drmstream[writing]

At that time, my dad had bought an old truck.  He said to my mother, “Prissy, we are going to load all these kids in the truck and we’re gonna drive to Pine Bluff.  There’s a spir­i­tual man com­ing to church who believes in prayer.  I’m gonna fast and pray that we’re going to go […]

  I know a man who was once the youngest river boat cap­tain on the Mis­sis­sippi.  He’s old now and has moved from the uncar­ing whimsy of the great river to the end­less expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.  On a high shelf in his small bed­room he keeps a neat row of hard-backed note­books.  These […]

They were pulled in by the forces of Jupiter, a potent wind of ambi­tion and oblig­a­tion, less noble than immor­tal, God-like and unwit­ting. They brought the dif­fer­ences of dis­tant uni­verses: the cool dis­may of icy beauty, the clutch­ing grasp of fer­tile loins. They were bound by the rude com­mon­al­ity of oth­ers’ blood: the stains left […]

It is time to leave now. When it started, it was time to go.  Pick up and go from your home.  Take a bag.  Go live in this ‘camp’ behind barbed wire fences and men with guns. You have nar­row eyes.  Your lips are thin.  Your skin is dif­fer­ent.  You have to go away. Because you might kill […]

- Get your gun. — I’m watch­ing… –Get your gun to show the boy. –Hit that record thing for me. –I said,  Go get your gun. –You work that thing then. –I got it, Grams.  I’ll make sure you don’t miss any of your show. — All right then. — She’ll be back before any­thing hap­pens.  Ain’t noth­ing hap­pens on that show […]

My father was always the last guy to buy a Christ­mas tree.  He explained that the prices were cheap­est the day before Christ­mas.  He didn’t dwell on how bad the selec­tion was. So we’d be dri­ving along the coun­try roads a day or two before Christ­mas, look­ing for a tree stand that was still open and […]

Louis stood at the head of the alley. Tents stretched as far he could see. Their flaps hung limp. It was hot. On the train down, two women had fainted and on the wagon ride over to the tent city his bowler had gath­ered a pock­et­ful of dust. They had fol­lowed a high ridge that […]

 I posted a short piece the other day that shared some­thing of what it was like to grow up deaf.  The piece was impres­sion­is­tic and inten­tion­ally obscure, with the hope that the reader would find in its spare uncer­tainty and vivid imagery some­thing of the expe­ri­ence of hav­ing a sense impaired. The piece had […]

The pho­tog­ra­pher is hid­den behind the lens. We see our­self through him, pass through his iden­tity in pur­suit of our van­ity with hardly a thought. What does the pho­tog­ra­pher think? A few weeks ago I posted a sketch inspired by a iconic photo of the civil rights move­ment taken by an iconic pho­tog­ra­pher, Ernest With­ers. I […]

On the Banksville Road, there’s an old build­ing where I go to stock up on the assorted bot­tled waters, soft drinks and juices that we all favor. There’s not much of any­thing in that part of town: the hard­ware store shut down last year, leav­ing the bev­er­age store, the liquor store attached to it, the […]