BY JEDIDIAH PASCHALL
I first read these words in the basement level of a Chicago bookstore close to twenty years ago and I knew Lisel Mueller was a woman to be trusted: In Passing How swiftly the strained honey of afternoon light flows into darkness and the closed bud shrugs off its special mystery in order to […]
Read MoreI am not a learned man, as I sit in this empty room I admit the diplomas on my wall are certificates of debt – nothing more; perhaps if my learning did not come through an untamed curiosity and fits of wild distraction I could speak higher of my higher education. My library is […]
Read MoreIt’s hard to live somewhere in between the gutter and the stars to sing rhapsodic songs in the tangled wreckage of yesterday’s swirling storms Harder still to believe silence isn’t a threat but a holy invocation into an unspoken litany an invitation that melts memory of the mire and night’s indigo shine into a […]
Read MoreDon’t worry child, the flickers aren’t the horror film projection of your nightmares, or the fiery arrows of an intemperate god. The rumbles aren’t the drumbeat of giants warring in the sky, or boulders crashing down the mountain. The sheets of water that beat the window beside your bed aren’t a wind-blown flood, or a […]
Read MoreWhen I think of progress, I see men bounding on the moon In a ballet of awkward beauty, And I hear the laughter of children Bouncing on the playground During a recess potato-sack race, Moved forward by an unassuming bliss. Which makes me wonder what it was like To live in a country that […]
Read MoreSay not thou, what is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this. Ecclesiastes* 7:10 I went mining for memories in music made old by decades and dust, Only to find yesterday’s songs stuck in yesterday. There was the ballad that […]
Read MoreFor many of us, I suppose there are a handful works of literature that captivate us so utterly that our lives are forever marked by them. My first poetic love was Lord Alfred Tennyson who was the first to teach me even as a high school student to hope that no soul would be forever […]
Read MoreI am reading through Fleming Rutledge’s fantastic new book Advent: The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ in which she makes frequent reference to WH Auden’s Christmas masterpiece in long-form poetry, For the Time Being. Both works note the focus of Advent is not simply as a prelude to Christmas, or the recollection of […]
Read More“…there is in all the things of earth a hidden glory waiting to be revealed, more radiant than a million suns…” – David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea When you peer into the night and look upon those ancient lights that have spanned the void for untold ages to pour into your […]
Read MoreWhen at last I’ve crossed that blessed bar And my bones are long buried in the dust, I trust that they will become The sturdy roots of some ancient oak; That gives his branches to the birds. This is the way of things in this becoming world; Between being and nonbeing, Between the first […]
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ST. JUDE'S TAVERN 