Author: John P. O'Grady

“It was really great, after the smoke cleared. Let’s bring it back!”

They sit for hot dogs as well as cheese, Election Day on the summit of Wittenberg Mountain, then it was on to Cornell and Slide (highest in the Catskills), followed by a long stroll...

Made the quarterly trek to the car dealership. Had the oil changed and snow tires put on. “Oh, and your link assembly is broken along the back axle, in two places. It won’t pass...

Right about now we’re standing somewhere out in the sticks in front of an unlikely monument looking at its polished jet surface, bit of a reflection coming off, maybe just a glint of late...

Postcard from the parlors of Rip Van Winkle Real Estate, found lying on the floor of Pandora’s Tavern. The back of the card reads: “Spectacular Panoramic View of Catskill Mountains! Build Your Dream Crematorium...

Load up the car with this week’s garbage and head out. Stop at the post office, collect junk mail, toss it on the passenger seat, head for the dump, a busy place, unload it...

“Not a pretty picture!” the stranger shouted, observing–from the far side of the parking lot–what the photographer was up to, which, to be just, was not much, much like everything else.

One more day, turning the pages, watching leaves fall, losing count, the years.

Scrawled on the bathroom wall down at Pandora’s Tavern: Nature Poem Rooms full of poets all giving themselves permission to colonize blankness of paper reclaimed— whole forests saved!—and none without a prize they all...

Stopped by Pandora’s Tavern on the way home from the dump this afternoon. New sign over the bar reads: “It’s Always Mourning Somewhere!” Ordered a cup of instant Maxwell House from the bartender. “Sweetened...