bloomsday

Last week I saw a bald eagle perched atop a dead tree less than a mile from my house. It stopped traffic. A bald eagle in Cleveland is, of course, unusual. My first inclination was that it was a hopeful sign for the rebirth of our rivers and streams here in the poverty capital. Then I remembered that a dozen local Marines had been slaughtered...
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Annette Remembered

Many years ago, when my love for Molly was blossoming, I wrote her a story. This literary effort coincided with a trip I was planning to meet her in Prague. She was a student, touring through Europe; I was a poverty lawyer living with my recently widowed mom.
The story went like this: an organ grinder's monkey, trained to secretly enter homes, businesses,...
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Hello My Dear:

We're building a home. True, we're moving into an old house, but we're building a home. Strange that you saw it so, on your first observation. I hereby give you all credit for seeing the potential of our home. We didn't want their crummy hottub anyway. We may not be aristocracy, but we're decent liberal lawyers who don't want to raise our...
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The Innocent Man


In my jurisdiction, those charged with felonious crimes are often arrested by municipal officers. They must, in turn, produce arrestees to a municipal court. This court has no jurisdiction over felonies, but is charged with determining if crimes committed within the city arise to the level of felony, thus requiring a "bindover" to the county common pleas court charged with handling felonies....
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A Prayer from the Left[ist] Behind

Fuck the hypocrite mourners of saints, the Opus Deized and confused.
Fuck the ghoulish puppeteers, the corpse-chewers, the grinning exterminators.
Fuck the Promisebreaking circle-jerkers, squinting toward Bethlehem.
Fuck the drapers of titties, of pudenda, and of Guernican faces of war.
Fuck the mastur-minds of payback time in their oval orifices.

Pray the poor, the persecuted/prosecuted, the forgotten be mended....
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A POOR MAN'S LOVE POEM

You once accused me of stealing from us.
Peter robbing Paul to pay Peter and Paul? I ask.
Your thrust is unjust. Ive been fishing.

Simon said
He found a coin in a miracle fishs mouth worth
Twice the temple tax.
Ill wait for Dawn and, the Dawn, it shall come, when
The rod and the reel, upon rows of...
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STRAWBERRY LETTER 20

Hello My Love:

Just because you get shit on doesn't mean you'll have a bad day. Today, running at the frozen beach, I came upon a sea of gulls standing on the snow. I regarded them pleasantly. But, then, I felt a gentle slap on my cheek. I actually heard a wet "slap" noise in my left ear. I reached up and...
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Hello my love:

We dug out of Christmas. I must tell you my favorite moment of the season was you, behind the wheel, lurching the car in reverse as I pushed, rhythmically, into you. "Follow my rhythm," I yelled. We gazed across the frozen hood at each other, rocking, rocking, until we were free. I was screaming and grunting and pushing. The neighbors thought we...
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EASTERN TO MOUNTAIN
THIRD PARTY CALL
THE LINES ARE DOWN
THE WISE MAN BUILDS HIS WORDS UPON THE ROCKS BUT I'M NOT BOUND TO FOLLOW SUIT.

I found a newborn kitten, alone and screaming, near my garbage cans. I've been feeding it some emergency kitten milk with a Visine bottle. I have plenty of Visine bottles lying around. I have bathed it several times, blown...
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Bloomsday has come and gone.

I began at Martello Tower, or an impressive facsimile on the shore of Lake Erie. I observed the Davis-Bessie nuclear power plant from the confines of a nearby bird sanctuary. There is a cross-road there, at the sanctuary, where four corners of the map stretch as far as the eye can see. Long, narrow paths of mounded grass that allow...
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Strawberry letter number 14

Hello my Dear:

I remind you that the purpose of this exercise is to let you KNOW MY MIND as we approach our wedding day. I think if you look back (have you been saving them?) youll see that this experiment has been successful.

I have two pressing points to discuss: Religion and Ambition. I have been thinking about both a...
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Strawberry letter number 12

IM NOT IN LOVE: The story of a wedding 4:20 p.m., May 10, 2004:

Saint Simon

The Syrian Orthodox Church is getting new stairs. Masons are mortaring cinder blocks with stone facades. A few blocks away, across the highway to the south, I focus my digital camera on a striking bent tree.

Martin Sheen, Steve McQueen and Jimmy Dean, Stipe sings....
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