But this IS my day job.

“Make sho’ you tell it right boy!” The ancient, tiny, coal-black man in the ratty woolen overcoat had a loud clear voice that made me jump when he appeared over my shoulder to give me this less-than-fatherly advice. I hadn’t even seen him get up, and when he shouted in my ear (he apparently thought I was just as hard of hearing as he was, despite the half hour or so of conversation we had already had) I raised up off of the wooden chair. “I’ll write the whole thing, just the way you tell it t...

He ponders order silvered bright in rain, Gun-metal curtains cutting muddy streams. He hears each drop, yet one more soul to drain Down vast entrails of slick and sleepless dreams. He knew he'd seen and felt his master's sight The white and black he came to know so well When things that used to be so eas'ly right The children's cries still call his name from hell. The cigarette he lit with steady hands, He sees the smoke from stacks that scorched the sky That carried keys to solve the blood's...