Posts by John Blase

As you age there’s a chance they’ll say He’s gone to the dogs (ruined) or He’s gone to the birds (worthless). Both sound rather ageist to me but what do I know at my age. In my case its literal for while dogs may be in my future for the present I’m flush with birds—bluebirds…

Sources say that paper is the traditional gift for the first anniversary of your wedding, a symbol both fragile and enduring, just like the early years. I’ve searched but can’t find anything that indicates what gift should mark the first anniversary of your father’s death, this day a year ago when all the light bled…

She said We can’t see you until March 17th. I said Okay (sensing resistance to be futile), I’ll just look through the bottoms until then (meaning the bottoms of my bifocaled lens). I said The only hitch is that it gives people the impression I’m looking down on them. She said Aw, most people are…

I’m not sure I was scared of the dark as a boy or if my aging mind tells me I should have been because who isn’t. I do know I was terrified of falling into a snake pit like Mattie did in True Grit (I’m thinking of the original, buoyed by Glen’s smooth tenor, and…

An eight-year-old girl discovered the lost scroll last month in a ravine behind her stucco house. Her spiritual but not religious parents took it to the tattooed priest in town who took it to the city seminary so expert theologians could dissect it. Everything about the scroll itself rings authentic. But the story revealed inside?…

I overheard a woman at the gym the other day saying something critical about her tummy (her word not mine) and I thought My God, woman, stop that! You’re in here outpacing me on most movements, plus from what this eavesdropping poet has heard you’ve carried three or four boys inside you then pushed them…

LORD, it’s hard to think. The ten thousand things have multiplied to ten million and our wayward heads are tossed about like a ship on the ocean for sure. Putin (unfortunate last name IMO) is up to no good. The miner took his heart of gold home, then Joni grabbed her case of you—who’s next,…

I rolled the trash bin to the curb, proud of myself for managing the quotidian tasks. Then I remembered trash day’s Wednesday, so I rolled it hangdog back to the house. Oh well, better luck tomorrow I guess. I rolled my mother’s trash bin to the curb yesterday at the conclusion of my visit. Her…

I missed most of my nephews’ young lives by living too damn far away. But I’m back now. I’d like to believe I’m in that bend of the arc of returning—ah, Campbell’s Cosmic Dancer. I’m aware that rings heroic while the truth may be it was simply time to come home. One thing I’ve noticed…

The young man who installed our internet said the next county over is the meth capital   of the state. He half-laughed and said It’s sad, but there’s really nothing else for people to do.   I found that opinion bleak for his age so I said Well they could read the collected stories of…