drmstream[writing]

She’s get­ting car­ried off to the evil witch, cap­tured by her demon mon­keys who were sent out to col­lect the inno­cent intruder.  Look at the Tin Wood­man doff­ing his cap, Dorothy sit­ting at the edge of her seat like a lit­tle girl at the movies, and the winged mon­keys wide-eyed and intent. Where’s the fear? There’s […]

Last week a man was killed in a car crash in Uganda. He was a pas­tor. He was also one of the most mean-spirited and vicious peo­ple I have ever encoun­tered in my life. He made me ques­tion what Evil was. His death has prompted an out­pour­ing of sor­row from peo­ple touched by his min­istry and […]

When nature wreaks destruc­tion, ele­ment con­fronts ele­ment. In the after­math, the residue lingers and hard­ens. Burnt wood defies decay. Ash wafts in the air. The insis­tence of fresh growth encum­bers the raw skele­tons with igno­rant radi­ance. When man wreaks destruc­tion, fear begets fear. His heart seeks out a hard shell, his hands crave indus­try, his mind […]

The woods ran up to the edge of the pond and every Spring the snow melt would reveal old trees that had crashed to the ground in the Win­ter freeze. We would pick our way around the sod­den husks, pull rot­ten rot­ten branches loose and talk about which trunks would dry out firm and hard […]

  There are images that stay fresh and imme­di­ate years after they first occur to you. These are the images that tell you how you see the world. Metaphoric leit­mo­tifs. They are words but they are so real that we don’t rec­og­nize them as words. Our wiring fires and takes us out of the time Now. […]

  After spend­ing a year at a casual lit­tle place called The Red Feather School, I was sent off to pub­lic shool for sec­ond grade. It didn’t take long for the grown-ups at the school to take note of the kid who was always a cou­ple of beats off, looked con­fused and offered answers that were […]

This pic­ture was taken at dusk in early May in my bed­room. I was 17 and fin­ish­ing up my final year of high school. My class­mate Eduardo was respon­si­ble for tak­ing the year­book pho­tographs; I was one of the hold-outs on his list. I was shy and dis­ori­ented. I still have the pho­to­graph that Eduardo […]

I take Adderal. I didn’t used to.  I’m writ­ing an essay about it — the work­ing title is Under­stand­ing My Stu­pid. The thing about writ­ing an essay is that you have to tease out the sense in things that are loosely con­nected in your head.  Some­times the essay peters out because the things that you […]

  I What use are feel­ings, but to bind you to some­thing that doesn’t exist and can never be recov­ered? II Open the hollow-core door under the stairs.  The oil heater is pushed against the bot­tom of the steps.  Indus­trial green.  Soot stained where the main­te­nance man shifted his weight to push the igniter back […]

  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 […]