Ninepatch OnLine Magazine

The most astounding things about working in this cafeteria is knowing you eat dinner here every Tuesday, bringing your tray of dishes to me by six-thirty. Your burgundy hair makes an entrance I feel dangerous watching you pass, wanting you to raise your head from the plate you set before me. Among your traces of […]

Cynthia and I sat in the Dublin Diner At the end of a school day when Too early November frost Had accumulated on the window pane. It was about 5:30 p.m. when back In town cheerleaders were practicing For the upcoming football game. Cynthia knew something was wrong But didn’t ask, preferring to Talk to […]

Satan employs monsters And blasphemes every rule in the game, Striving to maim brothers and sisters Is his lame-duck claim to fame. Vessels of bitterness, greed and glory Are opened by alcohol and drugs. Attempting to embellish God’s Great Story By smearing toxic sludge. Only by prayer and His Spirit within Can one survive in […]

It may be a stretch, But striving for the light Is always right. Simon Stargazer III expands on the thought, “Often in a crisis, and even in everyday circumstances, we look above for answers. Sometimes, we look within, searching the dark corners of the brain for an answer. Stretching the mind opens up the inner […]

Cynthia was never around to see what I was Doing, but Grammy, it seemed, was there all the time. She would meet me in the hallway, sure she had smelled something. “Gayle, have you been smoking?” “No, Grammy,” I would say, or “Gayle, have you been playing in the dirt?” “No, Grammy.” Not far from […]

Giver and taker both – impossible to be Like saying you’re a he, but really a she. Sweet and salt water can’t flow from the same well. Like saying you’re asleep while ringing a bell, Taking and receiving are two different things, Receiving’s acknowledging what another one brings. Taking is claiming what really ain’t yours, […]

When you do something for someone, You make a bond… no matter how small.  All big things start out small. Simon Stargazer III (June ‘17) adds to his thought, “I have also found that the other side of this concept is equally as important. At times it is (Next.) important to let someone do something […]

We lie on the gentle debris one finds in a gallery of artists: brushes, books, creatures of iron. Our orbit is now in slippers and afghans. We orphans of our own choosing, speak from within ourselves, new languages; throw out symbols, words like bricks, gestures of flesh, a ceramic dish, a splash, a paragraph. The […]

  Time spent with  A purring cat  Is life at  Its best, Rivaling The adoring Licks of a puppy. Simon Stargazer III (May ‘17) adds, “Our dog Buddy, a 10- year-old Corgi/Jack Russell Terrier spends much of his time during the day on our bed, and during the evening before going to bed in his […]

“Do you have to make a river?” These were the words Cynthia said at every restaurant that we went to, at least three times, once when we went into the restaurant, twice during the meal, and once again, afterward. I always Insisted that I did not have to make a river but I did have […]