Fancy a Fudge or a Fine Tea?

 The sophistication, the ambiance! Like a feathery soprano spreading her voice...and her slender figure...in a melody against the Steinway, she bedazzles!

You step foot across an imaginary threshold into a fantasy land thick with rose petals and exotic spices from the East, and signs in calligraphy tantalizing your tastebuds...

Spice of Siam...Blackberry Ambrosia...Mandalay Mint...

You have just entered the most exquisite specialty shoppe in town and your figurine...because she is delicate like a glass managerie...is making her way oh so slowly toward your presence.

She presents you with the scent of the day, the finest grade of tay..tea...you will ever lay eyes on.

No, no, her eyes say, ignore that pine tar soap over there on the counter, I have what you want, what you desire, what you crave...

“Our flavor of the day,” she pronounces.

She has a cup for my pleasure, and I gulp.

It is as tepid as a first date with your third cousin. I try to wash it down but it reminds me of a somebody's mouthwash.

She quickly produces a cup of what appears to be a puddle-swirl of reddish particles of an almost "Brazilian Cherry" color.

“Try this.”

With hints of rain forest...an aroma that could be anything from ground cherry wood to dyed fiberboard particles....

“It is a Sassafras substitute, cultivated and dug in the Amazon Rain Forest, with similar medicinal and herbal qualities. I am sure you will enjoy.”

I thought about the European fruit and herb tea section and migrated to the back, passing Miss Air Cloud, a thin blonde with hair like an eraser...hunting for something like Bilberry or Blackcurrent.

But it was nowhere in sight. Burdock, Bombay's Best, Basswood, but no Bilberry. "European" had apparently been replaced by teas starting with the letter “B.”

I thought I had lost her, this wafer-thin whisp.

“I have a new flavor,” she said, startling me like a hyena breaking wind. “It is over here.”

A him...a hint of fish and garlic...brushed by.

“Barberry?”

“It is a simple wild fruit flavor. I think you will enjoy it.”

I took the bag from her hand and turned it over and over…

“And this is from…”

“The Amazon Rain Forest- I believe.”

“Are you sure?”

She studied me like a protagonist would study a toilet bowl on a football field, but I turned my back and made a great fuss.

“Wait.”

She made her way to a little table with assorted fudge. Then, she presented me with a three towered arrangement of Strawberry Tart Fudge.

And suddenly, the thin waif reminded me of a long-lost love, and I took my treat outside into the street, devouring each morsel with delight...

our calling, our passion

 your man in the alcove today, his face into the wind, was there to sell enough books to make it worth the drive. They- that ubiquitous they- had convinced him to drive the two hours, promising a table and a marketer's tent to showcase his works to the hungry masses...hopefully hungry for a collection of historical works. His competition featured an active potter, creating a vase...a half dozen mostly fine, and a couple of fading, beauties, selling candles and candy...and various sellers of trinkets and more dubious treasures. 

but the crowd this day at the street festival was largely peopled by characters of short height, and sometimes shorter memory- children and old people. The children gravitated toward food, fun, and the fascinating, while the older folk did actually stop to talk with the kindly man selling word-pictures from the past. He lacked the comforts of the promised tent, which had gone to another event for children, but did retain a tiny table, just big enough for a dozen smaller books. 

we had a pleasant conversation about the nature of our mutual malady, this passion that compels us to wake at strange hours with strange arrangements of words. Some, like melodious gas in the middle of night, pass eventually, and allow us sleep. There are others that take hours from our slumber, and when we do sleep, we awake having been through more than a few turbulent, tumble dry cycles. 

though mutually feeling disheveled this Saturday morning, we shook hands, and i shuffled off for the theatre. Inside the inner sanctum, i once again marveled at the monstrosity they called "the stage," a piece surely from the "industrial revolution" that would be perfect for a Dickens play. 

students were displaying artwork in the back aisles of the theatre, yet no one else managed to push through the theatre doors. 

it was the same across the street at an actual art gallery. Beautiful paintings, with impressive composition. But no admirers.

a few stranglers wandered around the food truck corral, but more wandered around the marketing tents fiddling with trinkets. 

i returned to my vehicle thankful for the hours i spent in and off the sidewalks, but with a refreshing reminder of why most of my colleagues and i create. we do it because it is our calling, it is our passion. We, Christian creators, create because we reflect our creator. And the more we create, and in what we create, we hopefully, share that passion that comes from the heart of a loving God.

 

earthbound

the trouble with autumn...

when leaves fall, it is i who falls.

this gravity, this pungency,

here, confined to a purgatory,

i am earthbound.

i've scratches on my legs

endlessly applying lotion

as the flies come and go

their lives endlessly slow

i've no escape from the pattern.

i do what i don't want to do

i say what i don't want to say

i am still earthbound.

silence still

it is in the ears, this quiet so sharp it is tangible, 

like a gentle breeze without the whisper

it has presence without form, power without speech

an abyss without depth, space, or time

it keeps me company when i am alone

like the empty rocking chair beside the fire

as i watch the embers, it sits silently still

then slithers away from the fireplace grill.

grandma's roses

the whole house smelled musty

an acquired taste for a twelve-year-old boy.

it lingered even in the flower bed 

where thin limbs wore green gloves

and she cut you with her sarcastic wit

for they were supposed to be her roses

though all i saw was something 

half dried, half barely living

as if trying to find another breath.

they belonged in between the pages

in a book with velum paper

not the memory of a wide-eyed child. 

i come from a long line of storytellers

 i come from a long line of storytellers. our history has been passed down through family tales, accounts recalled from a relative, with a frequent aside added, like meat to the skeleton, to explain what the original may have lost. Frequently, little was lost because of the necessity to store it mentally. When one is repressed by a foreign occupier, that foreign censor, who sees his own culture as superior, may attempt to obliterate any hint of color, of personality, to the subject's speech, including an ancient language predating their own.

This is what happened to my people. Written histories were destroyed, burned. Oral histories, along with their accompanying stories, survived. And thrived. And those stories passed down one to another, relative to relative, until this day. 

In the company of a great uncle, a seanchaí, I drank in the stories, made them a picture memory, a word memory, and a written memory. His body lies buried in a cemetery now...but the storyteller's tales, those remains linger in my mind. 

it is why my own tales tend to echo an oral storyteller, and i may actually reject what fifth grade grammar asserts is kosher. I cannot make a sacrifice on the altar of that drivel, because storytelling cannot be reduced to what may have been grammatically pure to the elementary student, or his...or her...teacher.

if the story cannot be read aloud in a way that, combined with a good imagination, paints a picture within the reader's mind, then it cannot be called a story in the sense of one told by a storyteller. While the written word- that product from our time- may vary greatly in form- there is still a connection worldwide to the basic storyteller's story, and I intend to continue to use this style to take the reader to another place, another story.

why i do not write "more of the same"

for those who actually visit the more popular social media sites where alleged poets and alleged authors seek to domicile within the confines of their structure, you will notice that my fiction work does not appear there. it is not by accident, or by censorship, it is because i do not choose to market my work in forums that produce, or coddle, more of the same. For more of the same is dull, tedious, and does not move a reader looking for something different. it is not my intention to gather an audience from those who want this skeletal prose and poetry. it is my intention to clothe poetry and prose with the description needed for a richer, more vibrant picture within the reader's mind.

if you seek a fuller, richer vision in your head, then you understand what drives me. that expression should be as warm and cozy as a tale that has transported you to deepest Borneo while you drink your tea and munch on biscotti in the dead of winter. it should do what no video can do, it should reach emotions and intellect that a visual picture cannot produce. it is why my poet's brush can be more challenging to the 21st century reader...the latter a consumer of what is told to him rather than what he imagines. 

when my fiction is more reflective of my desired style, i tend to produce a poetic fiction, elements of the poetic weaving into the DNA of the structure. it is, if one is not accustomed to it, much more difficult to write than much of the pathetic ubiquity that passes as popular fiction today. unfortunately for those not seeking a richer experience, this poetic fiction may read like Latin, a mysterious language one might recognize in part, but have trouble translating. 

but, if you desire something deeper, something richer, something different, you may find my tales taking you to places that you can picture more clearly.

slides of childhood

 the fragrance of ripe apricots dangling in the breeze

the fragrance of fencing lathered with a sticky stain

the fragrance of walnut hulls, shells decaying in the sun

my tiger cat slipping through the gold, green, and brick

the golden orange flowers among Mars-red bark remnants

a tricycle stuck in the mud-hole by the Garbanzo bush

the sprinkler playing red rover red rover come on over

flip-flopping, flip-flopping, not soon to be stopping

until chores are finished and we pack our toys

the shores our distant cousins when we are not there

our forever friends when the waves come in

as ocean waves of sea salt kiss our foreheads

but will no one remember when i am gone?

Degradation comes to town- an update

In an attempt to understand the changes happening in my own community, I determined to discover who was behind the purchase of two of our largest local hotels by a firm that seemed- from rumors- to be associated with an Amish couple.

The rumors about this couple did not add up, as rumors often do not, so I determined to find the truth, for the sake of truth. But rumors are like stained glass windows- they may look good on the outside but behind that window may still lurk a shadowy set of figures, especially if the buyers hide under an LLC.

If we compare the process to discovering where the spider is on a web, each silk is traceable after a gentle misting. Like observer, I went back to trace the web, from silk to silk, until I could find the spider, the one behind the LLC.

It led me to conflicting information, to a business first, and then a residence. Someone, as the brilliance of the internet will sometimes show, had linked the couple to a nearby management chain and asserted via the wide world web that the spider was, in fact, neither Amish nor Mennonite, but simply an "English" venture to make money in Amish Country and other locations in the Midwest and Florida.

Further "facts" posted online by a government entity suggested that the same couple purchased both hotels on the same date, using the same address, but different LLC names and a different arrangement. The government records indicated that the previous owner re-purchased one of the properties a month later for $50,000, which certainly looks like a mistake, but could give credence to the couple being associated, or a principal, in a venture actually managing hotels rather than buying them.

The truth is that the couple behind the LLCs, having a name that is so common in their area, and is one also used in association with the hospitality management company, are so ubiquitous to the region that I would have to speak with them directly to really know. And that, perhaps, is the moral of this ordeal, for if you want the whole truth, there is no excuse but to speak directly with the one purchasing the property.

I did discover further that the purchasers of the two properties have listed their address as a location next door to a series of cottages and a house used as a hospitality location, one that has been established in that area for decades. That fact, and the fact that the contact's name for that venue appears to be the same, suggest that the purchasers of the two hotels, are actually the managers of that long-time business in Holmes County, Ohio. 

Update: December 24, 2025:

There are many using the positive economic association of the Holmes County phenomenon, the Amish-Mennonite economic boom, centered in the now most prosperous area of rural Ohio, as a way to market themselves. The entity that purchased the motel came in, remodeled the structure and made it into dozens of one-bedroom apartments, primarily for low-income individuals.

Instead of a group of people wanting to help a community, they came in with questionable business practices and unwanted crime.

It is a shadowy, troubling entity that has brought a level of wickedness to the community.

Recently, a now-single gentleman, who lost most of his income following a painful divorce, was forced to seek residence within this renovated building. The individual was subject to an onslaught of waves of marijuana smoke nightly travelling throughout his corridor, resulting in the man seeking treatment in an emergency room because he suffered from the toxic effects of the drug and the medicine that he was taking post-operative.  

Unfortunately, law enforcement, either unwilling or legally unable to do anything about the invasion, harassed this individual rather than attempt to eradicate the criminal elements from breaking the law within that complex.

This week, I have learned that the poor man has been able to get friends to move him out of town to another apartment complex, one with a reputable history, and better access to amenities, about a half hour away. It is troubling that it has come to this, for him, and for me. His experience exposes the degradation of this part of Ohio under a corrupt political system and equally corrupt business climate. This, in an area I came to some years ago, believing it still held the old Appalachian values it once championed, seems to be increasingly changing to aa place with no culture, no standards, and no future...being replaced by a sickness that leaves me and others nauseous and wondering if we too should pull up stakes and move. But when you have invested in a place, in a slice of a community, only to become aware that the slice now has evil on its borders, it makes you wonder if your future would be better built back in the heart of Appalachia, the last bastion of traditional America. 

  

going against the morass

sometimes, at sea's edge, you can see a mass of seaweed, covering all beneath...plopping back and forth with the current as if to say "you will never see it, even if you wanted to" considering the deeper regions so close to shore. as a child, it annoyed me, and now as an adult, the same is true when comparing it with what the tide has brought in to the same region in the poetic spaces of social media.

frankly, much of it looks the same, smells the same, and insinuates that all should be the same. i have rejected joining the massive stench, and would rather be a piece of driftwood cast upon the shore. if my poetry is raw but has a stark beauty, then i have surpassed the formulaic chaos that passes as contemporary poetry by those who profess to write it. 

what good is writing if it is pretentious? if it reads like a jumble from a psych ward patient? if it gives off the same kind of lingering whiff that machine-driven poetry gives? 

discordance has never resonated with an audience like rhythm, alliteration, and meaning have throughout the ages. no matter who or who does not read my poetic pieces, i refuse to produce a mass of debris that should be thrown out with the night's garbage. 

Pondering our future

 Twas a cold day we buried her

and all her memories.

 the whistling wind 

found my whitening moustache,

and like her birthday celebrations

the whirlwind blew around her.

she was always the center

the lifeline of generations

even under a gravesite canopy.

it took too many to hold the coffin

and too many to bear the burden

and too many to ponder their own future

beneath the bristling breeze.

Compliance

 

Someone is watching you drive, someone is watching you walk,  someone is monitoring your online life- all in the name of security, and standardization. Standardization is an obsession of Bureaucratic governments, and the Bureaucratic States of America is at the top of the throne.  

A randomly worded Federal Decree of 1995, which mandates that all usable toilets within the USA must flush with precisely 1.0 gallons of water (unless waterless), equalizing waste disposal, is one of the regime's finest regulations. The ADA inspects toilets to make sure they are compliant. This Toilet Police is supported by a beehive of office-dwelling government workers, whose sole job is to produce volumes of documentation. This, my friend, is what makes America what it is. To say we are grateful for their work is like saying we are grateful for PMS, the IRS, and the color of the UPS- the latter referring to the exquisite ca-ca brown of the colored trucks. 

In a classical video- featuring soothing music- one of the USDA’s leading Toilet Engineers reveals the wonders of the now globally standardized one gallon flush. ADA compliant toilet company, St. Thomas, reveals the secrets of this technology with a video demonstrating the awesome power of their porcelain pooper. Introduced to this slimline toilet, a sightless hand feeds 18 hot dogs, several carrots, plastic chess pieces, 3 pounds of Gummi Bears, and 78 plastic letters and numbers...like the entire contents of one set from Sesame Street. All are magically flushed with a whooshing sound like a vacuum sucking the air out of an entire room.

It is a reflection of insanity when your government discovers toilet compliance is necessary to ensure harmony within your nation. One wonders what might happen if the voting public demanded the redundancy of the toilet bureaucracy, saving the government millions of dollars per year. In a land run by clowns and featuring a diaper-wearing dementia patient, is it any wonder that we are knee deep in a stench that refuses to fade?

the current chaos

the world could fall apart, but if it does not fall apart at my doorstep...if it does not come to meet me at my doorstep...is it truly falling apart?

like youth strung out on their own lack of experience, i can feign ignorance of the thousands of invaders, the thousands of homeless, and the thousands of despondent, if it fails to touch my world. i can wallow behind a wall of indifference, if i want to hide my heart from the pain of humanity. but should i blend in with the clueless, give way to the heartless void present in a society destined for failure?

and if i do, what good am I? 

if i am wonderfully and fearfully made, by the mind and hand of a creator, what i do is important to that creator. it must be because that creator must have designed a purpose for me as that creator has purposed what appears to be a complicated world, of which I am a small but important part. not insignificant, in that i am not swatted away like a gnat or washed down the drain like an ant. not ultimate, in that i am part of a fellowship of humanity. it is humbling to know that the creator purposed my existence. 

the current chaos...the churning upheaval of western civilization, caught in a downward spiral by forces that seem to be allied together to destroy rather than create...is inescapable in the western world. Wall yourself off from the world and it will seep in through the cracks to remind you that there are forces that hate you, apparently for the mere reason of your reflective image from the creator. you have the capacity to create, like the creator. you have, deep within you, a capacity for compassion, for self-less love, unless you too have given yourself over to the chaos, to the religion of destruction. 

And that is truly what it is, a religion. A set of beliefs. It seeks self-destruction in the name of the antithesis of creation. The evil once incarnated is simply the absence of the creative. if the creator, or God, pre-existed, evil could not have existed before a choice was made to abandon creation. So, this chaos, this evil, has set about to accelerate decay, not create, destruction, not resurrection. 

A love letter to the IRS

 Dear Ms. IRS Employee,

Grazing through the news fodder of another day, I noticed a letter from your supervisor’s office, claiming that your agency may be reading my emails, checking my personal records, and even following my habits. It is with this in mind that I have written to you, in hopes that you will read this and we can be better friends…or maybe something more.

You see, for years I have suspected that you have had some romantic interest in me. Your office has- on occasion- sent copious amounts of correspondence to remind me of our “on again-off again” relationship in the past. And, while I admit, I was flattered, I never really believed that such an important person could find me so attractive. After all, I usually only file a standard 1040 form.

But then you started paying closer attention to me. You reminded my accountant that the two of us spoke on the phone and that you were desiring a more intimate commitment from me. You said you didn’t want to talk with him anymore. Well, I can read between the lines. You wouldn’t take no for an answer. You wrote to tell me how happy you were, counting the days until I sent you a little gift or a warm little letter. I admit, I blushed, thinking about your warm body up there in that office, lonely for another phone call, or another memo to cross your desk. After all, I know just how lonely it can be stuck in a high rise building, surrounded by paper pushers.

So, I called you again. You asked me about my dog- the invisible one- the people in my family, and my spending habits as a single adult male. I thought you were a bit forward, but now I understand. You wanted some information, something solid to build our relationship.

And that is when I suspected it. You didn’t call, you played hard to get. You didn’t send me a 1040 book. You didn’t send me a Christmas card. You didn’t even give my name to those representatives that used to send me Christmas cards. In short, you made it clear that you were looking at someone else.

But then I heard the news. A more intimate letter. Finally, the truth- you haven’t been ignoring me, just following me from afar. It made me so happy to know, you haven’t forgotten me after all. Yes, I do want to take your letters more seriously. I believe I am now ready for real commitment. 

So, I thought I’d ask if you wanted to stop by sometime, so we could go visit that Philippine restaurant my accountant told you about. It would be great to share the tax write off together! We could talk about your philosophy on the meal deduction- that'd be great! I am gushing at the seams, just waiting. You know my number- just text me.

Yours, sincerely,

your secret admirer.

Stay Away From The Monkey!

 Being Irish-American in rural America is like being a tadpole in a rainbow aquarium; I fit in somewhere, but I’m not the predominate species. I feel more at home in an ethnic restaurant, where no one really understands half of the words on the menu, because I feel an ethnic kinship to those who may be a little out of place. Some might even call me “special,” although I have always been able to communicate my intentions. The same cannot be said for those who designed the ever-popular and increasingly ubiquitous Chinese zodiac calendar that serves as a placemat for the most evangelistic people group in the world- those who start and run Chinese restaurants…

Several years ago...when a new Chinese restaurant came to the small town where my father and mother lived, I convinced them that we should experiment with new smells. You must understand that this was no easy feat, since my mother's dinner recipes for Chinese usually included a mountain of rice, and a can of this and a can of that. My father, when he frequented the Golden Bull restaurant when I was a child, used to order wonton soup and Moo Goo Gai Pan. In other words, the two of them were set in their ways, and did not venture too far into the world of Chinese cuisine.

Once inside, we were immediately besieged by rapid fire Mandarin. The smell of a sour black sauce and aromas escaping a fire-licked wok. Anemic girls with make-up making them look almost western...staring from a huge calendar on the customer side of a six-foot-tall fridge.

We managed to interpret the disjointed grunts of the aged Chinese lady directing traffic to the dozen tables, finding a comfy spot in what must have been seats out of an old Woolworth's. Their timelessness seemed to comfort my parents but left me with one cheek higher than the other.

So, as we sat waiting for our colorfully described dishes, we pondered the meanings of the assorted Chinese zodiac animals and their accompanying years on the paper placemats in front of us. While I had heard of the Year of The Tiger, and so forth, the mathematical and philosophical applications were a little like Ancient Babylonian, full of mystery. 

I discovered that my father was a horse, which meant he spends long hours pulling things around. That didn't seem quite right, as my father had always assigned us kids chores so that he could tackle more pressing issues like basic electricity. The latter involved interjections, mild cussing, and later an assault on the wallpaper. 

While I was recalling one particular disaster, my father was avidly reading about the "rat," an animal that he "must avoid him at all costs." 

Below my mother’s advice, a strange and distorted series of statements confounded us. After a rude description of my mother’s impeccable character, the zodiac had the nerve to claim that my mother is incompatible with horses…and thus my father. This came, surely, from a man who never spoke to a horse, nor my father. Furthermore, this compendium of wisdom instructed my mother to “stay away from the monkey.” Obviously, the writer had never met my mother. When at the zoo, she took special care to avoid the monkeys, baboons, and chimpanzees. My mother's interest in animals was purely gastronomical alone.

For me, this is not so. I am an animal lover. I have a stomach made of a foreign alloy, since I have ingested iguana in Central America, unpronounceable peppers in the jungle, something called a Beaver Tale in Ottawa, and middle eastern food resembling what the dog ate last night. I have unwittingly ate cat on a skewer rolled in Bisquick, and once had a lion steak…and yes, it never moved. However, there is one thing you will never see me eat…I will always stay away from the monkey…

an ode to a kidney stone

 you are edgy

and O so pale

like a communion wafer

gone cold and stale…

I have nightmares about a Grecian Urn…somewhere in the deep recesses of dreamland, tucked away for a fit-filled night, lies a canister of dark cinematic Hell from the epitome of bad poetry. Not even  “Ode To A Ball of String Cheese” can top the throes of despair one encounters from this rancid tale of imaginary dancing nymphs. To put it bluntly, I would rather snort sweet tart dust than endure such drivel. “Ode to A Grecian Urn” ranks right up there with “Afternoon Delight” and Leonard Nimoy’s voice on “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins,” crushingly painful. And like the stabbing pains of a kidney stone, such bad poetry deserves to be flushed to points unknown…

…but ere I feel your stabbing pain

I’ll be off to use the toilet again

and so I feel that this shall pass

like flatulence amidst a class…

they’ll hear me scream

they’ll hear me roar

but not before I hit the floor

and though it sting and though it burn

at least it’s not “A Grecian Urn.”

Ode to an expiring vacuum

she makes me wait before I can vac-

she seems to take too much time.

i’ll just go check the cheese and mac

while i think of another rhyme.

she coughs and gurguls and chortles

she cannot take much more

she is a fine piece of machinery

slowly dying on the kitchen floor.

i should have seen it coming

I should have seen the clues

my stream-lined silver vacuum

is singing like the blues.

i fear she will soon slumber

so i must go and get one new

a vacuum mate much cheaper

with more style and suction too…

oh poor old Kirby vacuum piece

your days are numbered now

like an old piece of rotting snow

before an oncoming plow…

Dichotomy in F Sharp

 Dichotomy In F Sharp

                           i

she stands alone staring out her window pane

while the trucks go west and the cars go east,

a blurry dance after the needle’s left.

she scratches the places she lies about

-like just another flea bite on her arm-

tonight it will take me, tonight it will be 

she prays in her mind, she prays in her mind.

 

he will wait for me after the sentence is passed

she practices saying before the dull silver mirror

swaying, swimming, and grabbing table and chair

black ovals running reckless with careless remorse-

her colors colliding with the sharp stinging stick,

she lays on the carpet, letting loose of all care.

                                      

                                   ii

he lays in the covers enclosed like a womb

passion with position, placement and pillow

steeping in memory after bedtime routine.

he flips in the dark with a careless delight

the dreams of the ocean wide with sea foam

as sailing alone to where waters collide

the figures all passing, the figures all gone.

 

he practices the faces, the lines, and the songs

the nights and the days, the storms and the calm

the mountains, the valleys, the sheep by the sea

the motions, the dances, the dialogue, the tea.

he stretches to take them, and cuddle them near

but wakes with a start to find they’re not there.

but silence is fleeting, and the Faithful One is kind

so he closes his eyes again…with God on his mind.