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The artists couldn’t have been more different. One used a palette knife to sculpt landscapes of heaven. He caught the flickering glint of stars and swirling clouds of gas and light with oily pigments. He imprisoned the light and wonder of Orion, caught his bow in mid-aim. His kin captured the magnificence of the heavens…
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“The lightning webbed and arced across the black sky. Thunder of a thousand sonic booms shook the whole house. It did it again and again and again. “I got it on my camera, look. It’s phenomenal. I bet it goes viral. “What do you think?” asked Sadie. “Look, here it comes again. James Weldon Johnson’s…
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I begged for a guitar for Christmas. I got down on my knees in supplication to Mom one Saturday morn when the snow was knee deep outside, I remember. That’s all she heard that year. I did every chore she gave me with glee, on the outside at least, three quarters my best instead of…
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“I love the way the full moon glistens on the snow when it’s deep and crisp and even like this, not a mark on it,” the good king said. It was St. Stephen’s Day, Boxing Day, the patron saint of stonemasons and bricklayers, the first martyr, stoned to death for blasphemy. He was also the…
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“Gilly and the Peashooters” was first published in Appalachian Fusion, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Contemporary Appalachian Writing, Vol 27
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I don’t have to practice transcendental meditation to create masterworks, maybe I do.
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Relaxation Prison
One could call my home a relaxation prison. I don’t go anywhere or do anything of consequence to anyone but me. I plant and water flowers and watch them flourish along forest paths. I write in solitude. I prepare and eat my meals in solitude. I do everything alone. My warden, Norris, demands his cream.… Read more
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In the Midnight Hour
In the midnight hour, when no one else is around or listening, the story I tell myself is that I didn’t fall off the turnip train yesterday. That the voice of Linda Ronstadt still rings true in my heart and head. I’m still the woman I was forty years ago even though I have silver… Read more
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Long ago
I’m still not used to the Fourth of July without the indignity of the sumptuous feasts my mother concocted on her birthday. They had everything but bursting fireworks against the black sky. They weren’t necessary for her celebrations. Everyone was too tired for them by dark anyway. The family would have had to replenish its… Read more
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Lasagne Night
“Do you remember when we had dinner in that old house in the woods on the farm?” Ruby asked as she took the pan of lasagne out of the oven. Alan smiled. “Yeah, you wore your prom dress and I wore my sport coat. Mom made lasagne for us. We took it to that little… Read more
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School’s Out for Summer
Image generated with AI Being home in my forest among my flowers allows me to be me. The old people said “tending violets cures melancholy.” There’s something about digging in dirt to plant my begonias and impatiens that does the same thing. It restores my soul from working all fall and winter. Every morning of… Read more
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The artists couldn’t have been more different. One used a palette knife to sculpt landscapes of heaven. He caught the flickering glint of stars and swirling clouds of gas and light with oily pigments. He imprisoned the light and wonder of Orion, caught his bow in mid-aim. His kin captured the magnificence of the heavens…
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“The lightning webbed and arced across the black sky. Thunder of a thousand sonic booms shook the whole house. It did it again and again and again. “I got it on my camera, look. It’s phenomenal. I bet it goes viral. “What do you think?” asked Sadie. “Look, here it comes again. James Weldon Johnson’s…
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I begged for a guitar for Christmas. I got down on my knees in supplication to Mom one Saturday morn when the snow was knee deep outside, I remember. That’s all she heard that year. I did every chore she gave me with glee, on the outside at least, three quarters my best instead of…
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“I love the way the full moon glistens on the snow when it’s deep and crisp and even like this, not a mark on it,” the good king said. It was St. Stephen’s Day, Boxing Day, the patron saint of stonemasons and bricklayers, the first martyr, stoned to death for blasphemy. He was also the…
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“Gilly and the Peashooters” was first published in Appalachian Fusion, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Contemporary Appalachian Writing, Vol 27
-
I don’t have to practice transcendental meditation to create masterworks, maybe I do.
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Wet Produce
Image generated with AI. Grocery shopping is a necessary evil. I don’t like shopping in the first place, and spending an exorbitant amount of money on sustenance seems like a sin. Life is so expensive, it doesn’t need to be so annoying to get the things I need and want. Ordering groceries online for pickup…
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Word Wednesday: Whalesong from “chord, note, Baltic, crowd, bronze, odor”
AI generated image. “I never thought I’d be standing on the deck of a cruise ship in the middle of the Baltic sea listening to whale songs, The notes and chords from their throats are stuff I only dreamed about,” Madeline watched the fog move over the waves. The famous clicks and moans of the…
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Hateful Liberation
Mom and Dad were the loves of each other’s lives. They found each other during summers when Mom went to Clay county to visit her grandparents. Their love for each other never changed. Even after they divorced thirty-two years later after dad met and had an affair with CH, the most despicable woman I’d ever…
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The Trap
A groundhog attacked the lily in the flower bed in the front of the house. For three years the lily had grown to the size of a bushel basket and was covered in buds. The varmint didn’t eat the leaves. Oh no. It waited until the buds were ripe and ready to burst into the…
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Tincher’s Store
AI generated image. Tincher’s Store and Post Office was the train station once. It stood not a hundred feet from the railroad tracks, and its wide wooden porch doubled as a bus stop in the pouring rain. We had no idea how long ago it stopped being a train station, it was half a mile…
Devonne Brown 