Stephen Atherton’s haunting tale of slow-rolling sorrow continues An excerpt from this serial was featured in the Late Winter 2020 Monadnock Underground print quarterly. We say some things to each other, Daddy and I. The kinds of things fathers and sons say to each other at times like this. When Daddy starts to get sleepy,…Read More
Articles from October 2019
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An Englishman Alone on a Pacific Island
On the beach with no memory or help, a man dreams of home and swims for the light On the day before, an Englishman in India began his journey back to London. Today he woke up on a sandy beach, clothes wet and pocked with small holes and rips, and no company to be found…Read More
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The Walking Lyndsey
The awkward circle of life goes round in the cemetery I swear the only exercise she takes is on her solitary walks in the local cemetery by my house, a thin, pale spectre amongst gravestones and flora. Otherwise she’s lounging by the pool behind their house, movie-star shades under full sun yet seemingly no tan.…Read More
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The Mountain and the Church
This poem was featured in the Late Winter 2020 Monadnock Underground print quarterly. At the foot of a mountain stands a church.In the morning, the church’s shadow obscures the low-lying trees.As the sun passes above, the mountain’s claims dominion. Are we to believe that a house of gods would be so small?Or perhaps they live…Read More
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She Runs With Daydreams
She runs with daydreams to places she’s never seenwhen a mundane moment decides to linger.Her world, not feet away, fades into a growing distance,a chasm separates what is from what should be.Those ill-born feelings are pushed asunder.Blue pours down from the heavens above,and a cavalry of green charges from beyond rolling hills.She wraps herself in…Read More
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Season of Mist
A triumphant ode to autumn from a New England expatriate in the South I miss Autumns. There is magic to autumns — real ones, not like what we get here in Florida. I’m talking real Falls, that slow, winding cadence that takes from the hot summer to the brutal cold of winter, a series of…Read More
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…The More Things Stay the Same – Part II
Stephen Atherton’s gripping serial drama continues with a white-knuckle second installment An excerpt from this serial was featured in the Late Winter 2020 Monadnock Underground print quarterly. The hum and sigh of the life-support machinery fills the room; so does the equipment responsible for it. The noise is punctuated with metronomic regularity by the beeping…Read More
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October Outlook: Bite Like Lightning
We’ve got spring in the fall, darkness before the dawn, a hint of justice, and the promise of gentleness to come If I were a gambling man, I would wager a fair amount that right now, regardless of who you are, you’re either losing your shit or you’re watching everyone around you lose theirs. Just…Read More
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Scrolling Meditation
How I overcame social media addiction beyond mere avoidance This essay was featured in the Late Winter 2020 Monadnock Underground print quarterly. For ten years I was a successful university and public school physics teacher. I was recognized with three teaching awards for excellence in urban education, granted a department chair, and served as a…Read More
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…The More Things Stay the Same – Part III
Stephen Atherton’s dramatic tale continues. An excerpt from this serial was featured in the Late Winter 2020 Monadnock Underground print quarterly. Daddy takes his medicine. He sips his water after every third or fourth pill.