Your Tales of the Suburbs

by Liam Rector

Originally published on January 1, 2001

     ‘Your Tales of the Suburbs’ – by Liam Rector for David Fenza Shopping as a blood sport. Your father’s middle-aged, dog-like, Dionysian friend in the suburbs Who underwent heart attack and realized None of the rich, high-living, caloric bounties of nature, Food nor drink nor tobacco, Could ever be his again, And so waded [...]

Under The Spell of Shoe

by Liam Rector

Originally published on January 1, 2001

     ‘Under the Spell of Shoe’ – by Liam Rector I’ve made a point, over the years, perhaps even a moral point, Of never having sex with any of the wives of my best men friends. The closest I came Was once when I was living alone, house-sitting a Jamesian House in Chevy Chase, and [...]

The Old Man and The Motorcycle

by Liam Rector

Originally published on January 1, 2001

The old man had cancer And the old man’s wife was dead And the old man’s kids didn’t like him So the old man sold most everything And the old man bought a motorcycle And the old man got back To the backroads, to the roads he’d enjoyed So much as a young man, And [...]

I Get a Feeling

by Liam Rector

Originally published on January 1, 2001

     ‘I Get a Feeling’ – by Liam Rector I get a feeling of discomfort, pressure In my rear end, and I know then It’s time to take a crap. This has been Happening every day now For fifty years, fifty years In which the waste of life Has been steadily moving, Mounting. I keep [...]

When Down by Long Boy’s Lane

by Liam Rector

Originally published on July 1, 1998

A visionary bowler, gone down by Long Boy’s Lane, a casually bitter stroller, a roller with the strain, went dancing dark through night-town (suggesting day was done), fell flat onto the sidewalk hardly lost but barely won. The night was to the bowler as pig is to the ham – the inside/out of bowler, the [...]

The Boy in Baseball

by Liam Rector

Originally published on July 1, 1998

While you were considering the two hundred families with all                         the power and yakking about enemies of France, I suddenly turned to the window now covered with frost and began to make a sketch of the new possibilities. The sketch inadvertently reveals the boy in baseball, he who drinks at a somewhat [...]

The Remarkable Objectivity of Your Old Friends

by Liam Rector

Originally published on July 1, 1998

We did right by your death and went out, Right away, to a public place to drink, To be with each other, to face it. We called other friends – the ones Your mother hadn’t called – and told them What you had decided, and some said What you did was right; it was the [...]