Posts by John Blase

The one-eyed poet saw the world awash in small gods—everything from stink bugs and hollyhocks to forest creeks and girls in green bathing suits. Lord what a vision. To consider loons as small gods would be a stretch for most two-eyed people. And to float the idea that we consider, even refer to, one another…

Seconds before they lowered my father’s casket into the ground, the boyish-handed man from the crackerjack funeral home team directed me to place my boutonniere on the lid. I did. But he didn’t see me strip my metaphorical watch and place it there too. I doubt anyone did. I’m learning now to live on fatherless…

Three times yesterday I found tears in my eyes. I don’t follow the “real men don’t cry” Jesus like some blowhards, so I cried slightly and wondered aloud Well, okay, now what’s this about?   I’m leaving in a few minutes for CrossFit class, working out with people half my age. Half my age—that makes…

God. Rhymes with sod, mod, bod, rod. Rod the bod—that guy in school who never exercised a day in his life yet had six-pack abs and ropey forearms that rivaled Popeye’s. God also rhymes with odd, which is probably the best of the rhymes because it seems to fit. God the odd—that deity in the…

More than once, on the day of my father’s death, did I think How did we get here? Doctors and nurses had told us things were “improving,” “he’s still not out of the woods” (a very non-medical phrase repeated I don’t know how many times over the course of those weeks) but “improving.” At one…

C’mon. Don’t do it again, Lord. Please. This whole passiony affair, this week-long dioramatic train wreck labeled holy (but is it?). We’re shell-shocked right now, knee-deep in death and loss and so much sad. Adding yours to the evening news, even though we know the Paul Harvey…please, can we just skip it?   I know,…

I waited for the argot of the grieving. Most of the initial talk carried on in tones of condolence—sincere attempts to ease the sting after the thief’s slap. Yet most of it kicks against the pricks.   But last night my widowed mother stood in the shadow of her father-stolen son, the two of us…