Category: Stories
If Not for the Comfort of Strangers
A swelling wall of ominous black clouds loomed ahead of me as I pulled off the highway and headed down the exit ramp. The forecast was for snow and bitter cold for the next several days and it was obvious the weather forecasters were getting it right. Several cars were lined up at the red light at the end of the ramp and their exhaust was making perfect parallel plumes of white against the angry grey sky—it was the dead calm before the storm. I could see a street person holding a cardboard sign and walking from car to car up the ramp.
His presence was nothing unusual; I had been seeing him at this ramp for the past couple of weeks.
Continuing down the ramp, and coming to a stop behind the 10th car, I had the usual conversation in my head about whether I would make eye-contact or not; and how, no matter what, I would not give him anything—as usual. I did not have a good reason for why I handled the “problem” this way, it just seemed easier to make a decision one way or the other than to come up with something that made sense in the bigger picture. For me the bigger picture was just way too scary to contemplate.
Mother Nature is a Hottie!
In Summer, Mother Nature can be as hot as a brothel’s attic.
In Winter, as cold as the end of Jack in The Shining.
When she is out and about in the violent cold of winter.
When the hoarfrost nips our noses and toeses.
We are seduced by her crystal earring’s shining.
And warmed all over again.
Like hot chocolate.
Amongst the shattered roses.
By Charles Buell
The Hoarder
Life is not merely puzzling.
It is beyond puzzling.
It is certainly more than a puzzle.
One can only wish it was just a puzzle.
Life is more like a scroll,
yet more than a scroll.
Like an endless scroll,
with the “now” of our lives,
laid out flat between the rolls.
The scrolls of our lives,
are entangled with—
—-complicated by—
—and supported from,
the scrolls of others in our lives
Trapped,
sometimes in the rolls,
we wither,
cryptic pieces spilling out on the other side,
waiting to be sorted.
Our past, rolls-up behind us,
whether the pieces fit or not.
Life scrolls,
as a river flows,
when the pieces fit a lot.
The rolled up pieces of our past,
like cast away carpet,
are needed less than we fear.
So give away the pieces that you can,
making room for more.
Any piece that we withhold,
and keep as if our own,
might be the one,
for which someone longs.
We can never know,
how pieces given away,
can be useful to the puzzle,
of someone else.
Can you imagine if,
for want of just one piece,
a person didn’t win,
the Nobel Prize for puzzles?
Or for Medicine?
Seems like such a heavy price.
What if you take that one piece—
—with you when you go?
Will you have enough time—
—to give them all away?
By Charles Buell
The Red Boat
There is a Red Boat that sees the White Mountain.
There is a White Mountain that sees the Red Boat.
There is a Small Child with a Lunch Box that sees the Red Boat that sees the White Mountain.
There is a White Mountain that sees the Red Boat that sees the Small Child with the Lunch Box.
There is a Blue Sky that sees the White Mountain that sees the Red Boat that sees the Small Child with the Lunch Box.
There is a Small Child with a Lunch Box that sees them all—-and the things in between—-even the things in the Lunch Box.
By Charles Buell
A Poem for Molly and Rohan and Michael