(One) The first contestant adjusts the sweatband on his wrist, the rough fabric scratching against his skin, and squints up at the towering wall of playing cards looming before him. Each card, easily twice his height and thick as a door, displays the stark black clubs suit against its pristine white back. "Alright, fresh meat," booms a voice crackling through the overhead speakers, dripping with forced enthusiasm, "Welcom...

This is a very short but very true story that occurred as my wife and I were preparing to leave for Vegas for our two-week vacation. She managed to find seats on the first non-stop flight, but not over the wings. I really appreciate it because the emergency exit rows were a little wider, so they provide me with ample legroom. Seated in the row I wanted was an elderly couple, they smiled at me and I smiled back. Before our...

I like your imagination I always want to find an excuse To talk to you And when I do I always smile.

A weather vane, swiveled on its spindle, catching a cold breath of tomorrow. It was a wind that carried no sound, only the promise of change. Below, in the hushed valley, the world lay in wait. Only the winds knew how deep the snow would be—a blanket vast enough to quiet the earth, or merely a dusting of the coming dawn. The vane held its rigid vigil, a silent prophet of the chill that seeped into the marrow of the air. I...

The story you are about to hear is true. This is the city. Charlotte Web, Louisiana. The Phantom wasn’t a man who solved cases; he was a man who closed chapters that polite society pretended had already ended in the boneyards. You wanted a problem to go away, you called on death. He operated out of an office that smelled of stale cigarettes, and beefaroni. His suits were a little too sharp, his fedora a little too low, hi...

One year, in the early 1990s, a group of us working for NBC Election Unit somehow managed to get a permit to play softball in Central Park. Tough permit to get, and we were stupidly lucky to get it. Anybody who wanted could play; you didn’t have to work for NBC. It was a pretty rag-tag team. In addition, it was the last slot on Sunday night, which meant that we got to play late, until it started to get dark. Fun games. Fu...

Every time I write a line I take some more space I create a limb A jaw I am hollow And fainted in real world I create myself Only in poetry.

There's an art to everything, And in everything there is art, If you look for it closely enough. It is said that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," but you've got to take the time to behold the beauty that exists all around us. As you do so, don't take it for granted that it'll always be there. Let that be an excuse for you to take time out of the daily routine of your busyness to appreciate and enjoy your surroundin...

Your words were violent I flinched It happens often in the city I am used to it.

Hear me, brethren of the Shadow, you consecrated few, do not lament the light that shrank to cinder dust, in the eternal fault, the failure calcified. Who taste the bitter loam where broken faiths accrue. For we are pledged to higher architecture, built on trust. We work where mercy ends and memory has died. We do not fashion keystones for some blessed spire, scraping the shales of sorrow, purged of name and shame. Our qu...

Introduction The identity of an individual who wants to remain anonymous for as yet undetermined reasons is trying to be discovered. A series of clues are slowly discovered that give insights into the individual's background, leading to their identity and the mystery behind not wanting to reveal who they were. One You're hunched over the cluttered desk in your cramped, rented office above the pawn shop, the stale smell of...

I have a jack daniel's And a pack of cigarettes labeled boredom On my table.

No leaves to rustle, no birds to nest of tree skeletons with brittle cones a haunting grace waiting the thaw with a promise green, never be as winds sigh through cages of bones a dark beauty of their final rest with hollowed music lonely and cold No leaves to rustle, no birds to nest

If we could only hold hands of each other And lean into each other, feeling the warmth of movement Without asking for fame Free of self doubt and care Career Just our bodies and minds Money For nothing, fruit for free Just hold our hands And lean each other’s warm bodies And run naked through open fields, And fall on a warm bed of thick sensual moss.

…the rain came down, a steady soft sound, on the roof. Running like a river, down the window pane. And so it went, lost in the flow, quiet moments, of simplicity.