Pollick Stories

The five older ladies have poured their tea again, And look to each other for recognition. This has been quite a summer, yes it has, And Charles and William and my boy W...

and when all that remains of our dimestore dances are scuffs on aching linoleum, I shall consider you carefully, and know that we were gods once.

Pol Pot's deflowered now who used to ride a water- smooth buffalo and kill onetwothreefourfive million traitors Justlikethat -- Jeezus, he...

A collection of humor essays about growing up in the small Midwestern city of Stow, Ohio

Looking north up South Water street, the dying stand solid as parking meters, finding finer spirits underground than the ones they were promised.

I sit beside the Cuyahoga creek and wonder how he done it- Pursued by motivated Native Americans across the burning Midwestern grass, until he found himself caught betwe...

#1 Darkness, and what stays Falls too close to the heart-Poor enough for beggars.

The Allegheny is an ancient river by most standards- You'll find plenty of evidence that shells once ruled the Earth; It was on this river that my Dad used his firs...

I could never understand her need to wash His feet; I did not come from Magdalene's world, That nervous sticky world of anonymous diddling, Which mixes its shekels with...

This is how easily two stiff souls can learn to bend, And pivot around the mulberry times Like dancers, defining their time and space.

all pardons on us, most heavenly father, for we have had your wives for breakfast. revolution should be a poor man's fist, covered in shit and fleeting promises; we d...

Just clang on the lamp if you need anything, mom. I'll just be lying here, thinking about how small morphine is, And how large life is going to get in six months to a ye...

I see in her mottled skin such visions of dishwater pain, The desperately overturned second-hand furniture, stripped bare of our lunch money.

Theodicy is a philosophy which examines God's apparent silence during times of human need. I wrote this piece as if God had returned to Earth and no one even noticed. T...

The fish could hardly be expected to remember us- Two sleep-dusted Ohio boys, working a pole with Brother Blake, methodically plinking the glass of Heritage Lake.

These are the warning signs of a visceral God at work: The repressed hands become tender and forgiving once again, The calloused eyes begin to see the wonder of a thous...

Most Stowbilly children, especially teenagers, knew that the really good stuff didn't show up on TV until at least 11:30 on a Friday night. That's when Channel 8 in Clev...