I came upon one of my mother’s old rosaries in my collection of family stuff, and paired it on a tack beside my writing desk wall with some old religious medallions I earned on some long-ago Holy Day. Catholicism didn't take, but the accoutrements remain.
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I claim no grand comprehension of the challenge of life there. But Cuba is … well, Cuba. A confounding, transformative, depressing, challenging, intoxicating place.
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Much of my life and existence, my world view and how I spend my time, plus how I orient myself in the space-time continuum of ongoing mystery and confounding confusion, is summed up in this photograph.
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'What It Feels Like, Some Days, Inside My Head,' courtesy of The Leaning Barn of Wayne County, West Virginia, located out near Porter's Fork Road.
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Venice is sinking, Venice is faded. The sea is rising and Venice may be dying. But, as Lord Byron sings in 'Child Harold's Pilgrimage,' even in her dotage she remains a glorious wonder.
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'Hey, here you go. What's your name? Where'd you serve?' He nods in thanks. Stuffs the bag into a pocket. Tom. That's his name. He takes off his black knit cap. Syria. Iraq. 'A shell took off part of the top of my head.' I wince. He points to a jagged line. 'The Med Evac was the best. Saved my…
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Here is some iPhone portraiture from recent travels around and about Huntington and Charleston WV, people and scenes that struck the eye of one or the other of my Muses, a cantankerous posse who sometimes pay attention and sometimes are gone for months, if not years, at a time.
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Heading to the local mall used to be one of the social highlights of the week even ten years ago, much less 20. A recent visit to the Town Center Mall in West Virginia's capital city reveals how much the idea of the mall has faded.
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Do auspicious omens from a deer encounter extend to the semi-suburbs? I have zilch expertise in gauging their racks, but this 2-, 3- or 4-point young buck showed up recently in my backyard, which butts up against a narrow spit of woods. I got a closer look at him last night upon returning home from an outing ...
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A small thing, an unconventional view or a dry-as-bone chainlink fence might be just as much an aesthetic encounter with beauty as the theatrical sunset, a tea-rose in all its glory, or a fetching face.
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Let's not talk about the moon anymore, but instead Solzhenitsyn's idea of 'political horror,' how to write a 'sorta memoir,' and breaking up with Twitter until the perp walk.
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At first, I thought the sign said: "PLEASE WAKE YOUR MIND." Wait, no. It was a message of Buddhist boatfulness, instead.
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A more Catholic grade school name you could / not conjure — Our Lady of the Rosary. Where, on a / bright Saturday afternoon, I'm surprised to find / an orange traffic cone propping open a first-floor / door. And so, as one will do when invited by the / cosmos to stroll the hallways where you once / walked…
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When the Opening Day parade for the Cincinnati Reds 2022 season snaked through downtown Cincinnati more was going on than it might at first seem.
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I had to get out of town. Get lost, evade the race of human beings. Seek out geese and turtles, beavers and blue herons. Gunned the car 50 miles per hour, 70, 80. Slowed to make the left turn. Parked on white gravel near the trail head. The way forward was barred by a long rusted gate, hinged and anchored…
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