Immigrant Camp
Heads bowed, don’t bother with the small sad things when the greatest sorrows envelop them all, come out as unanswered whispers, meaningless nods. Now and then, guards strike bars, clang after clang...
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The Factory Flame
On the factory floor, men and women, sweat circuit boards, or screens or casings. The guy that just celebrated his 40th anniversary on the job attends to the boiler. The new kid is running up metal...
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A Choice of Song
The guys in the tank are heading back to barracks. That’s why they’re singing. They mean no disrespect to the makeshift graves they pass along the way. But they made it through the day without losing a...
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Factories Along The River
All dissipated, just rusty machinery, shattered glass, and crumbling brick. The factory made the town. The town took on the factory as its noisy, dusty heart. Now a kind of silent, settled chaos is...
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The Road Into The Village
Beneath the stomping boots of soldiers, does the road even exist? She remembers the lighter step of the villagers. When even the largest of them walked this way, the surface held firm. The huts can be...
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Cold Irons
Sitting in a chair, at home, my mind is circumnavigating itself. Sure feels like the crazies. Especially since memory is in the service of fizziness and distortion. Outside, the clouds are pewter, the...
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The Home For Wayward Boys
Abandoned for years and now ashes after a fire, this is the place he comes back to, to what once were cells where so many young boys were put, sleeping two to a bed, as wardens snored in adjoining...
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To the World’s Worst River
I’m on the shore of the world’s worst river. It’s brown as sheep turd, slows when it should speed up, rages where it ought to slacken. No fish in it. Just bald tires. A friend swallowed a mouthful of...
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A Politician Addresses the Refugee Situation
Yes, there’s been a conflicting sequence of statements and instructions in regard to your leaving Aleppo for the safety of western Europe It’s a question of, how shall I put it, who doesn’t want you...
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The Dictator and the Church
The church leaders were polite but concerned. But they seemed delighted when I gave them my assurances that I would not interfere with their rituals, their beliefs. It was not my intention to tell...
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After the War
The town creaks open like a series of rusty doors. Reluctant store windows display a fraction of the little that’s on offer. There are few shoppers. Even the benches where the oldsters sit are occupied...
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The Bullies
Yes, I was young once. And bullied for being small. And wearing heavy boots to protect weak ankles. Throw in the home-made haircuts and a right-hook as flabby as my grandfather’s chins and you have the...
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In Tragic World
What a marvel is modern man. With nothing more than a church and a Bible, he has figured out a way to be a spiritual animal And to think, he could have been a chemist or an astronomer. But he’d rather...
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In the Refugee Camp
the old woman on TV was surrounded by others just like her, she bent into the television camera, so close you could hear the blood creep through the veins in her cheeks – she said she’d make no...
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Time to do Something
The Supreme court’s packed with right-wing extremists. Let’s get the band back together, do a concert. People are dropping like acorns from COVID. My guitar would have rusted if it wasn’t wood. Time I...
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Live Broadcast of a Political Rally
For a minute or so, I watched the candidate put on a show. The deprived ignorant people stuffed it all in their heads. His face should have rotted from the lies he told, the weird parables where the...
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Soup Kitchen
Old men, a few women, in old coats, third-hand shoes, struggle up the hill. Nobody has a wrist-watch. They only know nightfall, when the priest arrives, brandishing his side-door key to St. Agnes...
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Chopper
On a river bank, in the shadow of a battered pickup, men fish, share beer and myths and fables. Above, a chopper is circling close to the treetops. A whirr like a giant insect rotates every head...
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A Man With a Hammer
My father labored thirty years on the railroads. Not driving those sleek gray air-conditioned locomotives. But fixing track under sun so hot he should have had a fireman standing by. He worked with...
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Apologies Not Needed
We apologize for the invasion. The military were rusty. The pols were down in the polls. And, besides, your government is as crooked as a snake with a broken back. We should know. We helped installed...
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