Paul Mariani

What shall I say, Lord, now that the wordskeep stumbling, tumbling like loose marblesacross the table then down onto the floor,bouncing and scattering this way and that? What shall I say as one after oneeach sound, each syllable, each sibilantcalls out before fading away? Two sisterslost now to . . . . Continue Reading »

Before I formed you in the womb, my son,I knew you. Knew you long before that highspring day in the sixth year of the reignof FDR, when the full-leaved sycamores that frame the tired river that runs Eastsmiled on your mother—just sixteen—andyour father, twenty-one, when they cametogether . . . . Continue Reading »

You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not certainty. —Flannery O’Connor And did you really think there would ever come a timewhen things would go as you’d dreamed they . . . . Continue Reading »

Sixteen and a half with a brand new driver’slicense in my wallet, driving my father’s’47 two-toned old clunky Pontiac, I turnedleft off Hempstead Turnpike when a car swimsshark-like in front of me and I’m twistingthe steering wheel left right when somehowthe wheel takes over, spinning this . . . . Continue Reading »

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A Saturday night, late February. Eileen and mein the back of the cramped car, Julie driving,Bruce riding shotgun. We’re heading downto Amherst for an evening of Borscht Belt vaudeville,Fifty Shades of Oy Vey at the local Jewish temple,and Julie’s taking all the back roads, so that, thoughI’ve . . . . Continue Reading »

Mid-September, dear woman, and the monarchlights once more upon the purple panopliedbutterfly bush in the now-decaying garden,as it has for these past thirty Septembers. And once again, like the softest breeze, I feelyour gentle presence and lift my open handtoward it, toward you, hoping for a sign, . . . . Continue Reading »

And then, in an instant, it’s gone: the world of East Fifty-First.Gone the round-the-clock clack of the Third Avenue El,the clutch-grinding rattle of Fords and the clop clopof those gray dun dray horses down on the cobblestone street.Gone now the demon-like sparkles and screams of the Elthat mixed . . . . Continue Reading »

A paralyzing gelid vortex of a January morning. He lay under the covers as the beckoning New Year’s sun began to manifest itself through the curtains of his bedroom window, but unlike the busy old sun unwilling to rise up and begin the day. His better half, it must be said, was already dressed . . . . Continue Reading »

With my father’s Army ballpeen hammer I’d found down in the cellar, I kept banging on the swordblade, trying to turn it back into a plowshare like the ones the prophets sang of. Plowshares? Hell, what did I know of plowshares? Once more trouble was stewing” you could taste . . . . Continue Reading »