Published in P.S. I Love You

·Jun 30, 2021

A Lament for Rayshard:

On His 29th Birthday — Rayshard Brooks was drunk but he wasn’t hurting anyone. Just fallen asleep in the Wendy’s drive-through blocking folk picking up their Baconators and frosties But no one seemed to mind too much. (This, was not a tragedy) and folk just edged their cars around him and let him sleep. When…

Rayshard Brooks

2 min read

Rayshard Brooks

2 min read

Published in Genius in a Bottle

·May 20, 2021

“BRO!”

A new translation of Beowulf — As of 2020, there are already 688 translations of this Old English epic. Why another? Franz Kafka once said that “If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skulls, then why do we read it? Good God, we also would be…

Beowulf

2 min read

Beowulf

2 min read

Published in Genius in a Bottle

·Apr 1, 2021

You Gonna Have To Serve Somebody

And “Spaz” shows me how: —

Dogs

1 min read

Dogs

1 min read

You Gonna Have To Serve Somebody

And “Spaz” shows me how:

Feb 26, 2021

Grace

A Violation of Nature — The famous 20th-century theologian, Karl Barth, once described the Christian life as a “standing in the air.” In other words, a violation of gravity. …

Grace

5 min read

Grace

5 min read

Published in Genius in a Bottle

·Feb 12, 2021

Giving Is Wrinkled

- After Alberto Rios — We give because we are broken We give because we are mending We give because our lip is bruised We give because she smiled Giving is wrinkled It has no teeth It mocks the meat it feeds on then eats the bread of contrition It grows when cut- not like a…

Giving

1 min read

Giving

1 min read

Giving Is Wrinkled

- After Alberto Rios

We give because we are broken
We give because we are mending
We give because our lip is bruised
We give because she smiled

Giving is wrinkled
It has no teeth

It mocks the meat it feeds on
then eats the bread of contrition

It grows when cut-
not like a…

Published in Genius in a Bottle

·Jan 26, 2021

A Dying Mother’s Bucket List

Six vignettes — 1. Playing the piano again She was 90 when I took this picture of her ancient finger pointing to the word “There” — as if to show me where she was going I had beckoned her to sit at the out-of-tune piano to show her a song she had loved …

Bucket List Ideas

3 min read

Bucket List Ideas

3 min read

Published in Genius in a Bottle

·Jan 24, 2021

2021: The United Serpent of Ouroboros:

An open letter to some fellow white evangelical Christians — Recently we seem to be living in alternative realities — you and I — like being on the inside of an atom in which particles appear to be in two places at the same time, alternative facts present themselves, two presidents have been elected, and a democratic God has anointed…

Trump

5 min read