, with its dry, open expanses, 140 miles from the nearest ocean, has anchored me to the land with greater force than being born under the sign of water-bound Pisces. And so it’s roads and not oceans, seas, or rivers that have borne me on my memorable travels.

Goines On: Sanctification

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A pang of longing shot through Goines at Walmart, at his impulse to buy eye wash – a repetitive act of old, but no longer called for, since Ziggy had gone on and his and Mrs. Goines’ own need for eye wash was a small fraction of what Ziggy had needed because of his allergies. The thought now, in the pharmacy at Walmart, of buying eye wash somehow elevated the act – or just the thought of the act – to the status of a sacrament, a holy, hallowed, blessed act: in remembrance of Ziggy.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [20]

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Chapter 20. Paris World Fair


May 1, 1889, was a beautiful day for a wedding. Dominique was two months pregnant with their first child. Claude had yet to warn her that there might be a problem with the child’s skin color. In France, the child would be welcomed, but Claude wasn’t so sure how the birth would play in San Antonio.

Goines On: Reporting drunk drivers

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The Goineses were in a rental car heading south on California’s Hwy 99, along the eastern side of the long, wide San Joaquin Valley, now dry and dusty from lack of rain and the consumption of river and ground water by the growing number of orchards of tightly packed almond and pistachio trees.
    They were going to spend a couple of nights in Tulare, visiting a friend their children’s age the first evening, and the next day visiting Mrs. Goines’ 93-year-old cousin and his wife of 72 years, and then the town cemetery, where their parents were interred.

All Over the Place: A haiku, from first draft to publication

By Michael H. Brownstein

Haiku, as almost everyone knows, is a very popular type of Japanese poem. Traditionally, it has three lines, the first and last consisting of five syllables and the middle one containing seven. Syllabication in Japanese is much different from in English. For this reason, many English-writing haiku poets keep the three-line framework, but not the syllable count.
    I wrote a haiku for the Human Kind Journal, an online publication of Japanese poetic forms. Here’s my first draft:

Goines On: Old classmates

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Goines received an email about another high school classmate who had passed on. In responding, he confused the deceased, whose name was Cliff, with another classmate whose face he was remembering. He realized this before he sent the email and even came up with the approximate name of the other one, Richard something. Another classmate on the email list told him who the Richard was – someone whose father had worked for her father.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [19]

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Chapter 19. Chaumont

The train ride was long but Claude, still hungover, slept through most of it. He awoke at one point and looked out the window at the passing countryside of farms and woods and small villages dotting the landscape. The rocking of the express to Chaumont soon put him back to sleep.
    Chaumont is a quaint city southwest of Pairs. Louis Jaudon, brother of the first Claude history records, started a fruit business back in 1781 that was passed down through the oldest son until, when our Claude arrived from Texas, Louis Jaudon III owned it and slept in the master bedroom.

Goines On: How times goes by

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Goines picked up his left shoe to remove its orthotic for use in his left walking boot, which was out in the garage, where he routinely readied himself for his daily morning walks. How many times had Goines transferred the orthotics? In how many pairs of shoes and boots and even sandals had he used them? He couldn’t remember in what year he had been fitted for the devices, on which he had become so dependent that he couldn’t walk far comfortably without them. Did he get them before they left Chapel Hill? That would make them at least eleven years old. The surrounding inner soles showed little wear for all the walking, transferring, walking, shoe-exchanging they had served.

All Over the Place: When the Storm Passes, This Is What’s Left

By Michael H. Brownstein

I am exactly like I am.
No water of mistrust here.
Swamps, perhaps.
Perhaps the heavy coil of wood
and bones to go with it,
the shadow of a new day
sun lipped; cloud lined,
the snail of curiosity:
the bee-sting of intellect.