Pollick Stories

The fish could hardly be expected to remember us- Two sleep-dusted Ohio boys, working a pole with Brother Blake, methodically plinking the glass of Heritage Lake.

Most Stowbilly children, especially teenagers, knew that the really good stuff didn't show up on TV until at least 11:30 on a Friday night. That's when Channel 8 in Cleveland handed over the reins to a weatherman and a broadcast engineer, AKA Hoolihan and Big Chuck. Hoolihan and Big Chuck's show was an amalgamation of schlocky horror movies, song parodies, Certain Ethnic jokes and sketch comedy clearly filmed on the cheap with someone else's equipment. It was pure camp, but we watched every last minute of it, all the way to the last segment where Hoolihan and Big Chuck, dressed in tacky animal print pajamas, would read jokes submitted by their loyal viewers.

Looking north up South Water street, the dying stand solid as parking meters, finding finer spirits underground than the ones they were promised.

Your tattooed stigmata is showing, my dear- that spot of willful blood lies dormant; while greedy hosts of Angels draw illicit lots, and seek redemption in performance.

Let us skip, you and I, through certain half-smelted streets; where time and conscience dissolve like watches, and glass shadows catch the first sun's rays fully on their mistaken faces.

Theodicy is a philosophy which examines God's apparent silence during times of human need. I wrote this piece as if God had returned to Earth and no one even noticed. The first time he said anything, I was slightly amused and wrote it all down on a gum wrapper. (Wrapper's gone now.)

Pilate is doomed to clean his rifle forever- The walls will not forget these nights. If you decided to brave the waters of sanctioned terror, be sure to wear your Christ; should you decided to share your scraps of hard-won Gospel, sharpen your sword against the bars.

Now it is a vineyard, like so many others;/But when you taste its wine, you drink the blood of your brothers.' From Red Hill, a French folk song. I let someone else do the driving for a little while- I watched the lines blur behind us, each racing after the next, towards some vanishing point just beyond the Stuckey's sign; I am abandoning Red Hill again.

Do not whisper near them, sweet children, for war is loud. Men who served with General Anzio Find time for the occasional Bingo And find that corn on the cob can be quite the challenge.

This is how easily two stiff souls can learn to bend, And pivot around the mulberry times Like dancers, defining their time and space.

Spring and breeze and such were oh so powerful then- I fiddled and I fiddled and I fiddled while Rome was still smoking; I danced and I whittled and I climbed and I giggled, and drank the finest of barrelled rainwater.

The Allegheny is an ancient river by most standards- You'll find plenty of evidence that shells once ruled the Earth; It was on this river that my Dad used his first Pearl Killer.

#1 Darkness, and what stays Falls too close to the heart-Poor enough for beggars.

We should all sweat long enough to meet the man who beat the law of averages. This man is not the sum of his words, but the total of his actions. The books grow colder, the papers scatter, the disciples pray elsewhere; but the teacher (oh! the teacher) is still with us.

These humor essays were destined for the labels of gourmet coffee cans, but never quite made it. I'm publishing my favorites at Wattpad for others to read and enjoy.

On the one hand, we have this couple-so young, so connected, so grounded. The balloon they released together into the Memphis air held two cards in tow as it found its way between their hands and the balloon maker's place.

and with each passing day he shoulders the weight, as if he were the only strongman left in his own heart's circus-

we tried to stay away from anything plum, which looks so garish in the cold fog of authority, as the neighbors report nothing new between those two.

Pol Pot's deflowered now who used to ride a water- smooth buffalo and kill onetwothreefourfive million traitors Justlikethat -- Jeezus, he was an awful liar, and what I'd like to know is how do you like your despot now, mister Death?