Jefferson Carter: Life Partner
For convenience, I & my life partner
(the woman formerly known as my wife)
have numbered our arguments.
Most Popular Vox Populi Posts for 2021
At the end of each year, I enjoy compiling a list of the Vox Vopuli posts which attracted the most viewers. This year, for the first time, I’m also noting the single most popular post in each category since VP was founded in April, 2014. If you see an author or title that looks interesting, I hope you’ll visit (or re-visit) the post. Thank you for being part of our community! — Michael Simms, editor
Vimeo: Viktor on the Moon
Viktor Leth, who has never been on a date, accidentally sits down at the wrong table with the slightly older and married Rebekka. This is the start of a weird and wild night for the two of them in which Viktor learns more about life and love than most people do in a lifetime
Michael Simms: What it wasn’t
It wasn’t bigger than a breadbox.
It wasn’t smooth as glass.
It didn’t smell good or bad
Or have any taste whatsoever.
Michael Simms: Mac
One of my first mentors was Mac McInerny, an old farmer who hired me when I was 16 to work in his greenhouse and to do handyman repairs for his friends. We drove around town in his beat-up pickup truck delivering gravel and lumber, fixing roofs and planting trees.
Tom Engelhardt: Welcome to the Martians!
Our World Is Increasingly Like a Science-Fiction Novel.
Katy Giebenhain: Falling Asleep in a 300-Year-Old Industrial Cottage in Derbyshire Surrounded by Star Wars Action Figures
the enemy with a thousand faces
the mentor with a thousand faces
the waitress with a thousand faces
Al Ortolani: The Taco Boat
Last night, I bought a 12-pack of tacos
at Taco Bell, not because I was
especially hungry, but because I could.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Flying
When I grow up, I want to be a fish,
a big blue fish if I ever grow up.
Jose Padua: A Routine Evaluation of My Accomplishments at a Late Stage in the Middle Part of My Career
These years of love
have sustained me far beyond anything
I ever could have imagined; a dusting to
an inch of snow overnight on cold asphalt
resulting in a two hour delay is all part
of the good life.
Jose Padua: A Short History of Monsters and Everything Else that Gives Substance to the Dream
in deference to the perverse dreaming
of the dwindling numbers of the upwardly mobile as
they trash and burn their merry way to their new luxury
condominiums decorated in beautiful pastel colors.
Michael Simms: Meconium
it is sacred, the way
soil clinging to the seed
of a new shoot
pushing out of the earth
is sacred
Jose Padua: On These Passing Hours of Butterflies and Dangerous Living
In my darker hours I like to imagine a knitting club
where no one is allowed to smile.
Jefferson Carter: Cat & Transient
I swore I’d stop writing about liberal guilt
& about cats too, but I must confess
last night, I groomed our little black cat
with my tongue
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