savon bartley | where i'm from

I'm from green bottles 
and brown water.
I'm from handlebars and cigarette runs.
I'm from gun store, gun store, gun store,
liquor store, funeral home, beauty salon, church.
I'm from wine colored hymn books.
Wooden pews fit for a bus stop.
I'm from pastors that preach like a wallet. 
I'm from C-sections.
Latch keys and night shifts.
Absent father. Single mother. Only child.
I'm from project windows and GED test-takers.
I'm from bail money. 
I'm from drive bys in broad day
smoke twirling like a choreographed gang war. 
I'm from Cadillac leather
with a body like a spaceship.
I'm from barber shop conspiracy theories.
Melanoma skin cancer. 
Remission. Recurrence. Survivor.
I'm from the foot my aunt lost in the surgery.
I'm from the bullet in my uncle's hand. 
I'm from you better be in this house before the streetlights come on.
I'm from dreadlocks swinging like bones in a windchime. 
I'm from men easily muddied by a drink. 
I'm from framed obituaries.
I'm from screen doors that watch over children
who believed lightning bugs were stars that wanted to play with them.
I'm from dropouts, I'm from legends.
I'm from I wasn't supposed to make it this far.


https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=872532825843367
 

sewn into the coat of blaise pascal

The year of grace 1654, Monday, 23 November.

From about half past ten in the evening until about half past twelve,

FIRE.

GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob, not of the philosophers 

     and scholars.

Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.

GOD of Jesus Christ.

Deum meum et Deum vestrum.

"Your God shall be my God."

Forgetfulness of the world and of everything else, except GOD.

     He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.

     Greatness of the human soul.

     "Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you."

     Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.

painting by Rene Magritte,

"Pascal's Coat"

andrea cohen | the committee weighs in

I tell my mother

I've won the Nobel Prize. 

Again? she says. Which

discipline this time? 

It's a little game

we play: I pretend 

I'm somebody, she

pretends she isn't dead.

photo | john langer | gospel truck, north vancouver, 1981

 

Ernie Ruff was his name. He had been drinking and whoring for a significant part of his life, when he went into the Penthouse looking for a girl, God spoke to him and told him the end was nigh and he needed to get the message out.

So he went and with what was left from an inheritance he had bought an airport runway staircase vehicle and fixed it up with wooden slats that carried evangelical signs. He lived over on the island if I remember correctly and drove down each summer until he died.

The car is in pieces in a works yard on the island now.

Aaron Chapman

norman maclean | art and grace

"All good things come by grace and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy."

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

hank nouwen pulp classics, volume 2: the return of the prodigal son

A shocking tale of wasted youth! He stole his father's money, fled his home town, and cast off every rule of decent society! He slept with hookers! He ate with pigs! And now... He's back! The long awaited sequel to the searing thrill-o-rama that shocked a generation! If you liked "The Prodigal Son," you'll LOVE... "The Return Of The Prodigal Son"!!

Also by this author: Son Of The Prodigal Son, The Bride of the Prodigal Son, I Was a Teenage Prodigal Son, and The Prodigal Son that Ate Pittsburgh.

police blotter, graham, TX