As Greg Stillson awoke one morning from frightful dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a Trump supporter.

The usual hangover headache of drowsiness and fog, his pre-coffee brain was gone, replaced now with a crystalline certainty about the world. Where previously much had been shrouded in mystery and doubt, now, he felt only a morose calmness. He knew the grand conspiracy of deep state design. He knew vaccines were evil instruments of the Devil. He knew global climate change was a hoax. And most importantly, he knew Donald Trump was sent by God to lead his chosen…

Everything is a clock
but not all clocks
are so easy to read.

My body is a clock,
being both the most accurate
and the least discernible.

It moves forward,
ponderous and plodding,
while also receding backward

a shrinking shadow
or an ice cube
left in the sun.

Yes, I'm going somewhere
even as I vanish,
I am the clock

that counts the future
and the past
and all dimensional states

like a simultaneous
system of variations,
an infinite deck of cards

shuffled by the stars.
I am a clock
as is every individual

mechanism of this being, my heart…

I've never been to Coney Island,
I've never been to L.A.,
but I know these places all the same,
their ephemeral visages and skylines,
their storybook stories of love, of injustice,
of adventure like a ferris wheel
careening down a city street to the sea,
all its lights flickering and shooting sparks.

I've seen the wind act like a whiffle bat
smacking its ball, the sun,
back and forth across the sky,
with the moon dodging this play
by erasing itself slowly as a quarter
taking thirty days to disappear
when flipped from a magician's hand.

Sure, I've wanted to…

~after Jack Kerouac

Roads and rivers and wild ribbons of smoke trailing speeding locomotives carrying travelers ever which way like blood cells waving neck ties long as telephone wires traversing this crazy hill scape blurred by the passage of inescapable time. The birds cry out, their throats entire jazz bands filling impossible crescendos with white noise and black noise, the music of life, the drum beat of a billion stars pulsating through the vacuum of the night, saying witness me, love me, miss me when I’m gone behind the veil of another surreptitious summer, warm sunshine and perfume, where all…

Looking at the new release section of books at my local Walmart the other day, I took the time to count the number of books by James Patterson on the shelf. There were ten. Ten newly released novels by one author. I thought to myself, wow, that’s insane. How can one person possibly put out so many new novels? A closer look reveals the answer. He can’t. There’s always a second or even third writer credited in smaller print. What’s going on here?

A quick trip to James Patterson’s website reveals an astounding fact. So far there are EIGHTEEN books…

I wanted to love the new adaptation of The Stand. Since it is based upon one of my favorite novels, I had high hopes. The original mini-series from the 90s is still watchable, but it barely holds up to the cinematic quality of today’s entertainment standard, and Mick Garris just never seemed capable of elevating himself above B-Movie pulp. This new version definitely had a lot going for it: a top notch cast, bigger budget, CGI effects, and a director with some major film experience in Josh Boone behind it.

But, with the airing of its penultimate episode, one thing…

Reciting a poem for the Super Bowl is bound to be a stressful challenge for any poet. It’s hard to imagine the magnitude of such pressure. The Super Bowl is one of, if not the most prestigious televised events of the year, every year, its ad space among the most coveted for its massive audience appeal. No poet has ever been asked to read before a Super Bowl before. So, this moment should have been a massive success for an art form such as poetry, which isn’t exactly known for its universality.

Amanda Gorman is undoubtedly talented. Her poem at…