On This Table
“So, on this table we see that given the air pressure and oxygen content we currently have inside the cylinder, we should be able to breathe comfortably.”“What about temperature?”“Seven degrees. A bit...
View ArticleBe With People Who've Submerged
On the screen I saw naked bodies swimming down a street. The masks that covered their mouths, noses and eyes were the latest kind, invisible to the naked eye. I only knew they were there when they...
View ArticleExultation Is The Going of an Inland Soul to Sea
The waters along the Oregon Coast are seldom warm enough for comfortable swimming - at least by my standards. After a few childhood experiments, I gave up all pretense of going to the beach to swim....
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Contact Light 2020
Contact lIght Contact light, for the year 2020 [Annus Horribilis], the annual newsletter from John M. Burt, sent to all friends and relatives of John and Kathe, originating from 1012 NW Fillmore...
View ArticleMore Than Just A Name
I am more than just a name on a list.I am more than just a picture you can pretend you saw on an Internet search for stock images of “bearded old man”.More, even, than an image that appears on your...
View ArticleI Could Sleep In This Educated Earth
I used to have a great horror of the thought of death, of the end of my existence and the loss of my individual awareness. I yearned for some guarantee of immortality, spiritual or technological, which...
View ArticleAnd This Is What You Can Do
“. . .and this is what you can do.”“Brighten up the corner you’re in.”“Work with what they give you.”“Take what you can get.”“This war is bullshit, but it’s the only war we’ve got.”“Those are the...
View ArticleRain Does Not Dampen The Land
Rain Does Not Dampen The Land“It doesn’t?”“No. Land drinks it right up. Sometimes it gets a little more than it can hold at the moment, but the land deals with it one way or another. None of it goes...
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Did George Floyd Die of a Drug Overdose?
The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Imgur.com rejected this, did they...?"
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R.I.P.,* Rush Limbaugh
*Recede Into Pretermittence.The Magic Eight-Ball says, "From your keyboard to God's inbox".
View ArticleAs The August Earth Needs Rain
She had a dignity about her that I lacked. It was that gravitas, I think, that I found most attractive. Kissing her was not like kissing any woman I’d ever been with before. It was like receiving a...
View ArticleWhat You Can’t Know
I turned the cardboard sleeve over in my hands, looking at the photograph on the front, the text on the back. I propped it up beside the television screen which my son thought of as “small”, though it...
View ArticleParticles of My DNA
Particles of my DNA can be found everywhere in this house. I have shed hairs and skin flakes and sweat and saliva in every room. I have left blood in this house while repairing its pipes and its...
View ArticleSomewhere Not Here
It had taken me eight days to pencil the border lines for the inscription, outline the letters in pencil, and begin chipping the letters into the concrete. I’d never done any kind of stonecarving, and...
View ArticleSelf-Reflection
I turned away from the keyboard to consider my options. In taking my wife’s half-finished manuscript, I wanted to carry out one final collaboration with her, to infuse her words with my own. I wanted...
View ArticleSome Words Are Messengers
“Did you hear about the new probe that’s just been launched toward Mercury?” I asked Ms. Messenger as I massaged the back of her thigh.“No, I haven’t. I do usually follow news about space exploration,...
View ArticleAs The Legend Tells It
It can be frustrating- the way messy reality can turn into elegant legend so quickly. There is always the temptation to tweak events to fit into a narrative. Humans are story-telling creatures, and we...
View ArticleDon't Show Your Breasts
It’s a nuisance, I know. You’d feel empowered and free, in the moment. You’d enjoy sharing that connection with another person that comes from sending a picture. And of course, you’re so certain that...
View ArticleToward a New Unknown
I walked into the Rexall and passed by shelves of products for conditions I had never had, or hoped never to have, or – I blushed – never could have – to the section of magazines. Here I had a similar...
View ArticleBless This Land, From The Top Of Its Head To The Bottom Of Its Feet
I got up, early in the morning, before the rest of my family. I couldn’t tell time by the clock yet, but I could tell by the light that it was just after Sunrise, earlier than I usually got up. I put...
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